Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’ When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

At first, the infant Church struggled to understand the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus. To interpret its meaning, they turned naturally to the only Scriptures they knew, what we call the Old Testament; and in the texts of the prophet Isaiah they found the mysterious figure of the suffering servant who is hard to identify in the prophetic oracles. It could be an individual, but it could also be ancient Israel as a whole.

However, Christianity quickly saw Jesus crucified and risen in the figure of the suffering servant; the four songs of the suffering servant, one of which we have here, became prime sources for interpreting the death and resurrection of Jesus. Every line of what we hear takes us to a deeper sense of the kind of messiah he was and is. He is the chosen one in whom God delights and upon whom he puts his spirit. He will not cry out in the street, break the bruised reed or quench the failing wick. Yet he will bring forth justice, and he will bring prisoners from darkness to light. But for this to happen, he will be broken on the Cross.

In the Gospel, we hear of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with pure nard, the fragrance of which fills the whole house we are told. But for the nard to be poured out and the fragrance to fill the house, the flask must be broken. So too the fragrance of Christ fills the entire creation and every corner of our heart, but only because he is broken open on the Cross. We who enter into the mystery of his Cross also become, as St Paul says, “the fragrance of Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:15).