The Fifth Sunday of Lent 2025
Texts: Phil. 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8
Read along on FB HERE
A few months after I came to St. Michael’s I was cleaning a shelf in the office, when I accidentally knocked over a tiny bottle of something that looked like honey. It was sticky, but strongly fragrant. There was a small piece of paper wrapped around it with a rubber band that disintegrated when I touched it. The paper had these words written on it, “Jatamansi oil, spikenard…extracted from the root of the Jatamansi, found only in the Himalayas; this is from Nepal.” What was spilt was probably about an eighth of a teaspoon, leaving about 2 tablespoons, or 2 liquid ounces.
At the time I did not appreciate how precious this is.
How did this oil arrive in the Jerusalem area in the first century? Jerusalem is over 3,000 miles from most of the Himalayas, and at about a 21,000 feet difference in elevation.
How rare a thing it would have been for Mary to have a pound of it in Bethany. Bethany was not an affluent village.
Mary was the sister of Martha and Lazarus, from Bethany. Jesus had previously raised Lazarus from being dead. Mary was the one who sat at the feet of Jesus, listening to him teach about the kingdom of God, while Martha served them food.
What was Mary doing? She took a pound of pure nard, 8 times more than this, and she anointed Jesus’ feet—not his head. She then wiped them with her hair —not a towel. Judas Iscariot objected to it, saying it was a waste of something so valuable. It would have taken about 117 pounds of spikenard root to make a pound of nard. A pound of nard would have been worth about a year’s wages for a laborer. Can you imagine what that would cost you today?
In ancient times nard was considered to be one of the most precious things. It was used for anointing. Kings were anointed with such oils. It was the most desirable of all the oils used because fragrance was very pleasant and it would last for days. Mary’s act was one of ultimate devotion, love, and gratitude. By anointing him with such a valuable oil, Mary recognized Jesus as the Messiah, the one sent by God to redeem her people.
When Mary wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair, some of the nard would have clung to her hair. She was identifying herself with him. He was her Lord and Savior. Even today when we are baptized we are also anointed with special oil. We are marked as Christ’s own forever.
Could Mary have also known that she was preparing Jesus for his burial? In that time, bodies were washed and anointed with aloe and myrrh and oils. They were then wrapped with linen.
We are coming to the end of the season of Lent. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, followed by our sacred observance of what God has done for us in Jesus’ Passion, Crucifixion, Death, and Resurrection. God sent his only Son into the world to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Paul had a lot to lose by following Jesus. He threw away his inheritance as an educated Jew, a man of esteem in society, his status as a Roman citizen. He wrote, “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection…”
What’s the most valuable thing you have? And, what’s the most precious thing you have? Are they one and the same?
Because Paul understood the eternal value of what Jesus had done for him, Paul gave Jesus his whole life. Perhaps the most valuable thing any of us has is our life, and yet, even when we don’t have anything else, when we lose everything we possess, we still have our life. I think too often in our world today, we do not value life enough, our own and that of others. It is the most precious thing we have to give.
At the end of the great movie, Saving Private Ryan, Captain Miller is losing his life. He had already lost the lives of some of his men to save private Ryan, and now he was dying too, all for the mission of saving a family’s last son. His last words to private Ryan were, ‘Earn this, earn it.” And Private Ryan would go on to live the life of a good man as a son and father. The beginning of the movie shows Private Ryan now as an old man. He has come to tell Captain Miller at his grave in France that he hopes he has done the best he could to have earned the life Miller saved.
But the life we now have, and the future we will have, was not earned by us. It was earned for us, so let’s not squander it being materialistic, selfish, or ungrateful.
The first time I went to a Maundy Thursday service, as I listened to the words of some of the hymns, I finally realized the value of what Jesus has done for me, and what he endured to give it.
From the hymn “O sacred head, sore wounded” we sang, “What language shall I borrow to thank thee dearest friend, for this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end? Oh, make me thing forever! And should I fainting be, Lord, let me never, never, outlive my love for thee.”
Jesus did much more than anoint us with costly, precious oil. What he has done for us is more than a one-time offering of love or gratitude. It cost him his life to save our souls. He has anointed us with his own blood, because you are precious to God. Amen.
