Fabulous Feast

Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they made Him a supper there, and Martha was serving; but Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with Him. Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. (John 12:1-3)

I have been meditating on this story this morning and wondering why John reported it so benignly as it reads here. Given the scandalous, insulting way both Jesus and Mary were treated in what actually took place when seen from the perspective of the other gospels, why did John choose to present such a brief and almost idealistic version of this event?

As I meditated on it and listened for insights from the Spirit, it began to soak in that this is yet another revelation of how Jesus sees all of us and relates to us. John's version of this story is not a case of ignorance or apathy or seeking to manipulate facts to further a selfish agenda, but the reality is that God is fundamentally committed to drawing us to Him in every way possible with the greatest patience, kindness and tact. What purpose is served by exposing the faults of the guilty parties involved here? It is true that the feast was held in Simon's house and not in the home of Lazarus as in the story I wrote last time. I find this a little curious to start with and wonder what some of the background politics were involved in that decision. I suspect there was plenty of social maneuvering and influence manipulation going on behind the scenes and that the Lazarus' family may not have been completely satisfied with the outcome. Yet John quite likely aware of all this still chooses to portray this feast almost as if it were conducted with the purest motives, free of the tensions and gaffes more fully reported by the other writers.

If John's account were the only one we had we might easily be led to think that Mary had no stigma attached to her reputation. Aside from the rude comment of Judas which John notes, it might look like Mary's anointing of Jesus was just part of the scheduled proceedings that were designed to honor Jesus in every way possible. I had never noticed this before today and I find it curious that John so carefully masks out most of the intrigue and shame and censure that actually occurred.

I seriously wonder if John didn't portray this feast using this perspective to hint to the reader what could have taken place in the previous story if different choices had been made there. But beyond that I wonder what other lessons might be extracted from this idyllic picture involving each member of the family of Lazarus. This is such a positive story that stands in stark contrast to our penchant for wanting to know as much as possible about all the intrigue and the lurid details in stories that we hear. Our society is so addicted to airing the dirty laundry of others, we have such a strong appetite for drama and exposing the failings of others that we tend to view this version of the story as almost incomplete.

But I don't think it was an oversight on the part of John when he wrote this story the way that he did. John may be wanting to set the record straight about Mary after so many years of slights about her reputation. John may have been wanting to portray Mary from the perspective of heaven rather than to keep referring to her past life of prostitution as if that were the label that she would never be able to shake off.

From the other accounts of this story it appears that Jesus too, wanted to correct our thinking about Mary, for He seemed to indicate that Mary's grasp of the gospel and her relationship to Him was closer to what He has in mind for all of us than what most Christians tend to assume constitutes holiness. Religious people tend to think of religion in terms of outward behavior, of measuring the life by a list of do's and don'ts and looking at each other through critical eyes. But Jesus always seemed more intent on drawing out the heart and noting the condition of people's spirit.

What I find here is a story about a person who has such an overwhelming passion for Jesus that they are willing to expose themselves to any risk in order to pour out their love and affection on Him. Mary's passion for Jesus is reflective in some respects for her natural tendency toward passion in all of her life. In the past her passion had been abused and had become distorted. She had been terribly damaged and deeply wounded both by other's treatment of her and through her own choices to seek satisfaction and survival through immoral choices. But I sense that Mary was a person who could hardly hold herself back from living from her heart even after it had been abused and damaged repeatedly. And in that respect I admire her greatly.

What I have observed over the years is that the idea of living from the heart seems to produce the greatest resistance in people. There is such enormous pressure, particularly in religion, to keep up appearances, to conform to social or legalistic expectations and living from the heart is not viewed very favorably. But God designed us to live passionately from our hearts and to do anything else is to be less than truly human. To live from our head without having our hearts fully engaged is to live a damaged and severely handicapped existence from heaven's perspective. Jesus received the greatest resistance from those who had perfected the art of living by rules while suppressing and hardening their hearts.

Mary, on the other hand, was one of the rare examples of a person who was willing to live out on the edge. All of her life she had felt compelled to live a raw, exciting life full of passion that cannot be hidden. This kind of living full of passion for love and life is so electrifying and compelling to others who are unwilling themselves to live in the same way that such a one is often is viewed as a threat. How many times have we been warned against hanging around people who have this kind of charisma and who are almost irresistible? Yet this very magnetic attraction may be a God-given trait that is largely missing from most of our lives.

As I have noted before, I sense that Martha was much more of a person who was a thinker more than a person full of passion like her sister. Yes, Martha was certainly a performer and spent much of her life trying to do the right thing. But her sister had a very different personality that likely often got her into trouble. Her passion for life and even the look on her face and the sparkle in her eye must have constantly conveyed messages of a passion for living that few people show. This presents a real problem when that passion is taken advantage of by others and exploited for selfish, debased desires.

Yet with all the problems that Mary experienced throughout her life, Jesus saw her as one of the best examples of what He desires all of us to experience in our lives. Jesus designed us to live in joy and passion more than many of us are willing to admit. We tend to gravitate toward a far more conservative position and like to portray God as one who is more intent on squeezing us into a mold of proper performance and submission to rules rather than experiencing a passionate love affair with other hearts. Even to speak in such ways tends to scandalize many people trapped in typical religious thinking.

But in this story I see John trying to make the record more balanced and accurate. John may be suggesting here that we all have different personalities that are acceptable to God and that complement each other. Martha was not a person to pour out her affections publicly on Jesus like Mary, yet in her own way she was showing her love to Him in ways that fit her individuality. Likewise Lazarus was not sitting at Jesus' feet weeping over Him and splashing perfume all over the place but was sitting with Him in a seat of honor. Yet that does not imply in the least that his own heart was not just as connected in love to the heart of Jesus as was Mary's.

In this version of the story John seems to want us to see this feast more from the perspective of heaven and to see each of these siblings on an equal basis by not mentioning Mary's former reputation like the other accounts bring out. Only Judas is mentioned in a negative light here, and that too is part of John's seeking to set the record straight and to help us perceive that heaven views things very different than how we see them.

In contrast to Mary, Judas had been very highly esteemed in the minds of all the other disciples the whole time they had known him. We struggle to wrap our minds around this idea because we are so accustomed to thinking of Judas as the bad guy in the story. Yet in contemporary public perception up until the very last moments of his life, Judas was considered one most likely to succeed. He was talented, suave and had great people skills. He had natural and acquired capabilities that ensured he would be successful in life and he had good political connections he could use for his advantage. All of these things elicited the admiration of the other disciples who looked up to him.

Interestingly Jesus was likely the only one who really knew the condition of the heart of Judas most of that time, and yet Jesus never sought to expose the hypocrisy and failings of Judas or to publicly humiliate him. This is one of the clearest examples of how God relates to sinners in consistent kindness rather than resorting to shame and condemnation like so many of us tend to do. These words to Judas were actually the very first time in all their association together that Jesus had ever rebuked Judas, but even then it only served to trigger Judas to become resentful and angry rather than appreciate the kindness Jesus had shown him for so long. If anything reinforces the kindness and graciousness of God it is the history of how Jesus related to Judas and even allowed him a place of high trust even while he was completely unworthy of that trust.

In his account of this story, John is really reversing the common assumptions about both Mary and Judas from what people thought they were like. Publicly Mary could not escape the tenacious grip of her past reputation as people always thought of her based on her previous identity as a slut, an immoral woman of the streets. Yet in contrast Judas had carefully cultivated his own manicured reputation to make it appear that he was nearly flawless while often drawing attention to the failings of those around him. But at the heart level Jesus saw things just the opposite from what others saw, and here John is helping us see that heaven's view is usually very different than how we are used to perceiving things.

I find myself longing to know more of the passion of Mary for Jesus. Yet at the same time I am aware that to exhibit such passion publicly carries with it enormous liabilities. At this point in my life I still live under the bondage of fear of what others think of me rather than living in the freedom that God desires for me to enjoy in His presence. I pray that God will set me free of these galling, wounding chains that keep me imprisoned and that soon, very soon, my heart will have enough courage to live honestly, transparently and passionately like Mary lived.

As Martin Luther exclaimed during his most trying hour, “So help me God!”