Leave Her Alone

Reflection Passion Week 2016

We begin Passion Week in the Gospel of St. John.

John begins his gospel with the preexistence of Jesus and leads us through The Wedding Feast at Cana and the Passover; symbolizing the importance and transformation of the existing law to the new creation. 

In the Gospel, we are meeting with, Jesus, at a gathering for dinner in a little village named, Bethany, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, the place he raised Lazarus from the dead.  Martha is there with Lazarus and the rest of the followers of Christ. 

The dinner is a celebration of the feast of Passover.  Remember that the gospel of John begins with Jesus’ preexistence and is reflective of the 7^th day and at the wedding feast of Cana, too.  This is the final countdown of the death of the One that loved us to death.

So, here we are at dinner and Mary comes in with very expensive oil derived from the root of the nard plant found in the mountains of India that cost about a years wages.

Judas would have known the cost, and was so far removed from, Jesus, that all he could think of was the profit in this world.

There is no lesson for Judas, no remarks about love, no parable to teach him.  Jesus understands that at this moment Judas can’t understand, he isn’t in touch with Jesus’ message.  There is a simple “Leave her alone. ”  What a sad moment.

There was something unusual here, and that is the anointing of the feet of the living.  Mary is prophetically performing an act of burial on Jesus and He knows why.

Putting ourselves in the events of this week gives us a personal invitation to share in the final moments that the upcoming week will reveal.

Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday book-end Holy Saturday, and that is where we can find the stillness to really contemplate what has happened and what is about to happen.

No lesson to learn, Jesus, is dead and His followers sit with a daunting question “Is it True?”  “Was He the Christ, the promised One or was this all for nothing?”

Is it True?  Is He the Christ that rose from the dead and opened the gates of heaven, destroying death?

“O Death where is your victory, Where, O Death is your sting?” 

If you believe in the Christ, live your life in Love and service of others without grumbling.