John 12:1-8 – Lent 5C
Six days before Passover, Jesus is in Bethany with his close friends and disciples.
Mary and Martha, Lazarus and Judas. Hmm… one of these doesn’t seem to fit, does it? “Mary, Martha, Lazarus and Judas” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue like “Peter, James and John.” The text is slightly ambiguous, but it seems to indicate that all of the disciples are present. Even so, Judas is the only one named – something that further foreshadows that Jesus’ death is soon to come. Death is all over this text. Newly-undead Lazarus is seated at the table, and right after the parameters of the lectionary-appointed verses we learn that a crowd gathers to see for themselves he who once was dead but now eats and drinks. Mary anoints Jesus and his response is to note his upcoming burial. Death is the backstory and death is foreshadowed. Death hems us in before and behind, lurking even at a dinner party with close friends.
We know the seasons when one funeral has just ended and another one is upon us. We know the seasons when we start attending more memorial services than weddings. We know the seasons when newscasters report the same story of death and destruction day after day, the only difference being the names of the victims. Death hems us in before and behind, and even around the table with close friends we can’t escape it.
In her book, “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War,” Drew Gilpin Faust writes about the impact of being surrounded by death on a scale never before experienced. She writes, “More than 2 percent of the nation’s inhabitants were dead as a direct result of war. … Individuals found themselves in a new and different moral universe, one in which unimaginable destruction had become daily experience. Where did God belong in such a world? How could a benevolent deity countenance such cruelty and such suffering? Doubt threatened to overpower faith — faith in the Christian narrative of a compassionate divinity and a hope of life beyond the grave, faith in the intelligibility and purpose of life on Earth. Language seemed powerless to explain, humans unable to comprehend what their deaths — and thus their lives — could mean.” When death is behind and before and all the time, where is the meaning of the small dash of life in between? If Lazarus’ reprieve is just that, what difference do those extra days or years make?
This dinner party reveals profound answers to life’s deepest questions because even as death is the backstory and death is foreshadowed, so is resurrection. Lazarus is, of course, exhibit A. He’d been dead three days, after all. He stinketh, as the KJV puts it. Now he eats, drinks and dines. No wonder a crowd wanted to catch a glimpse of him. And, yes, he will die again and go down to the grave – not for a few days, but until he has returned to dust. Nonetheless, his presence is evidence of the death-defying power of our God who always has the final word. Resurrection looms, too, in Mary’s anointing Jesus as if for burial. This will be her only chance. In John’s Gospel, it is Nicodemus who brings the myrrh and aloe to Jesus’ body. Mary is prescient not to wait, as Jesus’ won’t be dead for long. Death hems us in before and behind, but resurrection breaks its barriers and ascends to the very right hand of God in heaven. Death is pervasive, but resurrection is invasive. God is death defying and always has the last word.
This party where Martha is yet again serving and Mary is yet again at Jesus’ feet and Lazarus is yet again alive and the disciples are yet again listening and the crowds are yet again eavesdropping and the Pharisees are yet again plotting reveals more about the meaning of life in the midst of death. It reveals what matters most in this in-between time. It reveals our various roles and our purpose as we struggle with meaning and priorities and values. It reveals we are to serve Jesus and we are to love Jesus and we are to listen to Jesus. Not a bad list to hold up daily as we ask ourselves life’s most challenging questions. It reveals, too, that we are to gather around the table with Jesus and with one another no matter what has past and what is yet to come.
In a culture that often wants to relegate death to “passing on” or “passing away” or “going home” or, less politely, “kicking the bucket,” this reading invites us to look death in the face and unabashedly love and serve those fresh from the grave and those soon to go to it. In good church fashion, make the casserole, bake the bread and take them to those who need to be sustained in the midst of grief. Don’t save the best for later, use it now on the ones who may not have a tomorrow. Forget about hoarding money in the purse, share it with the poor because they are Jesus, too. Serve willingly, love extravagantly because you have listened attentively and know that while death is everywhere, resurrection comes out of nowhere because our God is death defying and always has the final word and that word is Good News.
This week:
- Notice how all of the texts appointed for this fifth Sunday of Lent are forward looking. They invite us to look to the new thing God is doing and lean into it. What new thing is God doing in your life? Church? Community?
- Note the different role each person named in the John text has. What are their respective roles? When are we in each of those roles? What does each person contribute in this story?
- Take a look at the parallel texts of John 12:1-8. (See Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14:3-9. Also read Luke 7, starting at verse 36.) What are the similarities and differences? How do you interpret these?
- If you were to read John 12:1-8 as a text about stewardship, what would you take from it? How about reading it as a text about the sacraments? What might it reveal if read this way?
- Are there occasions in your faith community when people are anointed? What are those occasions and what do they mean? Is anointing a strange concept for those in your church or not?
- Hymn #201 in “Glory to God” is based on this John text as well as the parallel Gospel texts. Titled “A Prophet-Woman Broke a Jar,” this hymn lifts up the sometimes neglected witness of women. Use this hymn as a prayer this week and consider whose witness you are called to heed but may have missed.
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