Lent 5 [John 12:1-8] (17 March, 2013)

This sermon was preached at St. John's Lutheran Church, Karoonda at 9 am.  

 In high school our lockers were in two separate parts: the main part and a little shelf above, and if you wanted to save time, you could prop the door of the top shelf open. But it also led to the favorite locker prank: perfume bombs. “Congratulations. Now your locker will smell very strongly of cheap perfume for the next two months.” Something is filling the whole house here when these words from John 12 are read.

Mary honored Jesus in what she did, with an expensive aromatic oil (the kind used for all sorts of reasons, also used to prepare a body for burial). But this is easily confusing for us today. One, usually a person's head is anointed, and the feet are washed with water. Two, usually when you are anointed, the liquid isn't wiped off, hair or not. And three, if you use a whole bottle of expensive oil like this, it fills the whole room (sweetly). What's going on?

Mary herself doesn't know what's going on, not exactly. But it seems like she has some small clue that this is her last time to do something like this. It just seems like the time is short. And it was, as the previous verses talk about the plot to kill Jesus, and a few verses after these are the Palm Sunday account, the start of Jesus' Passion.

So the explanation for her actions is twofold: It was an act of thanksgiving and faith; and so her act of love and devotion was both big and humble. She didn't anoint his head but his feet. She used the whole bottle, but in devotion she may well have thought, “Oh, I used the whole thing”, and in deep humility wiped off the excess with her own hair. It's these little details that John uses, as an eye-witness, to point out that her humility was as big as her thankfulness.

Thankfulness for what? That's in verse 2 “Lazarus was one of those reclining with [Jesus] at table.” The same Lazarus that Jesus called out of his grave in chapter 11. For Mary there is no thanksgiving too big. Her brother was alive again, there at the table again, as if his death had never happened. That thanksgiving is a heavenly joy, if we think about it.

And really, she emptied the oil at the very place where her faith rested: where Jesus is. She showed who she believed in.

And that's the biggest honor. Not what she did, but whom she believed in. Mary doesn't really get it though, as no one does before the cross and resurrection, but what she does get is that no thank you is too big and that she won't have an opportunity like this again. So for us, we do Jesus honor by trusting that the great worth and honor is what he has done for us on the cross. What he did on the cross is of great value, especially when compared with our thanksgiving and praise. To trust in our works is actually to dishonor not only Jesus but also our works! Just like Mary's expensive oil is just a drop in the bucket when compared with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.

So Mary honored Jesus in that way, but Judas dishonored him in this way: “But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, ⁵ "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" ⁶ He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.”. He spoke something that was good, but his motives were wrong. He didn't want to give the money to the poor, he wanted to cheat and steal. As the 'treasurer' of the disciples, he helped himself to the money that was put in there. So the words he spoke, he spoke as a cheater and a thief. That's the seventh commandment. But since his words seemed right, and made him look good, that's the ninth commandment, which exposes the people who say the right and proper things in order to get their hands on someone else's property in the wrong way. That's the dishonoring.

That's the dishonoring because the biggest insult was his unbelief. John is definitely comparing Mary and Judas here. Judas' unbelief was hidden then, but not to Jesus, and not forever. His greed led him to betray the Lord, but that was the symptom, and unbelief in Jesus was the disease. That's the very first commandment. And we've broken all ten.

Transition: But, we're not just comparing Mary and Judas. Jesus has the last word here: “Leave her alone, she has kept it for the day of my preparation for burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” The house was filled with the fragrance, but that's not the only thing it was filled with.

The weight of sin and the sweetness of the Gospel hung powerfully in that room and wherever God's Word is. Lent is an urgent time, especially the fifth Sunday in Lent, the last one before Palm Sunday, and it is urgent because of the weight of sin and the need for forgiveness. That certainly hung in the room – for there is unbelieving Judas (sin is real), and raised Lazarus (death is real), and believing Mary. But that is because Jesus' death hung in the room, because the time was short; and Judas would be the one to betray him, and Mary anointed his body for burial.

But because Jesus' death hung in the air, by faith it is not unpleasant, but very very sweet! Jesus' death is sweet to Christians. This is so because he honors us, by gladly bearing our own death. Like the first verse of the hymn: “A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth, the guilt of sinners bearing and laden with the sins of earth, none else the burden sharing; goes patient on, grows weak and faint, to slaughter led without complaint, that spotless life to offer, he bears the stripes, the wounds, the lies, the mockery, and yet replies, “All this I gladly suffer.” “ This is sweet to us because it is our righteousness. The epistle reading today from Philippians speaks of this, that we are declared righteous with a righteousness that is not ours, doesn't come from us but to us: “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-- ” 'Nothing is so sweet to me than the cross of Christ for the forgiveness of all my sins. No other feet deserve such oil as the feet of my Savior.'

And Jesus' death hangs over the church, sweetly, because God's Word hangs over the Church. For as Jesus has the last word, that last word is a proclamation of his cross and death for you. It's even better than the raising of Lazarus, it's the opening wide of heaven's gates to you! It is a proclamation of his life, death, and resurrection for you. That is what Scripture says.

And God's Word hangs powerfully over the Church when we make the biblical distinction between what we believe in and what we do because we believe. They are related, as Mary believed in Jesus and so that's who she anointed. But to confuse who we believe in with what we do as a result of believing is to believe in our works and not Christ. Remember the order of our reading: first Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, then Mary anointed his feet.

Where God's Word hangs powerfully over the Church, there God grants pure hearts. The hymnwriter can put it this way in verse 2 of A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth; “This Lamb is Christ, the soul's great friend, the Lamb of God, our Savior, whom God the Father chose to send to gain for us his favor. “Go forth, my Son” the Father said, “And free my children from their dread of guilt and condemnation. The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, but by your passion they will share the fruit of your salvation.”

When Mary anointed Jesus we are called to repent and believe in the sweet fragrance of Christ's death!

[And when this all goes on, we believe this is by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Scriptures.]

Conclusion: So what hangs over the Church is sweet and enjoyable. And thanks be to God that it is nothing less than the Word of Christ's death, which grants pure hearts by faith and not by works, and does so by the forgiveness of sins. And so the Word draws us nearer and nearer to the biggest Sunday of the Church Year at Easter, which is made so sweet by the Friday called Good, and tasted on Maundy Thursday, and looked forward to on Palm Sunday. Here comes Holy Week. Amen.