Thank You Very Sweet

Last week my friend called me with this crazy story about a woman washing Jesus’ feet with expensive oil and her hair.

“Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table. ³ Mary therefore took a pound^[a] of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”  John 12:1 – 3

After my friend read the text to me she asked me what I thought, she was planning to preach from that text on the following Sunday.  I said I thought that it all must have been quite a scene: the men all sitting around after dinner and Mary getting this really expensive bottle of oil and washing Jesus’ feet with her hair in the middle of all of that.  In another passage describing the same story there were even her tears involved in this foot washing ritual.  This all must have been pretty unusual, such an uninhibited expression of love.

I then tried to figure out if I had any friends that I loved this much.  Enough to go and get my most expensive bottle of perfume and pour it all out on their feet and wash their feet with my hair while they were having dinner at my house.

My mom was the only person that came to mind.  I would do that for my mom. If I knew that my mom weren’t going to be with me much longer I would pour my most expensive oil on her feet and wash her feet with my hair and tears.  Just so that she’d know how much I loved her.

Mary loved Jesus and she knew that he would not be there for very much longer. I am inspired by the freeness in her expression, particularly today – in such a censored time.  The fragrance in the freedom of her love for Jesus filled the entire house then and it has the potential to inspire our imaginations today.  Maybe we don’t have to figure out any more about this story than that. Relationship Goals.

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On Friday my yin yoga teacher mentioned that we’re basically translucent. She was describing an autopsy video that she’d watched where the practitioner shined a light through layers of human skin, tissue, organs and bone and all were illuminated.  This made sense to me because all of these layers are porous, including bone, so of course light would shine through us.

This all made the idea that ‘our felt sense of separation is an illusion’ a lot more real for me.  Many smart people have said this, like Einstein. And what if this idea of denying the flesh really has to do with denying any notion that we are disconnected from each other and all of life?

We are ‘one body,’ no?

And what does this have to do with love? Well I think it’s the answer and the cure to the darkness.  We have to love all those separated little dark spots in the body where no light is shining through right now.  Knowing that it’s possible, that light can penetrate those areas  –  those dark spots in us and in others.  It requires radical acceptance and maturity.

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