Easter 2013: Aslan is on the move

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

It is the question of Easter morning. Why are these women coming to the tomb carrying their supplies of bodily embalming, their perfumes and their potions to preserve the dead, their unguents and spices, carefully prepared after the Sabbath had ended, during the night when all was dark and quiet as the tomb, ready to rise early in the morning to use the first light to do for the dead what they had been unable to do on Friday in the evening, since it was already late, and the sky was dark, and they were afraid and exhausted from watching from afar?

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

The truth is, that these women are not looking for the living but for the dead. They are seeking the corpse of Jesus to cover with their spices and their tears. They watched the men take his body from the cross, and seal it into the tomb. They know that they are in the right place.

The problem is, that they are looking for the wrong thing. They are looking for a dead body, not a living, breathing, risen Christ.

Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but he has risen.

The women expected to find Jesus where they had left him, but he was not there. He would not stay dead, and he would not stay put. They should have known; remember that time when they left him on the hillside and went fishing, and he came to them walking on the water? He never would stay where they left him.

Because we do not have a God who is content to sit still on a celestial throne surrounded by seraphs, but we have a God who is irrepressibly active in the world, who refuses to stay out of our business, who will not be left on a shelf to be taken down and dusted once or twice a year. As C.S. Lewis defined the problem in his Narnia novels, Aslan is not a tame lion.[1] God will not be confined by our expectations.

In the midst of a cruel empire – effective and efficient, yes; ordered and orderly, maybe, but cruel nevertheless – God was at God’s most active among the oppressed and the despised, the sinful and the suffering. He sat at table with friends and enemies alike; he regaled them with stories, he entertained them with wine, he blessed their children and played with them; he loved them. In the lives of the people, when they were sick, or possessed by demons of rage and despair, when they were hungry, even when they were dying, those are the times when Jesus reached out of the shadows and touched them with his divine love, his very human compassion. And so now, in their darkest hour, their deepest grief, when they are afraid that, literally, all is lost, why would the women expect him to remain in the realms of the dead when he is needed by the living?

He has been there, too. He has touched them, too, the ones already in their graves. From his tomb he unlocked the doors of theirs. But he did not stay in the land of the dead. Why would you look for the living among the dead?

When the women returned to tell their tale, the others didn’t believe them. They thought it an idle tale, as though this were any time for telling stories. But it was true. It was more true than any fable they could have fabricated. Jesus was risen. Jesus is alive.

The women, the disciples, even Peter didn’t see Jesus on this occasion. He would come to them soon, and there are other stories which tell of other encounters. But even in this telling, where Jesus is not, the signs of new life, new power, new glory are all around. The rock rolled back, breaking death’s hold on him. The shrouds shrugged off. The angels left to point the way, “He is risen.” The breaking of a new dawn.

No one saw the moment of Resurrection; the Resurrection on which the faith of the apostles was grounded and grew was the Resurrection which continued in their lives, as they saw Jesus risen and among them, as they saw his work continuing, God’s mercy abounding, God’s power still at work around them.

We do not come to Easter morning looking for a dead God to bury with our songs and praises. We do not come to sit and wait by the empty tomb for Jesus to return to his resting place.

We come to seek out, to find and encounter the living Christ, raised for us, the first fruits of the dead, so that death has no more dominion over us, nor is any life lost to God. We seek, and we shall find; we knock, and the door, even the doors of the tomb are opened unto us; we ask, and we listen for the voice of God among us for an answer.

And we might as well go ahead and expect to find God in the places we least expect to encounter the divine, at the most unexpected hours: our God is not confined by our expectations, by our restrictions, by our actions or inaction; God will work with and through us, yes, but God does not await our permission to play God.

And when we are left waiting outside an empty tomb, when we wonder where God has gone, why our plans have been turned upside down, inside out, shredded; while we are wondering what to do next, we might remember the women with their spices and their story: he is risen. He is alive. He is up to something.

Where there is danger and disease, sorrow and oppression, God has never been more active. In the midst of life, of our mortality, the immortal one still moves among us. In a word, in the stroke of a brush, in the touch of a stranger steadying an elbow on an escalator, in the joy of a child’s laughter, in the emerging of spring and the rising of a musical phrase, in the sacraments of the church and the coming together of the community founded on the rock rolled away from the empty tomb, we see glimpses of God. Where there is love, where there is life, where there is joy; even where there is spice-scented grief, the angels whisper, he is risen.

He is alive.

Thanks be to God.

 

[1] “For Mr Beaver had warned them, ‘He’ll be coming and going,’ he had said. ‘One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down – and of course he has other countries to attend to. It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.’” C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (London: Puffin Books, 1950) 165-6

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Great Vigil of Easter: 2013 update

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

(For the fire and water demo that accompanies this sermon, see last year’s offering: https://rosalindhughes.com/2012/04/07/easter-vigil-sermon-new-fire-and-living-water/)

New fire and living water. Extremes of existence, held together by the cross and the resurrection, like life and death.

Fire. It falls from the heavens and scorches the earth. It burns out of control, terrifying; yet without it, we would have no life, no earth, nothing. The sun, a burning ball of fire, gives us light, warmth, the conditions we need for life on this, its third orbiting planet. Fire even delights us, whether through the comfort of a homely fireplace or the excitement of a firework display; it adds to our enjoyment of life.

Water. Soothing, refreshing, life-giving. We play in it, luxuriate in it. Our bodies are more than half made of it. Yet when it is contaminated, it kills; when it is scarce, we fight over it and worry for it; and when it breaks loose, like the archetypal flood, the waters before creation, the terrifying deep, it burns like fire and drowns all that it touches.

Fire and water. Life and death. Extremes which shouldn’t be able to play together. Yet, in the very beginning, the Spirit which fell like fire on the disciples brooded on the surface of the deep waters to bring not destruction but creation. In the person of Jesus, humanity and divinity, the mortal and immortal, life and death, flesh and spirit were made into one being.

By his death on the cross and his resurrection, by the mystery of the tomb emptied overnight of death, Jesus showed how fire and water, life and death, mortality and immortality, the creation and its Creator can come together, held together in the cross and the resurrection, the cross which we mark with oil on the heads of the newly baptized; the resurrection which overcomes death.

The waters of baptism, and the fiery anointing of the Spirit, come together in the shadow of the cross of Christ, the sign and sacrament of God’s grace, God’s love for us, God with us.

We began Lent, forty days and six Sundays ago, by marking our faces with ashes, those signs of our own mortality, of the dying of the light, the remains of the fire.

When we are united with Jesus in death, we are united with him in resurrection. When we bear the sign of the cross anointed with oil on our foreheads, we hold the cross and the resurrection together in our own bodies, our own lives. We are sinners, forgiven. We draw mortal breaths, filled with eternal life. We are transformed, and our lives are no longer our own, but they are God-given and thanksgiven and we live no longer for ourselves alone but for God and for one another.

We began Lent by marking our faces with ashes, the dying of the light, the remains of the fire.

Now, as we baptize and renew our own baptismal vows, we wash our faces clean, so that they might reflect the new fire, the Paschal candle, the signs of the eternal life that we live with God, the divine spark within each one of us, fire and water by the grace of the cross and resurrection burning together.

In the name of Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord and Saviour: Amen.

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Holy Saturday and the Harrowing of Hell

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

This is what I wrote for my Good Friday reflection in the collection put together by the Rev. Gayle Catinella on behalf of several members of clergy in the Diocese of Ohio:

 O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction. (Hosea 13:14)
My brother said, “No one knows what it’s like to be dead.”
I was puzzled; “Grandpa knows.”
My brother was unconvinced. “No one knows what it’s like to be dead, because no one can ever tell them.”
I persisted, “Grandpa’s dead, so he knows what it’s like.” Reaching for some heavier emotional clout, “George the fifth knows.”
George was the fifth in a series of short-lived hamsters. My brother had sat up with him into the night. Now, he hit me.
“I’m telling,” I cried, as usual.
“If you do,” he threatened, “I’ll tell them what you said about Grandpa.”
It was my first introduction to the idea that death was scandalous, that to die was a betrayal, a shame.
I began to notice how people whispered around death, not using its name but a variety of euphemisms, how they looked off in the distance and let their words trail after their gaze. Death was not fit for polite company. It was indelicate and indiscreet and occasionally downright rude.
And here, in church on Good Friday, was Jesus, doing it right in front of everybody, shameless and scandalous, indiscreet and indifferent to the spectacle he made, forgiving people left and right and crying out to God, with his mother looking on, as though dying were nothing to be ashamed of.
“Jesus knows,” I told my brother. “That’s different,” he said, but I didn’t think it was.

*********************************************************

Psalm 88 asks the question,

Do you work wonders for the dead? Will those who have died stand up and give you thanks? Will your loving-kindness be declared in the grave, your faithfulness in the land of destruction? Will you wonders be known in the dark, or your righteousness in the country where all is forgotten?

Holy Saturday answers, yes.
Yes, God speaks to the dead.
Yes, God reaches into the grave.
Yes, no one is lost to God.
Yes, no one is beyond God’s reach.
Yes, you who are dead and gone, you know the love of God.

Jesus knows what it is like to be you, and Jesus loves you.

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Seven Psalms: A meditation for Good Friday

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

Psalm 55:13-14 If it had been an adversary who taunted me, then I could have borne it; or had it been an enemy who vaunted himself against me, then I could have hidden from him. But it was you, a man after my own heart, my companion, my own familiar friend.

Betrayal. The betrayal of a friend, of a close companion, a trusted colleague. The raw wound of trust ripped open and torn away. Judas, and then Peter. One,knowing only too well what he was about, betrayed him with a kiss; the other with his head turned away, his eyes cast down, denying that he ever knew him. Jesus bore the burden of them, bore the burden for them.

Psalm 35:14 I prayed with my whole heart, as one would for a friend or a brother; I behaved like one who mourns for his mother, bowed down and grieving.

Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother. The pain of parting, the ruin of relationships, the fracturing of family. Mary, his mother, and the disciple whom he loved, a new kind of family formed out of loss, the clinging together of shipwreck survivors cast adrift, and the captain lashed to the mast, sinking with his vessel, mourning the loss of those placed in his care, giving up his life vest to his mother, his last breath to his friend.

Psalm 58:1-2 Do you indeed decree righteousness, you rulers? do you judge the people’s with equity? No; you devise evil in your hearts, and your hands deal out violence in the land.

They put a crown of thorns on his head and a purple robe around his shoulders. They wrote, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”, and when the people said, “He is not our king,” Pilate replied, “I have written what I have written,” because what is truth anyway? What is it to Pilate that Jesus is the true king, the truth, the life of all people? Pilate is, for the moment, the one with the power of the sword in his hand, and he counts it as real and authentic authority, because he doesn’t know and has to ask, “What is truth?” Jesus knows the helplessness of those without power, without mercy, and the redeeming help of God.

Psalm 22:17 They stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them; they cast lots for my clothing.

Since Adam and Eve and their fabric woven of leaves our nakedness has been our shame. They tried to visit upon Jesus the guilt of an innocent body violated, the shame of one used and abused, to leave him nowhere to hide his dignity.

Psalm 143:6-7 I spread out my hands to you; my soul gasps to you like a thirsty land. O Lord, make haste to answer me; my spirit fails me; do not hide your face from me or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.

Thirst. Bodily drought, the gasping for air of an asthmatic child in the night, the hunger of the refugee, the desert of despair when hope is spent and the well of it is dry. Hands spread wide in supplication, in resignation, imagining fingertips touching skin, another, a friend, a lover, a mother, a comforter, an angel.

Psalm 13:1 How long, O Lord? will you forget me for ever? how long will you hide your face from me?

A child lost in supermarket aisles as tall as skyscrapers, impenetrable as lead. The moment of awakening before the empty space in the bed has cooled reality and pricked grief again. The slow diminuendo of memories accumulated over the years and now swept aside, broken and fragmented, crumbs out of order. The empty womb, the ones never born, the ones given up, the ones who left and slammed the door behind them. Abandonment. The loneliness of a cross high above the hillside but not yet reaching heaven.

Psalm 11:1-2 In the Lord have I taken refuge; how then can you say to me, “Fly away like a bird to the hilltop; For see how the wicked bend the bow and fit their arrows to the string to shoot from ambush at the true of heart.”

High enough above the hillside to see beyond horizons of time, space: Auschwitz, the crusades, Newtown, the writing on a bathroom wall, treachery and treason, the slaughter of the innocents. Is there anything left? Anything missed or fallen from the cross of Christ? Is there any pain or sin or shame that Jesus would not bear for us; purge for us in the fire of his own agony; take to his grave for us? I do not think so. I think that his work was complete, his sacrifice divine, God’s mercy all-embracing.

Psalm 31:5 Into your hands I commend my spirit, for you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth.

You have redeemed me.

Amen.

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Good Friday

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

This, too, is the day
that the Lord has made; shall we,
then, be glad in it?

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Maundy Thursday: the sacrament of love

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

Ambrose, Bishop of Milan in one of the early centuries of the church, believed that the washing of feet instituted by Jesus was as sacramental, as important and as necessary as the two sacraments that the churches have all ended up accepting as those given us directly by Jesus’ word and action:

Baptism, accepted by Jesus and commanded at the end of Matthew’s Gospel: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; Eucharist, rehearsed by Jesus at the Last Supper, as we celebrate tonight, and commanded to continue in his memory.

But look, Ambrose might say, at what the Gospel says:
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. When Peter demurred, Jesus pressed him, saying, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not only my feet but also my hands and head!” When he was done, and had resumed his place, Jesus said to them, “If I have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”[1]

It amuses some liturgical wits to wonder then whether we might not as easily have found ourselves celebrating the washing of one another’s feet as the central sacrament of our Sunday worship, with the Eucharist reserved for the annual commemoration of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday.

But we read the washing of feet as Jesus’ signpost to his disciples of what was to come, his foreshadowing of his offering of himself, body and spirit, on the cross for our salvation, for the forgiveness of sins and for the reconciliation of the world to its God, his demonstration of love poured out unconditionally, freely and wholly, for all people.

Just as Mary had anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped them with her hair, pouring out her love and her grief and her hope, her sorrow at his leaving, her hope for his return, so Jesus bids farewell to his disciples in a tender gesture, offering them his humble thanks for their friendship, his promise that he would do anything for them, his example of deep and active love.

It is so difficult to let someone love us. It is so difficult to receive a gift with no means of return, to receive a blessing, forgiveness for something we can barely forgive ourselves, the admiration of one whom we admire, or despise. We want to stay in control, to do for ourselves, to owe no one anything.

But we cannot control God. There is nothing that we can offer to God which has not been provided to us by God’s grace. Our own selves, our souls and bodies are creations which we give back only to the one who gifted them to us.

As Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, as tender as a mother, as humble as a slave, as intimate as a woman, as Mary of Bethany had been with him, he demonstrated the all-encompassing, abounding love of God for each of them, for all of them.

As he shared with them a meal baring his body and soul, his blood which would be poured out for them, his love with which he laid down his life for them, for us, he showed them the lengths that God will go to simply to be with us.

A sacrament, as you know, is an outward and visible sign of God’s inward and invisible grace. What Jesus offered his disciples was unmistakable. Then he said, “You also should do for one another what I have done for you,” that is, be outward and visible signs of God’s grace, witness to God’s evident love for all of God’s creation, and be ready to receive that love ourselves, without condition or control, without holding back, but like Peter diving headlong into the gift of God’s mercy.

“Love one another,” said Jesus, “as I have loved you.”

Amen.

[1] St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan d.397, De Sacramentis (On the Sacraments), Book 3, iv-vi; source: Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy, E.C. Whitaker, rev. and exp. By Maxwell E. Johnson (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, third edn 2003), p. 180

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Tenebrae

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

This gallery contains 8 photos.

On Wednesday, in the evening as darkness begins to fall, we will anticipate the passion to come, the darkness that will fall over the whole land on the afternoon of Good Friday, the agony and the grief, and finally, the … Continue reading →

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Year C: Palms and Passion

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

I am going to guess that you already know the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, and then I’m going to tell it to you, anyway.

Once there was an emperor, who wanted a splendid new costume for his grand procession. His tailors were terrified, because he was an exacting and rather mean man. In fact, their terror gave them tremors, so that they couldn’t hold their needles because their hands shook too much, and their panic paralysed them, so that they were unable even to choose a design of cloth for the emperor’s new clothes.

The emperor returned for his fitting, and in a flash of brilliance born of despair, one of the tailors wove a tale of fabric so fine that it could only be seen by the most discerning eye. Of course, the emperor immediately imagined that he could see splendid clothes and rich robes. The tailors were commended, and the emperor went out happy, ready for the great parade.
But what would happen when the people saw that there was nothing to this fabled fabric? The tailors told their friends, and begged them to go along with the ruse, and quickly the rumour spread that the emperor’s new clothes were so fine that they could only be seen by the most discerning eye, and the people convinced themselves and their neighbours that they were impressed.

Then, a small child – and if you don’t know this about small children, they are not easily impressed, or fooled; they are too busy learning what’s what in the world, and exercising true discernment – this small child said,

“Well this is silly! The emperor isn’t wearing any clothes!”

And the people finally saw through the ruse and saw a lot more of the emperor than they had bargained for.

It took one voice, telling the truth with piercing clarity, to burst the bubble of illusion.

In Matthew and Mark’s accounts of Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey and hailed by children and the hopeful people, we find none of the grumbling that Luke reports by the Pharisees. In John, the Pharisees see the parade and are resigned, “You see that you can do nothing; look, the world has gone after him.” In Luke, they order the people to cease and desist from their praise. They are afraid, with reason, that such an outpouring of joy and hope and messianic expectation will rattle the Romans and bring down trouble on the nation of Israel. Jesus laughs them off, and quotes psalms about stones singing praises. But it may be that Luke reports a detail that is important to the story; that the crowd was not all in agreement, that there was dissent, and that the dissent was given a voice.

The Pharisees may have been wrong, but unfortunately, their lone little voices seem to have been heard, because by the end of the week, the crowd is jeering Jesus, and calling for his crucifixion; one man given up for the safety of the many.

Our voices can be used for good or for ill, but they do make a difference.

It’s been a rough news week for Ohio. Last Tuesday, the young man who shot classmates at Chardon High School was sentenced, and his words and actions once more shocked and rocked those around him. Last Sunday, two teenagers were found guilty and sentenced for their part in a horrible attack on an unfortunate girl. We have been left wondering what has happened to our culture, and why we seem unable to stop the cycle of violence and abuse, of denigration and the denial of one another’s humanity. We wonder why, in that basement in Steubenville, no one said, “Stop.”

We have voices, and one voice in the crowd can be powerful. We cannot rely on the stones to shout out for us. We, the disciples of Jesus, need to raise our voices in support of justice and mercy, God’s love for each of God’s children.

This week, representatives of Greater Cleveland Congregations, including some of our Episcopal neighbours, met with Governor Kasich and testified at the State Capitol in support of Medicaid expansion. They spoke up for those in need of mental health care, in need of basic health interventions and medicine. Next week, Christians led by the Episcopal bishops of Conneticut will walk the way of the cross in Washington, praying for an end to gun violence, and urging urgent action to bring that end closer.

When his disciples attacked with the sword, Jesus said, Stop, and he healed the one who had been hurt.

But Peter failed to speak up when he had the chance to affirm Jesus, and he ended up weeping bitterly. Joseph of Arimathea – how much of his extravagant expense in opening up a new tomb for Jesus was spent out of guilt because he knew what the council was doing was wrong, but he did not speak out, speak up, tell them blunt and outright, plain and simple, “Stop.”

The power of the crowd is great. We like to think alike; we like to get along. We like to go with the flow, to be accepted, to belong. But we cannot rely on the stones to shout out for us.

Yesterday’s Lenten reflection from the collection that I’ve been posting day by day on our facebook page came from our colleague in ministry, the Rev Jan Smith-Wood of Grace Episcopal Church in Sandusky. She said,

The other day, I heard our bishop say that all Christians are leaders. A few days earlier a Pentecostal pastor of more than 50 years said that the world really needs the church to be the church, now more than ever.

What if our Lenten spirit-work were devoted to finding out what it takes to be courageous Christians? Brave leaders? Followers of Jesus in his fearless reaching out to the overlooked and wounded with healing love and life-changing words? What if we sought to be true imitators of Christ in his fierce advocacy for the poor and his courageous alignment with the disdained?

When we witness the world’s opposition to the gospel, that God loves and values each person that God has made, without exception,
when we witness racism and homophobia, sexism and the casual denigration of those who are different to the main group, the in crowd,
do we laugh at the off-colour joke to keep the peace and save our own embarrassment?
do we stay silent in the face of misinformation and discrimination, or do we set the record straight?
do we accept the world’s report, or do we point out the emperor’s nudity, the narcissism of Rome, Steubenville’s failure to protect the most vulnerable, our own capitulation to the unchecked availability of weapons of war for use in our homes?
do we close our ears to the ugly slur against our neighbour, or do we open our mouths and say, “Stop”?
Are we waiting for the stones to do it for us?

At the end of the Passion gospel, the centurion speaks, “Surely this man was innocent.” And he praised God. A little late, but still, who knows what he started. Earlier in Luke’s gospel, Jesus told this little parable: The kingdom of God is like a woman who took three measures of flour, and seasoned them with a small measure of yeast, and left it there until the whole heap of flour was leavened and risen.

A pinch of yeast. The word of a small child. The courage to speak, to say, Stop, in the name of God. It’s never too late to speak up, to speak out, no voice is too small to be heard. God can work wonders with small miracles.

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Things that I struggle with

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

Things that I struggle with, in no particular order:
Unscrewing the lid from a new jar of pickles.
Unravelling tangled yarn chewed by the cat.
Understanding the holy mystery of the empty tomb.
Untying the umbilical cords that bind us tight.
Unsaying unspeakable things that have been said.
Undoing the grief occasioned by the dead.

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Year C Lent 5: a royal priesthood

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Rosalind C Hughes

The story of Jesus’ anointing is told in all four gospels, although there are differences in the details that each reports. Only John names the woman who performed the prophetic act: Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, of Bethany. Jesus seemed at home in their home; he loved them, and in the last weeks and days before he entered Jerusalem for the last time, theirs was a place of refuge for him, as well as a stepping stone to danger.

The last time Jesus came to Bethany, his disciples told him, “They are trying to stone you, and you would go back?”, and Thomas said, “Fine, we’ll go with you, and die with you there.”

The last time he came to Bethany was just after Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, had died; Lazarus who is sitting at table with Jesus in this next episode, restored and in good appetite.

In between that visit and this, we are told that Caiaphas, the high priest, afraid of the vengeance of Rome, wanted Jesus put to death, one man’s death to save the many from the wrath of the Romans: “It is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed,” and he hardly knew what he was saying, that it would be better for the people to let Jesus die for them. Then, just before his return, the Pharisees gave orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should tell them, so that they might arrest him. Those who would do Jesus harm were powerful, and they were made angrier still by the people’s loud love of him.

But then, during that last, previous visit, amazing things had happened.

Martha had confessed what she knew,
“Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world,”
and she told him,
“If you had been here, my brother would not have died,”
and Mary echoed her sister’s words:
“If you had been here, he would not have died.”
And then Lazarus walked out of the tomb.

The Gospel of John is the most literary of the gospels, the one which most considers style to be substance, which seeks to convey meaning not only by what it says, but by how it says it. This story is full of shadows. Foreshadowing, as you know, is a dramatic technique whereby something important, a climactic event, is signposted and built up throughout the drama, so that when it arrives, it is as though we knew all along that this was just how it must be, what had to happen.

The washing of feet; the tenderness to the body; Lazarus, sitting at the table eating weeks after he was dead; the outburst by Judas; and the perfume, the nard used to embrace the dead one last time; there are so many shadows to this story. And there is more: the prophetic act of anointing consecrates a person to the service of God, and nominates a king; it is used at baptisms, at coronations, as well as at death’s door.

Over the past couple of weeks, a few people have asked about the oils that we use in the church. Every month, on the first Sunday, we use oil blessed for healing, to anoint those seeking prayer and protection, healing and hope for themselves and those they love. We use it as a sign of that healing: doctors often used olive oil as a balm, as a medicine, in Jesus’ day.

And in baptism, after we die and rise with Christ, after we are washed and wiped, as we are sealed with the sign of the cross we use oil, we are anointed, to mark us as Christ’s own forever. Hear the words that are used by a bishop to consecrate the oil of Chrism:

Eternal Father, whose blessed Son was anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the Savior and servant of all, we pray you to consecrate this oil, that those who are sealed with it may share in the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen (BCP 307)

We are anointed to a royal priesthood, sharing in the life and work of Jesus Christ. We are sealed in his tomb and released to his resurrection. We are anointed, in a prophetic act, we are given a new life, a new direction.

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.
 
Mary knew that there was trouble ahead. As much as she loved Jesus, she could not keep him safe and she would not ask him not to go to his death in Jerusalem. And now, the authorities threatened even Lazarus, since it was because he lived that many were coming to believe in Jesus, because he did not stay dead.

And in the face of these trials and troubles and danger, they, Jesus’ friends, gave a dinner party, and Martha served, and Mary sat once more at Jesus’ feet, and she bathed him in oil, naming him king, priest, victim.

And Judas had a point, in a way, to question the extravagance of the gift and whether the money could be better spent, but Jesus reminded him, reminded them all, that he did not come only to serve but also to love, to spend time with people, to build relationships, to reciprocate friendship.

When the joy of life is denied, we line up with the priests who would put Lazarus to death simply for being alive out of order, instead of celebrating the restoration of brother to sister, friend to friend.

So, once again, as Martha served, doing what was necessary to make a fine party, Mary sealed the deal from her seat at Jesus’ feet, and he loved them both, and their brother too, and the fragrance of it filled the house. There is no doubt that Mary loved Jesus, there is no other way to understand her actions except through the lens of deep and abiding love, but how much did she know, how much did she realize? Even as she anointed his body with perfume once intended for his burial, Mary must have remembered how he had already overcome death once on her family’s behalf, when he raised up her brother. Even though Jesus said they would not always have him near them, Mary hoped against hope that it wasn’t true.

Did she anticipate his acclaimed entry into Jerusalem, with the palms waving and the people cheering? Did she anoint him king because she expected him to pull off some sort of miraculous, improbable kingly coup?
She knew that it was dangerous. They were bound to arrest him. Then did she expect Jesus to die and remain in the tomb, perfumed and preserved?
Does she expect something else? Is she keeping him sweet smelling so that Martha, who warned him against entering Lazarus’ lair, does not have to worry about the stench from Jesus’ opened tomb? Jesus had already confounded the idea of death as the final act, the last word. Does Mary anticipate the resurrection?

Our anointing at baptism was not to perfume our bodies for the grave. It was to raise us up into new life and to ordain us to a royal priesthood. As we approach Holy Week, with its pomp and pall, betrayal and love, and passion and perfection hung out to dry, even as we approach the cross, we are seeking resurrection. Though we stumble, we are called to continue in hope.

We are a royal priesthood, anointed to share in the ministry of Jesus, to share in the fullness of his life, a life fully lived, with love and mercy, service, humility, friendship, grief, and joy, a life lived not alone, but in the company of friends and family who bring us to life.

Like Mary and Martha, Lazarus and Jesus, like Judas, in the midst of life we know death, and like Mary, in every death, and in every death to self, to fear, to sin, we know that there is the hope of resurrection.

Already, its fragrance fills the house.

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