Lent Day 39: Good Friday and Grief

A busy day yesterday didn't permit me time to post, and I am sorry for that. Here's the meditation I shared during our Maundy Thursday worship; the video of the service is available here.

Now we come to the Friday we call "Good," a concept that can be hard to explain to people who don't know our religion well, but do understand that this is the day our prophet/ the one we believe to have a connection with God unlike any other human being was put to death. A brutal death. 

Crucifixion was the epitome of Rome's brutality. Though our Christian scriptures describe a process that took three hours, it was much more common for it to take days. The bodies of the crucified were left on the crosses until the scavenger birds picked their bones clean. The unremitting cruelty of it, the torture the victims underwent, was a feature, as they say, and not a bug. Rome designed it this way, because it was the penalty for ultimate crime. the worst possible crime, in their eyes: insurrection. For Rome, those who dared to claim power in opposition to Rome, or whose political activities might undermine Rome in any way. were the criminals deserving of the worst punishment. 

Jesus' crime was a political one, though Christians love to claim otherwise. We love to say that Jesus was not political. His execution states that he was. The inscription the procurator had attached to the cross stated "The King of the Jews." This was the problem. This was the crime: not even, necessarily, that he claimed the title, but that others claimed it for him.

Every year we observe this week and we re-enact these steps:

Palm Sunday, a day of promise and joy, a day when the idea of Jesus as King might just fly.

Maundy Thursday, a night when Jesus knows his death is imminent. Jesus gathers those he loves and knows best, and he knows one of them is about to hand him over. The grief begins here, with the knowledge of betrayal. It is no wonder that Jesus intones, "Remember me."

On Good Friday our grief comes into full bloom. Tonight the church I serve will host a Tenebrae, the Service of the Lengthening Shadows, as we read seven passages of scripture detailing the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus. As the service begins, we see a large candelabra with seven lit candles. After each passage is read, a candle is extinguished. The fullness of the grief is expressed with the tolling of a bell, with the church in deep shadow, almost darkness.

Today is a day (and yesterday was, too) when we might notice our grief. Grief about and within the Jesus story, of course. But other grief as well. Grief calls up grief--new losses or even ritualized losses, as we have in Holy Week, remind us, unearth, and air afresh even our most ancient sorrows. (I have just spent nearly an hour talking about the primal wound of adoption.) 

As everyone has grief of some kind or other, whether old or new, this is a day and time to be gentle with ourselves. If grief rises up, respect it. Honor it. Cherish it as the evidence of love--even complicated love--it surely is.

Today's devotional card from A Sanctified Art reads, 

On the
worst
days of
our lives,
we are
not alone.

Whatever your faith tells you about this day and what it means--the salvific action, the rescue of humanity, a downer before we get to the fun of Sunday--I always come back to this: In Jesus God showed the fullest possibly solidarity with humanity, the fullest possible communion with us. There is no pain we can feel that God was not willing to participate in, not as our punisher, but as a suffering sibling.

On the worst days of our lives, we are not alone. God is with us. 

Lent Day 37: Wednesday in Holy Week: Anointing and Discipleship

Wednesday in Holy Week is known as "Spy Wednesday," something I learned at college when given a book of poetry by the poet, Francis Sullivan. It was called "Spy Wednesday's Kind," and examined, among other things, the urge to betrayal. 

It is on Wednesday that Judas makes his move, approaching the authorities, making a play to hand Jesus over to them. But he is prompted to do this--in the gospels of John and Matthew as well as Mark--by an extraordinary act of devotion and witness: Jesus is anointed by an unnamed woman. (My sermon on John's version can be found here.)

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way?  For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her.  But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”
~Mark 14:3-9, NRSV

There is no long introduction to the action; it happens in a single verse, without fanfare. I imagine Mark wants to convey how startling this moment was.

Part of this is how quickly it happens.

Another part of this is the woman's anonymity. We don't know whether she was a member of Simon's household, or whether she was one of the women who followed Jesus and supported his ministry. She is a cipher, and perhaps that is intentional. Perhaps the evangelist wants us to be able to imagine anyone doing this. Perhaps they want us to be able to imagine ourselves.

A single verse for the action--breaking an alabaster jar open, pouring the ointment on Jesus' head. Anointing him as a king might be anointed, or a prophet, or a priest. (Two of the evangelists have the woman anointing Jesus' head; the other two have her anointing his feet.)

A single verse for the anointing. Then, the rest of the story, devoted to angry opposition. Identified only as "some who were there," it's clear that more than one person was angry. They very reasonably point out that this was an extravagant action--in their mind, a waste of money. A denarius is a Roman coin that represents a day's wages for a day-laborer. In other words, this is nearly a year's wages for the working poor of Jesus' day, now trickling down Jesus' back, and into his ears, and getting on his clothing, and perhaps the pillows on which he is reclining. 

Wouldn't it have been better spent on the poor?

Jesus has his eyes on the poor, as well as his healing hands and the bread he breaks and shares with them on a regular basis. Jesus has what liberation theologians have called "a preferential option for the poor," and, reading the beatitudes, it's hard to disagree with that understanding. "Blessed" are the poor, maybe because they will never labor under the delusion that they can buy their way into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus sees them, as I blogged yesterday, these people who are largely invisible to the rest of us, and from whom we often have an urge to turn away. 

But Jesus doesn't turn away from them, and it irks him to hear them used in this argument. 

If Jesus sees the poor clearly, then, in this action of anointing, the unnamed woman sees Jesus clearly. I think she may be one of his followers: by his interpretation of her actions, she has been listening to him. By this time in Mark's gospel Jesus has predicted his own death three times. The disciples--the male disciples--have tried not to hear this, done the equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and singing, "la la la la la."

But, Jesus says, "She has anointed me for my burial." She sees Jesus. She has heard Jesus. She understands what he is saying. She believes him. And the only thing that makes sense to her is to honor his conviction that this is happening. 

She has done what she could. She has been his witness, and has engaged in a prophetic action of affirming his mission. 

We can both care for the poor and honor Jesus' mission. We don't have to choose between this. in fact, caring for the poor is honoring Jesus' mission. We can do both.

The unnamed woman has done what she could, and Jesus predicts this blogpost. Wherever the good news is proclaimed, in this whole world, this story will be told in remembrance of her.

She has done what she could. So may we all.

Mary Magdalene by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, 1877.
No, no gospel says that she anointed Jesus.
But this is the 1500-year-old tradition.
So that's what the paintings are titled.