The Anointing at Bethany

Centro Aletti

We are in Bethany. Jesus is in Simon the leper’s house where he and others have been sitting and eating together at the table. An unnamed woman enters with a jar of expensive perfume which she breaks open and pours over Jesus’ head, anointing him with the oil. In Mark’s account, Jesus and the woman are closely surrounded: by the other guests who later criticise her for wasting the equivalent of a labourer’s annual salary; by the ritual uncleanness of Simon’s house because he is a leper; by the plot to kill Jesus, involving first the chief priests, then Judas who agrees to help them; by the heightened sense of the story which is now inexorably moving towards the disaster of Jesus’ death.

But here in the mosaic, Jesus and the woman are alone. They are cocooned, almost, by that arch, and protected from all the death, the murderous plots, the meanness, the prejudice that is around them. All we see is that intimate moment where the woman quite literally pours out her devotion and Jesus sits completely still, accepting what she is doing. Respecting it, contemplating it, appreciating it. They, and now we, are wrapped up in that moment, as they attend to one another, give each other time, see one another for who they each really are. For is that not what Jesus always does with the people he meets? He stops, sees them, engages deeply and fulfils their needs. Here, finally, is someone who is returning the favour: someone who has seen Jesus, seen his need as he walks towards his death and responded in the only way she is able.

How often to do we manage that when we see others? Or do we get distracted by outside appearances? Either by the gold glitter or by the cracks between the stones? Placing the other person on a pedestal, or considering them beneath us? In either case, creating distance rather than closeness between them and us. To be truly seen and attended to by another is immeasurably precious and so Jesus dismisses the quibble about money.

“You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”, we read in Psalm 23. Here this woman fulfils this part of the Psalm for Jesus. Sandwiched as this account is between the chief priests’ plot to kill Jesus and Judas’s betrayal of him, here is something to reassure Jesus that goodness and mercy will follow him, that God will walk with him, even in these dark days to come.

Will we know ourselves anointed in the face of our enemies? In the face of illness and death and violence? Do we have relationships that can give and receive reassurance of God’s presence even in such dark times?

Biblical References

The anointing at Bethany (Mark 14:1-10)
Psalm 23 (Psalm 23)