The Fifth Sunday in Lent | 6 April 2025 | Sermon on John 12:1-8 | by Paul Bieber |

John 12:1-8 Revised Standard Version

12 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at table with him. ³ Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. ⁴ But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said, ⁵ “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” ⁶ This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. ⁷ Jesus said, “Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. ⁸ The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”

also

Isaiah 43:16-21

Psalm 126

Philippians 3:4b-14

THE GIFT OF SURPASSING VALUE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Last Sunday the parable of the prodigal son was introduced by the notice that Jesus was receiving tax collectors and sinners, and eating with them. Today’s gospel begins with more table fellowship, right at the threshold of the last week of Jesus’ earthly life, six days before Passover, in Bethany, a little town about two miles from Jerusalem.

We leave St. Luke’s Gospel this week to hear this account of a dinner to celebrate Lazarus’ recovery from death, but Jesus has already been a welcome and honored guest at the house of Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary. The depiction of Martha serving and Mary worshiping are quite consistent with Luke’s account of an earlier visit of Jesus to this house, in St. Luke 10. Then Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching.

Now Mary’s act of worship is astonishing: a pound of expensive ointment to anoint Jesus—and not to anoint his head, as an honored guest, but his feet, where the preparation of a body for burial would begin. For her then to let down her hair and wipe a man’s feet with it would be extraordinary in our own day. In the first century, when a woman would only let down her hair for intimacy with her husband or as a sign of distraction in mourning, the other diners were no doubt speechless.

Then Judas speaks up for social justice. Well, not really—not only does St. John remind us that Judas is the one who will shortly betray Jesus, he also ascribes his objection to Mary’s action to old-fashioned greed. But the suggestion that such an extravagant gift amounts to a failure of charity for those who need it most appears, on the face of it, to be a proper “churchly” objection, a thought probably shared, in embarrassed silence, by many of those present.

If nothing else, it’s the surpassing value of the gift that astonishes. If the daily wage of a vineyard laborer was a denarius, and two hundred denarii would have fed five thousand, then one act of worship offering perfume worth three hundred denarii is the gift of a year’s income for a working family. That ointment was very likely Mary’s most precious possession.

This little scene in Bethany is a turning point in St. John’s Gospel. The raising of Lazarus in chapter 11 was the last of Jesus’ signs. In this twelfth chapter, Jesus will soon announce that his hour has come, the hour of his lifting up in sacrifice and glory. Jesus understands that Mary’s gesture of worship is not—at least not only—a demonstration of gratitude for Jesus’ resuscitation of her brother. He recognizes that she has been listening to his teaching; she understands what will happen not many days from this supper.

Mary recognizes that what is about to happen is important enough for this extraordinarily generous act of worship. No generosity we can offer can ever be commensurate with Jesus’s self-offering. St. Paul says it best: I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. I can lose everything else to gain Christ and be found in him, being given the righteousness of God based on faith in him. Nothing could compare with the value of being caught up in the death and resurrection of Christ.

This is our life, not only in Lent, but the whole Christian life: participating the in the life of Christ, pressing on to the goal of inward union with Christ and outward imitation of Christ, encountering new possibilities as our worship gives us vision. Like the exiles to whom Isaiah wrote the prophecies of our First Reading, we need not spend all our time looking back on what God has done, or even looking back on the relative success or failure of this year’s Lenten discipline; rather, we can look with anticipation to God’s leading in this very day, doing a new thing in our lives now.

Do you trust God to act in your life now? Do you wait in expectancy and faith for that action? Do you recognize, like St. Paul, that you have not reached the goal, but you are pressing on from today’s sowing with tears to tomorrow’s reaping with joy? It might not be tomorrow, of course, but we believe the promise: that the God who brought Israel out of Egypt, who brought the exiles home, who raised Jesus Christ from the dead, is continuing to act in our lives now.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is at the start of the last week of his earthly walk. On the Sunday before the Passover which will be Jesus’ last, Jesus and his disciples come to Bethany, on the slopes of Mt. Olivet, less than two miles along the Jericho road from Jerusalem, Jesus’ destination. In Jerusalem a new thing will spring forth: God’s most precious gift of surpassing value—Jesus’ self-offering on the cross and his resurrection, redeeming all who trust his word of promise. God has a future for us all. He has promised to redeem us and restore our fortunes, no matter what our situation may be now, that we, too, may gain Christ and be found in him, our anointed King and God and Lord.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

—

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber, STS

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net