HOLY WEEK....CONTINUED

Isaiah 42:1-9; Mark 14:3-9.

After the joy and celebration of Palm Sunday, we begin Holy Week with a foretaste of what lies ahead. The Old Testament lesson comes before the Gospel. Given the content of the texts today, it seems to make more sense to read them in reverse order.

One of the two Gospel passages appointed for today comes from Mark 14:3-19. In this passage Jesus is visiting the house of Simon the Leper and "...Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair." Now nard was one of the more precious of the biblical fragrances and it was reported that Horace offered to send Virgil a whole barrel of his best wine in exchange for a phial of nard. This is confirmed by a later section of this passage when Judas upbraids Mary for not selling the perfume for 300 denarii. One denari, in Jesus' day, was the wage of a typical laborer. Though nard is now rare, its name has been synonymous for centuries as the perfume of the last Garden of Eden. To Judas Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial." Thus time perfume is doubly symbolic: for our fall from grace that Jesus came to earth to atone and for the terrible price he must pay for our sins.

The Old Testament lesson comes from Isaiah 42:1-9 and paints us a picture of the risen Christ. "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out ...."

As we move through this week, we move spiritually through the pain and death we deserve through our sins, into the light and life that was bought through the free gift of God the Father, the sacrifice of his Son, and the constant sustaining of us all by the Holy Spirit.