It was still hidden in the same crook in her bedroom wall. She reached in, fingers closing around the cool carved ceramic, breathing a sigh of relief that Martha had not chanced upon it during one of her frantic house-cleanings.
She could already hear Martha outside operating the winepress in preparation for the supper tonight. It was six days before Passover and tonight, Jesus was coming to their home. Martha would lose it if she found me hiding here, the thought flitted past Mary’s mind. But, the cleaning would have to wait for a few minutes.
How many times she had been tempted to break the seal and inhale deeply the musky scent of the alabaster oil, but she remembered the words of the merchant: once it was opened, the nard would not keep its scent for long. It was a year’s worth of savings, and even Martha did not know of it. Martha usually knows everything.
But, then again, Martha would not understand what she was about to do. It was one of those crazy things she did solely based on how her spirit stirred.
It was that look Jesus gave her when she was clinging at his feet.
“Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died,” the words came out strangled. Did he understand the sadness of death? But then, through her tear-matted strands of hair, she caught sight of his face. The Teacher’s face, normally composed with the quiet confidence she had come to know and love, was contorted with rising emotion.
The eyes that always pierced deep into her soul now were saying a different message, “Oh Mary, I know your pain. And I will soon know that pain so that you will never have to.”
Oh how had she missed it before? Of course, a man who befriended prostitutes, rebuked Pharisees and dined at a tax collector’s house would never survive long in her world. Her mind flashed to the one alabaster vial she had bought for a special occasion. She hadn’t even spent it on Lazarus, yet somehow she knew it had been for Jesus.
There he was, her Savior limp on a cross of crude cedar. Instead of oil, it was now blood running down his head. The feet she had gently wiped with her hair now cruelly bent out of position, nailed.
Was it only a week ago that she had cradled those feet in her arms, sharing an unspoken moment with Jesus that no one else could enter into. Only He had known the significance of her actions. Only He had known that she was the only one to have gotten it. And that was all that mattered.
She hadn’t cared that the disciples were muttering among themselves at the extravagance, or that Martha was aghast at her prostrate sister. All that mattered was that she had been given the privilege of anointing Him in these last days.
And now, in comparison, the tiny jar of alabaster was a small price to pay to honor this man who had first called her ‘Mry’ beloved, when since young, she had only been known as ‘Myrrh’ bitter herb.
She was beloved, and though her heart felt like it was been wrung dry, she repeated it to herself in a hoarse whisper, “Beloved, you are beloved.”
dancing for an audience of One - 