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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from that Gospel reading. You may be seated. So this evening’s text from the Gospel reading happened on about a Wednesday, but no later than Thursday of Holy Week. So, within just a matter of days before our Lord’s death upon the accursed tree of the cross.
Now there’s several things that we could talk about this evening in that text, from the Lord’s Supper, to the betrayal by Judas, to the disciples asking, “Is it I who’s going to betray you?” All of those things are possible, but there is one thing in this text, and it only occurs here, and that’s it. It is the event of the woman who breaks open the jar of pure nard and anoints our Lord with it. Because, as you noticed in that text, what Jesus said, “I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” That’s the only place he says that.
He doesn’t say that about Peter when he confesses Christ as the Son of the living God. “Thou art the Messiah.” He doesn’t say, “I’m going to make sure this is recorded so that this is told in memory of him.” No. There are so many other possibilities that Jesus could have chosen to say these words, and the only place and the only act that he points out with these phrases is what this woman does to him. I hope that gets you to ask the question, why?
This woman was the only one who got it. What did she get? She may not have been able to explain in any theological terms, but she knew the great necessity for this man, who is God in the flesh, Jesus, the great necessity for him to die for her. The twelve apostles gathered around who were celebrating the Lord’s Supper didn’t even get it. Because when it says they were thinking in their heads, “Why did she do this? This could have been sold for money and given to the poor.” They didn’t get it.
They looked at this act as being purely frivolous, with no important consequence. But your Lord and my Lord points out to you and to me, “She did this to anoint me for my burial.” Why? And it had to have flown right over the other 12 because they still didn’t get it. Did they understand this after His resurrection? Yes, they began to piece it together.
But you know and I know, they did not see the great necessity for Jesus to die for their sins. And you’ve got to ask yourself this question. Did they not get it that this was done? This act was done on the same night that they would ultimately sacrifice the Passover lamb. And was not Jesus called the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by John the Baptist in the early part of Jesus’ ministry? Why was it that these twelve didn’t get it?
It’s the same reason why many Christians in this world think that Jesus is nothing more than a great teacher with great platitudes, important statements of wisdom, but they miss it because he has to be a sacrifice if he’s going to save you and me from our sins.
In the Old Testament reading from Genesis that we read, very brief, it was about when God drove out of the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve because they had eaten of the tree that he told them not to—the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And now, instead of only knowing good, they knew evil, which is a part of your and my sin. And if we know evil, then we do not have pure good. And if we do not have pure good, we are only one thing possible—evil.
They drove, God drove them out of a garden, lest they eat the tree of life and die eternally. Meaning, and they seal it so that God would be unable to redeem them, one could say. But there was really only one person who would eat from the tree of life and die. His name is Jesus. He is the one who eats the fruit of the tree of life and dies eternally. He is the one who has to die, has to eat that fruit, has to fulfill all things for us to have a Savior.
What this woman anointed Him for is the very reason that we’re gathered here to celebrate every time we gather—His death and His resurrection. But it is the necessity of His death. As we go through the communion liturgy, you will hear in the communion liturgy this reference to the fruit of the cross. And the fruit of the cross is the flesh and blood of Christ—the sacrificial lamb, the Passover lamb.
And just as the faithful Jews gathered around and were to eat all of the sacrificed Passover lamb, marking their doors with the blood, so Christ has been sacrificed and we eat and feast upon Him whose blood marks the door of our hearts so that the angel of death passes over us. We hear how he creates a brand new tree of life. And there it is.
But this tree of life doesn’t look like anything that has to do with life. It looks only like death. But from that tree did come your life. And only through that tree comes your life. For without that tree, there would be no sacrifice. No one would have eaten that fruit and died instead of us.
By our eating in faith, by our trusting in what God has revealed, do we have what He has offered from the tree of life—the fruit of forgiveness and eternal life. That’s why we can sing here in Babylon as we await to be taken back to Jerusalem or to our home in heaven. That’s why we live in this wilderness with songs upon our hearts so that we have something to continue to assuage our weariness in this life.
But we’re gathered in the beginning of this Passion Season. The whole Passion Season is all about His death. And it began with this anointing by this woman days before His final death.
In the name of Jesus, Amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
