“You know.” It’s Matthew 26, the Passover is coming in just two days, and “you know,” Jesus tells his disciples, that he’s going to be arrested and killed when it gets here (Matthew 26:2). Jesus settles into the home of a leper named Simon for dinner. Meanwhile, schemes are hatching all around him. The priests in Jerusalem are considering how they can snatch Jesus up and kill him with as little blowback from the public as possible (26:3-5). Judas is offering, of his own free will, to betray Jesus to the priests (26:14-16). Jesus, Judas, the priests – it seems everyone is preparing in their own way for his death.
Including a surprise character. Sandwiched between the scheming preparations of the priests and Judas, an anonymous woman enters the scene. Without any preamble, she pours a jar of expensive perfume onto his head. The other disciples are upset at first. If she was going to just waste the expensive perfume, it could have been used in their ministry to the poor. While that’s certainly not an incorrect read on the situation, Jesus stops their irritation in its tracks. They are not to bother her in the least. Their ministry to the poor will go on, and quite successfully at that. But for now, she’s done something good and beautiful. With this anointing, she is, like Judas and the priests, preparing Jesus for his death and burial, too. “Wherever the gospel is proclaimed throughout the world,” Jesus says, “what she’s just done will be told in memory of her.”
In memory of her. What she’s just done will be remembered forever. Wherever the gospel is proclaimed, she will be part of it. We don’t know her name, and she’s only in the story for a few moments. But Jesus declares that she is a main character nonetheless. She is absolutely essential to the Jesus story. The Church is not telling the Jesus story in a faithful way unless she is included in it. While we don’t know a single personal detail about her, she is to be remembered by the Church forever. She is the mother of all nameless, fame-less, unspectacular people for these 2,000 years who pour their love out upon Jesus in simple but affectionate ways. Those who love Jesus, from outside the sphere of the inner apostles and decision makers, belong to her. All our desire to bless Jesus with our worship and adoration is found in her. And his love for those whose names will not be recorded in history is found in his words to her.
Jesus is so infinitely worthy of our praise and love and affection and worship. His beauty, joy, and light are drawing that praise and love out of us like fragrant perfume being poured from a bottle.
Life, work, service, and all the good things with which we make ourselves busy – these must give way to intervals of pouring our love and adoration out upon Jesus. He is not lovely because we get something desirable out of following him. He is lovely in and of himself. We do not draw close to him in order to receive some prize. Being close to him is its own rich blessing, as our anonymous friend in Matthew 26 well knows. Not only is he worthy of us telling him that; our lives are filled that much more with his beauty and joy and light when we tell him that, when we prayerfully center our lives around experiencing him for his own sake.