Christ
means “the anointed one.” Peter typically is remembered as the one who says to
Jesus, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God,” but it is Mary who acts on that understanding by publicly
anointing Jesus at Bethany. She did so to acknowledge who he was and to profess
her great love for him, risking censure and humiliation from those who were
uncomfortable with such an intimate, wholehearted, prophetic gesture.
As
we recall Jesus’ brutal flogging and death during this Holy Week, it comforts
me to think how Mary’s act of love and kindness sustained him in his suffering.
As Cynthia Bourgeault
observes in her book The Meaning
of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity, “We see that Jesus’s passage
through death is framed on either side by her [Mary’s] parallel acts of
anointing. At Bethany she sends him forth to the cross wearing the unction of
her love. And on Easter morning he awakens to that same fragrance of love as
she arrives at the tomb with her spices and perfumes, expecting to anoint his
body for death. He has been held in love throughout his entire passage.” Thus
Mary was an agent of God to remind the crucified Jesus that he was not forsaken, that he was held in love
despite the seeming failure of his earthly mission.
The anointing of Jesus
by Mary echoes through the ages, calling us to be courageous in kindness and to
counter evil with simple but profound acts of love.
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