THE PROPHET MARY (John 12:1-11)"No one notices that Mary has gone until she comes back holding a slender clay jar in her hands. Without a word she kneels at Jesus' feet and breaks the neck of the jar, so that the smell of spikenard fills the room--a sharp scent somewhere between mint and ginseng.
When Mary stood before Jesus with that pound of pure nard, for a moment--just for a moment--it could have gone either way. She could have anointed his head and everyone there could have proclaimed him a king. But she did not do that. When she moved toward him, she dropped to her knees and poured the salve on his feet, which could mean only one thing. The only man who got his feet anointed was a dead man, and Jesus knew it. 'Leave her alone,' he said to those who would have prevented her. 'Leave her alone.'
So Mary proceeded to rub his feet with ointment so precious that its sale might have fed a poor family for a year, an act so lavish that it suggests another layer to her prophecy. There will be nothing prudent or economical about the death of this man, just as there has been nothing prudent or economical about his life. In him, the extravagance of God's love is made flesh. In him, the excessiveness of God's mercy is made manifest."
--Barbara Brown Taylor
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