A Pleasing Aroma

It is an extraordinary scene. Mary enters the room where Jesus is dining and breaks open an alabaster flask of expensive perfume. She then begins to anoint the head and feet of Jesus. Then, and this perhaps the most shocking of all given the cultural context in which this act took place, she assumes the posture of a slave at the feet of Jesus, let’s down her hair, and begins to wipe off his feet with it. Time must have stopped in that room. Were others embarrassed for her? Perhaps, but she was not, and neither was Jesus. When some, and in particular, Judas, protested, Jesus rebuked her detractors saying she had done something beautiful for him.