"The House Was Filled with Fragrance"

Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and
anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair;
and the house was filled with the fragrance.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Today, on Palm Sunday, we finally draw near to Jerusalem. The tomb which we have sought for so many long weeks, praying and fasting, has finally come into distant view. For now, we are in Bethany (the word means "House of Affliction"), at the foot of the Mount of Olives and its Garden of Gethsemane, which is to be our Lord's Garden of Agony. From there, you can see Jerusalem.

Our journey has been quiet and meditative. We have pondered holy questions, shared stories, and, since Septuagesima Sunday, have mostly been silent — just the sound of our feet treading the ground, the beating of our hearts, and the inner voices of our souls.

We imagine the "sad music" of the House of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. They sought out and entered a most remarkable friendship and then shared a most remarkable experience — Lazarus who had died, who had lain in a tomb four days until his body "stinketh" (Jn 11:39, KJV). He had seen the Bosom of Abraham. His sisters mourned his death. And, then, upon his resurrection, they realized beyond any doubt that their most remarkable friend was no mere man, but rather the Son of God. Indeed, with the emergence of Lazarus from the tomb, many had come to understand the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Mary knelt at His knee and "heard the voice of the Lord God .... in the garden in the cool of the day" (recalling the words of Genesis 3:8). Martha also had come to realize Who their cherished house guest was.

The atmosphere of their household in Bethany was sad as every household suspended between Heaven and earth must be. For once we have drawn near to God — have read the Scriptures over and over and over, finally unlocking them; have seen God's constancy in the face of the world's insolence, literally, from the beginning of time; and have come to understand why Jesus does not pray for the world (Jn 17:9) — then we begin to feel the sadness among those who truly love God and who love God's wayward people. Jesus had invited people to enter into a "Kingdom of Heaven" (unheard of before this time), to recognize His identity as the Son of God: Angels are present at His birth. Simeon tells Mary and Joseph that He is the "Sign of Contradiction," which is the disjunction between Heaven and earth. Jesus tells His parents that He is about His Father's business debating the doctors of the faith. He reveals His identity frankly and vividly on the Mount of Transfiguration. And, then, before thousands of people, He re-enacts the cosmic drama of "God alone in the wilderness with His people" feeding them manna. First 4,000 and then 5,000. And their response immediately is one of political calculation. But Jesus withdraws to a mountain top, to a Mt. Sinai, we might say:

Perceiving that the people were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king,
Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by Himself. (Jn 6:15ff.)

Of these people, we might say that "you can take the man out of the city, but you cannot take the city out of the man." Seeing their calculations, Jesus bids His disciples depart immediately:

Immediately He made his disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, to Beth-sa'ida,
while He dismissed the crowd. And after He had taken leave of them, He went up into the hills to pray.
And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and He was alone on the land. And He saw that they
were distressed in rowing, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night
He came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw Him walking on the sea
they thought it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him, and were terrified. But immediately
He spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; have no fear." And He got into the boat with them and
the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their
hearts were hardened. (Mk 6:45-52)

Do you see what St. Mark has done here? He presents God at the foot of Sinai feeding His people with manna. They rush Him with their political agendas. And in the next scene, God is present plainly .... as God. The disciples were astounded, even filled with dread. At what? His Divine Character — His command over the winds and the sea, His walking on water, re-enacting the drama of God feeding manna to His people at the foot of a mountain in the wilderness — and for this reason they trembled uncontrollably and could not speak to Him. In this sense, they do not want this. It is too much for them as they were overwhelmed on the Mount of the Transfiguration. Later, He would say to His disciples,

"Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see,
and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the
five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" They said to him, "Twelve."
"And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?"
And they said to him, "Seven." And He said to them, "Do you not yet understand?"

To find the Lord Jesus at this pitch of exasperation and anger, we may be sure that we have reached the heart of this matter. And what is it that eludes their understanding (we might say a willful misunderstanding)? That He is God.

In the fullness of time, who is able to commune with God, even engage Him in life-giving conversation? Adam and Eve in Eden, but not Cain East of Eden; Abraham in the wilderness, but not his family in Ur of the Chaldees; Abraham and Sarah in their desert tents receiving the Holy Trinity, but not their nephew Lot in the "twin cities"; Moses in the wilderness of Midian, but not the Jews in the civilization of Egypt; the people Israel in the desert, but not Pharoah and his armies; St. John the Baptist, the man of Eden, but not Herod and his royal household. It is in this tradition that we are to place Lazarus and his sisters. It is the city, in civilization, where God is rejected, and they are not of the city, not of the sophisticated set. They indeed see God, know God, love God. They kneel before Him and receive His gift of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is set before them in divine friendship.

They have been ushered into the presence of God, in the Kingdom .... for a moment And exactly how does one behave, what does one do, in the presence of the Most High? Which place is low enough to press one's forehead to the ground in prostration? What humility is humble enough? Mary presents Him with unguent and perfume, costly spikenard from India worth a man's yearly salary. She performs the customary washing of feet but not with a towel. Rather, she performs this obeisance with her hair in an act of extreme humility. After all, which material on earth is more holy than the God-created human person, bearing Him Image, and to wash His feet with the maiden's silky hair. Nearly made in Heaven, the hair of the virgin.

Here we see the natural response to God in the quiet places, away from the city. Bethany is no wilderness, but neither are its modest houses scattered with purple pillows nor furnished with costly vessels nor larded with the finest foods and spices. Bethany is human scale, far from the towering buildings and even more towering aspirations, agendas, and hype of the city.

In our Gospel lesson this morning, we learn that a large group of Jews are departing from the Temple to follow Jesus: "many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus" (Jn 12:10). Now, this is not Protestant Anytown, USA, where people depart from the First Presbyterian Church to join the Second Congregational Church without a second thought. "Going away" from the Temple cultus would be a profound decision to make. Such an act would separate oneself from God in the view of most people of that time. Yet, these people are going away and in large enough numbers to raise concerns at the highest levels of the Sanhedrin. What reason on earth could prompt such an extraordinary decision? There can be only one: that these people had seen God. Only God could conceivably supplant the Temple in their minds.

Here we come to the essential meaning of Palm Sunday: a deadly convergence of two worlds — the natural world where God is revealed ... and accepted and the overheated world of Jerusalem, with its intense rivalries, its political calculations, and what we today would call realpolitik, — that is, policy not founded upon morals or even principles, but rather strategy and tactics designed only to achieve an end. Which end? It does not matter, so long as the person executing the policy is materially advanced.

They are as blind as the citizens of urban Gomorrah, who fail to recognize angels .... and in their blindness selfishly plot to rape them. They are as murderous as the Father of Murder, who is also the Father of Cities: Cain. All they can see are their selfish aims, to be achieved at any cost. And they would strive, to this end, against God, as the sophisticated Zechariah had done. They would plot to murder Lazarus, an attempt to undo the work of God .... as if God were not able raise Lazarus a second time?!

Even as Jesus enters the city, we hear once again the same political agenda that caused Him to turn His face from the feeding of the 5,000 to Jerusalem, bringing to an end the Advent of God:

.... a great crowd who had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.
So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying,
"Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!"

With the phrase, "King of Israel," we hear that they want to make Him another King David, another King Solomon, who ruled over the United Kingdom called Israel a thousand years earlier. Hosannah in its pure form means "Save us" though it came to mean "Praise to the one who has saved us!" "Deliver us!" they cry, from the occupying army of Romans, who laid siege to Jerusalem ninety-nine years earlier.

Here the Palm Sunday of our youth meets with the Palm Sunday of our mature faith. When I was boy waving palms at church, I was so happy to be amidst the joyful throng singing, "Hosannah! Praise to the Lord! Praise Him Who comes to bring us salvation!" And I could not understand why everyone would turn against Him so quickly. In fact, I was disconsolate .... and would be disconsolate year after year at each annual betrayal as if it were taking place for the first time. I heard the priest talk about the fickle crowd who praised Him in the morning, then shouted "Crucify!" so soon afterward.

But our mature faith teaches us that these people were not fickle at all. In fact, the Gospels plainly reveal their constancy: in their misunderstanding, in their selfishness agendas, in their expectations for a petty, political king. Shall God come into their midst and be offered an earthly kingdom? Kingship and authority? This is precisely what Satan had offered Him in the wilderness:

And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world
in a moment of time, and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority ..." (Lu 4:5-6)

It is this vision of earthly kingship which Peter also has for Jesus (and I might add, all the rest of the disciples) provoking the Master's swift and flinty rebuke:

But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me;
for you are not on the side of God, but of men." (Mt 16:23)

And this is the burning point of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem, the culmination of His three-year ministry. God's condescension to dwell with Man implies a question, the master question: "Which Kingdom do you seek? Is it glory in this world that you want? Then you cannot expect glory in the next, for the "kingdoms of the world" will never be reconciled to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus had invited humankind into divine friendship. He invited each one of them to become His friend, the friends of God (Jn 15:15). But this they rejected .... as they rejected God, and in the most ignominous way. You see, their expectations had been violated. They were incensed.

Needless to say, this conflict of expectation does not all go one-way. If the people felt betrayed by this rejection of their plans, then He also was disappointed, bitterly disappointed as He threw Himself to the ground in the Garden of Gethsemane. For even the Advent of God, together with all its hopeful expectations, is betrayed — betrayed by even Jesus' mother and brothers, who thought Him mad; betrayed by the people of His town, who openly derided Him; betrayed by the majority of His disciples who could not stomach the Divine Mysteries (Jn 6:66); and betrayed by His closest disciples, first Judas, then Peter, then the rest .... save John who stood by Him at the foot of the Cross and who cared for His mother.

God rode into Jerusalem one day, not astride a proud, high-stepping horse with the pomp of Solomon or even of David, but rather upon the lowly colt of a donkey. The gift He offered to all who would receive Him was Divine Life and .... a mysterious Kingdom, which He called Heaven. It would be offered still .... but only for five more days, and then it would die on the earth, along with the Son of God.

Yet the Kingdom of Heaven does live on ... in God's bosom. The Church continues in her witness of the Kingdom, awaiting its, and His, return. Let us join together in the Church and continue in being that faithful witness.

As we begin Holy Week, let all humankind fall on its knees and sing sad songs — of the God we have killed and of our continued betrayals within the scope of our own lives. For the God Who appeared among us so long ago continues to be the God we do not want. He does not fit in with our desires, our secret wants, our opinions and private agendas. Indeed, in the U.S. His ways are perilously close to being outlawed, and have been.

Yet, in an act of charity and forgiveness we cannot grasp, He continues to receive our petitions for pardon. He will hear us still, today, if only our hearts will break at the enormity of what we have done and continue to do.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.