| | From the Table to the Cross | | Alfred McBride, O. Praem. | | |  Lent is a time of repentance, and by repentance a time
of renewal. It is a time to deepen both an understanding of, and sense of relationship with, the Lord. The wonder of the season is that God loves us with an immeasurable, eternal love, and that in this love is our strength and insight to repent and to live with Christ. This article was adapted from Norbertine Father McBride’s book To Love and Be Loved by Jesus: Meditation and Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, published by Our Sunday Visitor.
A Woman Anoints Christ (Mk 14:1-11)
The most solemn religious festival, the Passover, was about to begin. Christ’s enemies planned to arrest and kill him. Jesus meanwhile attended a dinner in the home of Simon the leper at Bethany. Like the other dinner guests, Jesus reclined on a low couch. Customarily, someone would honour a guest by sprinkling the person with a few drops of perfume.
A woman came up to Jesus and broke the neck of a flask of perfume (the nard) that had been imported from India. Instead of spraying a few drops on him, she anointed him with the contents of the entire bottle, the cost of which was equal to a year’s wages. This was an anointing fit for a king. It was also the kind of anointing used for a rich person during that person’s burial rite at the tomb. It was a total gift. Neither the jar nor the perfume would be used again.
Several expressed dismay at the extravagance of the woman. They said it would have been more useful to have sold the nard and given the money to the poor. Jesus replied that they have a chance to help the poor everyday, but the time is short and they have little opportunity left to do anything for him. He told them that she has anointed his body for burial, even before he has died. He declared that her story would be known all over the world wherever the Gospel is preached.
Mark’s text then contrasts the love of the woman with the treachery of Judas. The woman demonstrated how to love Jesus absolutely and give all. Judas never learned how to love Jesus. Instead, he exploited the friendship offered him and betrayed it. |
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The Christian Passover is the Lord’s Supper (Mk 14:12-31)
Passover remembered and celebrated two Israelite liberations, one from the avenging angel of the tenth plague and the other from slavery in Egypt. The two major rituals for Passover were adapted from nature festivals. In their shepherd society, the birth of new lambs was an occasion of joy. A lamb was offered to God in thanksgiving. Similarly, in their barley harvest, a way was found to thank God for the new crop. A sheaf of barley was waved before God as a sign of appreciation for the new grain. At home the old yeast (or leaven) was thrown away. New bread from the new grain was baked without use of leaven.
In the Exodus story, the Israelites had marked their doors with the blood of a lamb. This protected them from the avenging angel. They baked unleavened bread which could be done quickly, since the leavening process was skipped. They stood while eating their departure meal because they had to hurry out of Egypt.
In Jesus’ time, a Passover lamb was purchased and taken to the temple for sacrifice. One of the apostles would have then killed the lamb and poured the blood into a container. A priest took the blood and poured it on an altar. Blood signified life. Hence this was the offering of the gift of life to God, the lamb substituting for that of the human giver. The fat and insides of the lamb were removed and burnt on the altar. The rising, sweet smoke rose to God as another form of a pleasing gift. The body of the lamb was then brought home, where it was roasted on a spit over an open fire of pomegranate wood.
Jesus had dispatched two disciples to make all these arrangements, just as he had planned the Palm Sunday entry. They acquired an upper room for the celebration. While most homes were one-story dwellings, a fair number had a single room built on the roof and accessible from an outdoor stairway. Many families used the room as a rooftop attic for storage. Some reserved the room as a “classroom” where rabbis taught their disciples. Jesus arranged for just such a room for his Last Supper. ...Contd. | | |
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