Often in the Gospels, the true worshipers of Jesus are those who are willing to make a scene for him. They yell. They plead. They run. They reach. They do whatever it takes to be near Jesus, whatever others may think.
A few men rip up a roof to get Jesus’s attention. A mother weeps and wails after him and won’t take no for an answer. Unclean women burst through crowds and enter Pharisees’ homes uninvited. A respectable man climbs a tree, and blind beggars won’t stop shouting. In each of these scenes, love for Jesus does not mind looking undignified, even outrageous, in the eyes of a lukewarm world.
But Holy Week gives us one of the most scandalous displays of all. A few days before Jesus lays down his life, while he eats in a home near Jerusalem, a woman comes carrying a jar of “very costly” perfume, pure nard worth a year’s wages (Mark 14:3). She holds in her hands the labor of three hundred days, the kind of fortune you keep hidden.
Conversation pauses as Jesus’s disciples and friends watch the woman step closer. What is she doing? they wonder. Then, in a few decisive movements, she breaks the neck of the jar, lifts it over the head of her Lord, and pours out every drop.
