Blog posts will be released each day until Easter Sunday 4 April

Contributed by Christian members of the Faith and Spirituality Team.

Wednesday

During the week Jesus and his friends were probably staying outside Jerusalem in a village called Bethany at the home of Simon who had a skin disease and was therefore considered unclean, an outcast. But Jesus’ trademark was to befriend those whom other people disregarded and Simon made him welcome. During supper on Wednesday a woman joined them and, wanting to do something kind for Jesus, broke open a jar of very costly ointment and anointed him with it. The disciples thought this extravagance was ridiculous and reprimanded her. Jesus however was greatly moved and noted that such tender and unexpected acts of kindness are sometimes the most important thing we can do for each other. So touched was he that he said, “Wherever the good news is proclaimed in all the world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”  You can read this lovely story in Mark chapter 14, verses 3 to 9.  From the Iona Community’s Stages on the Way:

It was on the Wednesday
that they called him a waster.

The place smelt like the perfume department of a big store.
It was as if somebody had bumped their elbow
against a bottle of something expensive
and sent it crashing to the floor.

But it happened in a house,
not a shop.

And the woman who broke the bottle
was no casual afternoon shopper.
She was the poorest of the poor,
giving away the only precious thing she had.

And he sat still
while she poured the liquid all over his head,
extravagant, fragrant, comforting, tender

And those who smelt it,
and those who saw it,
and those who remembered
that he was against extravagance,
called him a waster.

But they forgot
that he too was the poorest of the poor
and that he was exhausted and fearful and anxious.

Jealousy was in the air
when a poor woman’s generous and tender love
became an embarrassment to their tight-fistedness
and their hard hearts.

That was on the Wednesday …
when they called him a waster.

Very Early. Painting by Shirley J. Veater

The material from Iona comes from Stages on the Way, 1998. Copyright(c) WGRG, Iona community, Glasgow Scotland. wilgooselscotland. Reproduced with permission.

Artworks by Shirley Veater used with grateful thanks. www.shirleyveaterdesigns.co.uk