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Sound & Season is a daily audio devotional designed to connect the routine moments of life to the rhythms of the Church seasons.
This is Sound in Season. It's Saturday, the 34th day of Lent. Our passage today comes from the gospel of Mark, chapter 14 verses 1 through 11. It was now 2 days before the Passover and the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, and the chief priests and scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, for they said, not during the feast lest there be an uproar from the people. And while he was at Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.
Lauren Starnes:There were some who said to themselves indignantly, Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor. And they scolded her, But Jesus said, leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.
Lauren Starnes:For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them, but you will not always have me. She has done what she could. She has anointed my body beforehand for burial, and truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her. Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the 12, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them, and when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money, and he sought an opportunity to betray him. This is the word of the lord.
Lauren Starnes:Thanks be to god.
Jeffrey Heine:Betrayal and blessing. One person responds to Jesus and goes to him with great love and sacrifice. Another responds to Jesus and goes to the chief priests with treason and betrayal. In the words of Jerome, Christ did not need the perfume, yet the woman freely poured it out in honor of Christ and her heart's devotion was accepted. And in this offering of worship, Jesus was able to again point to his coming suffering and death.
Jeffrey Heine:Mary has anointed Jesus for his burial. Soon his body will lie motionless in the borrowed grave. But for now, the sweet smell of costly perfume permeates the room as both a symbol of devotion and as an omen of the suffering to come.
Lauren Starnes:Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, we come to you with our offerings of praise. May we pour out our worship upon you without hesitation. With abandon, help us to bring all that we are to your feet in humility. Let our prayers be counted as incense before You, and the lifting up of our hands as the evening sacrifice. Oh, Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lauren Starnes:Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.