Jesus Said I Am to Proclaim His Divine Nature as Fully God and Fully Man
As we look toward Palm Sunday and Holy Week, we approach the last Sunday in Lent, traditionally referred to as Passion Sunday. Passion Sunday marks the beginning of a two-week-long period known as Passiontide, which is observed by various Protestant denominations. During this Fifth and final Sunday of Lent we should all reflect on how God’s wonderful gifts have affected our lives and our relationship with Him, and our families and our brothers and sisters in Christ.
As we reflect on the events that led to the Passion of Christ, we look to what Christ said in St. John’s Gospel. Jesus told the Jews: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM”! This was one of the most powerful statements ever made by Jesus. When He said that He existed before Abraham, He was proclaiming His divinity. Not only that, He also used God’s Holy name, “I AM.” Jesus’ enemies understood exactly what he meant by his words: “before Abraham was, “I AM.” Once he said this, the Jews took up stones to cast at Him, but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple. On Passion Sunday we see one of the many reasons, that his enemies wanted him dead, and why they were unrelenting in pursuit of his execution.
Later in St. John’s Gospel in the 12th Chapter, we are told of the story of Mary and Martha of Bethany, with their brother Lazarus, and how Jesus came to their home; and the sisters prepared a very nice meal. In the midst of this meal, Mary comes into the dining area with a bottle of expensive oil, the kind that was customarily used to anoint the dead before burial. She pours it lavishly over Jesus’ feet and then dries his feet with her hair. It was a very costly and generous gift, one that comes from the very heart, and soul of the giver.
The story of Martha and Mary also puts generosity in the context of love for God. Martha works to prepare dinner, while Mary sits and listens to Jesus. Martha asks Jesus to rebuke her sister for not helping, but instead Jesus commends Mary. Mary and Martha are not enemies but sisters, just two sisters squabbling about household duties.
Martha’s generous service is not minimized by Jesus, but her worries show that her service needs to be grounded in Mary’s kind of love for him. Together, the sisters embody the truth that generosity and love of God are intertwined realities. Martha performs the kind of generosity Jesus commends. By sitting at Jesus’ feet, Mary shows that all our service ought to be grounded in a lively personal relationship with Him.
Following Christ means becoming like Martha as well as Mary. Be generous and love God. These are mutually reinforcing, as is the two sisters’ relationship with each other. This symbolic gesture also demonstrates Mary’s gratitude to Jesus, who had raised her brother Lazarus from the dead, only weeks before; and Mary treats the Lord, the giver of Life, as if he had already given His life.
We do not know how anyone else in the house interpreted this extravagant gesture, except for Judas. Judas asked the money question: would it not have been better to spend all that money on the poor and needy? To question Mary’s generosity in this way seems to be valid, as Jesus had built much of his reputation on the way he accepted, fed, and healed people who were outside the social circle and economic status of the average Pharisee.
Many were men and women without any status in the eyes of the temple and court authorities. They were also widows and children who had fallen on tough times. Jesus’ response to Judas is interesting: Jesus said: “Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always.” He pretty much tells Judas to leave Mary alone, as she had bought the oil for the day of His burial. Then we are once again reminded of Jesus’ death when He said,“You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have Me.” The rebuke is somewhat gentle, but there is great truth in His response.
In the house at Bethany, the poverty of the human Jesus becomes visible. Mary’s extravagant gift of anointing is given to one for whom there was no room at the inn at his birth, for whom there was precious little hospitality given during his lifetime, and for whom, in the end, there will be a borrowed tomb.
Further on in St. John’s Gospel, we find that many of the people coming to Jerusalem for the Passover stop by the house to see this
Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead, and to see Jesus. So many people went to visit their home in Bethany, that the Jerusalem authorities who were hunting for Jesus, decided to find, arrest, and most likely, kill Lazarus too, since, we are told, “it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and believed in Jesus.” It appears that the generosity of Mary, Martha and Lazarus had unintended consequences.
More than any other gospel, the Gospel of John indicates how very unwelcome Jesus was among his own Galilean, Jewish neighbors, and how He became the focus of suspicion and growing hostility on the part of a small but powerful segment of the Jerusalem leadership.
The story of the dinner at Bethany, points us toward the events of Holy Week that will result in Jesus’ crucifixion, during the annual Passover celebration.
Indeed, the poor will always be with us, and we do not always make time, or use our imaginations for such generous offerings, like Mary who poured out an abundance of oil on Jesus’ feet. Mary’s gift was the token of a deep-seated generosity in her soul that mirrored and honored the generosity of God our Creator, who gives us life by bringing us out of error, into truth, out of sin, into righteousness, and out of death into life.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.
The Most Rev. Dr. Rick Aaron Reid, Presiding Bishop Traditional Anglican Church of America Rector, St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Newton, North Carolina 28658