Mary of Bethany’s Perfume

Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrives in Bethany, where Lazarus lives, the man he raised from the dead. A supper is given in his honor: Martha serves, and Lazarus is at the table. Then Mary takes a pound of very costly ointment of pure spikenard, anoints Jesus’ feet, and wipes them with her hair; the whole house is filled with the fragrance. Judas Iscariot, who was going to betray him, objects: why not sell this perfume for three hundred denarii and give the money to the poor? John explains that Judas did not care about the poor: he was a thief and used to take what was put into the money bag. Jesus rebukes him: “Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.” A great crowd comes, both for Jesus and to see Lazarus, whom the chief priests also plan to put to death.