Paean To A Woman's Intuition

As I reflected on this topic, I was tempted to save the thought for Mother's Day... but... why wait? So here it is.

There is an old joke that goes like this... "A woman must do twice as much as a man in order to be considered half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult."

All laughs aside, this blog reflection is on a woman who saw, more or less, not what two men could not see, but rather what twelve men pretty much could not and/or would not see. This blog is about a woman worth, in this regard, more than twelve men.

Who was the woman? Mary, the sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. And what did she see? That Jesus was going to die.

The scripture reading from the church lectionary for today is from John 12, where Mary anoints Jesus' feet with a terrifically expensive perfume. Apparently it was worth something approaching a year's wages. In today's terms, we're talking about something in the ballpark of $20,000 or perhaps $40,000 per bottle. She poured a whole bottle of this stuff on Jesus' feet.

For people like me, this incident is a great reminder that sometimes "it's not about the money." I tend to obsess about not wasting money, but it's good to remember that when Jesus is present nothing done on his behalf is too extravagant. Let that lesson overwhelm me like the scent of that perfume.

But moving on, the thing that hit me full force for the first time in my life is this: Mary got it. She knew Jesus was going to die soon. For all these years I have had this running assumption that Jesus re-interpreted her actions "for her" so that she unwittingly had given him a dying dignity. Not so. Jesus was clear about it, and I'm not sure why I never saw it before. Mary knew Jesus was going to die.

Then? Then there are the twelve disciples. Oh... there are few clues here and there that they understood that they were heading into danger. But no strong sense that they understood and accepted that Jesus was going to die. The only person who seemed truly to have not only made peace with this reality but also to have made preparation for this reality is Mary. A woman.

How did Mary know? Hard to say! Not a lot of detail to work with. But after the fact we can note that Jesus had not exactly made a secret about the matter. (See, for example, Matthew 16:21... and 16:22 for a classic case of a disciple in denial!) Maybe Mary was just the only person listening. Maybe a few other things tipped her off. The fact that he visited her and her siblings itself is a clue. Jesus knew time was short. Who did he visit? A few "best friends." Perhaps his face reflected his knowledge of what he was coming up against. Perhaps his words reflected his anticipation of sufferings not far off...

In any case, hats off to a woman's intuition. Where twelve men could not go a woman arrived in splendor. Jesus gave Mary a special (and well-earned) honor for her act of simple and extravagant adoration.

Mark 14:9
"I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her."

This blog bears testimony to the fact that Jesus was right on that score.

No shock there.