THE MORNING AFTER

MONDAY AFTER PALM SUNDAY IN LENT 2015

It is Holy Monday and today I want to look at Mark 14:1-9. The text tell us that it is two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread…and the authorities had had enough of Jesus and they were intent on killing him.

The scene offered is powerful…a woman poured oil over Jesus’ head and anointed him. I have titled today’s short reflection The Morning After. It is the Morning After Palm Sunday for me. Two big services yesterday and a higher number of people in duress and requiring some pastoral attention. It is the Morning After Jesus’ last confrontation in the Temple…those must have been exhausting. So here is Jesus, here am I, sitting. Can you imagine someone coming up and pouring oil over your head…the value of that oil equivalent to one year’s worth of your salary? What do you make in a year? Now turn that into oil and pour it out, offer it over—Jesus.

I find that on days when it feels like the Morning After things are a little more surreal for me. It is as if I don’t fully engage. Said differently, it takes a while to get my engine running. The scene portrayed in the Gospel today seems surreal as well…and maybe that is good. When things seem surreal it is as if they are slowed down and they intersect me differently…how about for you? How does a year’s worth of expensive perfume poured over your head strike you? How about if you knew it was because you were being prepared for burial? It is beyond words to imagine what going through Jesus’ mind this week.