Palm Sunday Aroma

If you smell perfume in church, it's often because someone has used too much. I had a church friend whom I always wanted to tell (but of course never did) to use less floral perfume or shop for different scent. My nostrils hurt if we sat beside each other!

Last Sunday our pastor made an olfactory connection I’d never thought about before. In John 11, Lazarus’ family was concerned about the sickening smell that would fill the air from his tomb. Then right away, in John 12, we have another experience of aroma: the perfume that Mary poured upon Jesus’ feet. Our pastor---who has been teaching us to use our senses and imaginations in our experiences of the scriptures---noted that smells and aromas are very powerful triggers to memory, perhaps informing John's original account, and she speculated that the smell of perfume on Jesus’ skin might have lingered for days, during the experiences of the ensuing week (Jesus entered Jerusalem the day after Mary anointed him) and maybe as he hung upon the cross. After all, Mary used a pound of the perfume upon Jesus! Smells of death and perfume characterized the last days of Christ.

I’d forgotten what nard is---the substance Mary poured on him---so I looked it up. The stems of the spikenard plant are crushed and distilled to make a very aromatic, amber-colored and thick essential oil. Obviously perfume can be expensive; my wife likes Chanel #19 perfume, which is about $90 for a 3 oz. bottle. But the perfume might have even represented the family’s well-being; as our pastor pointed out, people of Jesus‘ time might have invested their savings in something like a pound of perfume or some other valuable tangible item, since banks and credit unions didn't exist. Our pastor consequently challenged us to think not only in terms of saving our money but also in being spontaneously and even foolishly generous in the spirit of Mary.

That’s a tough message; as I wonder whatever happened to Lazarus after his restoration, I wonder about the state of the family well-being after their investment is lost. But I also wonder about the permeation of essential oil that followed Christ and his friends as they began what we---we who are called the aroma of Christ (2 Cor. 2:15)---now call Holy Week.