“Be it unto me according to thy word”
Again which word? And which word will be the word of comfort to us on Monday in Holy Week? Yet, Hosea bids us “take with you words and return to the Lord.” “Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him.” So we are being turned but only to confront our afflictions; our sufferings are born in him. “In all their affliction [our] he was afflicted,” Isaiah proclaims. “In his love, and in his pity, he redeemed them.”
Such is the power of love even in the face of our unloveliness. From the intensive reading of St. Matthew’s Passion on Palm Sunday, we turn to The Passion According to St. Mark on the Monday and the Tuesday of Holy Week. It begins with “an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very precious”, broken open by a silent and unnamed woman and the ointment poured out upon his head. It ends with the tears of Peter confronting his betrayal of Christ. And in between? The spectacles of betrayal beginning with the Last Supper, the agony of Gethsemane, the kiss of Judas and his being taken captive and the interrogation at the hands of the high priest. All pretty intense.
All our noisy, busyness, and bother circle around the quiet steadfastness of Christ which stands in stark contrast to the discord and disarray of our human emotions. In one way or another our animosities and interests are all directed at Christ. Only the broken alabaster box of ointment and the tears of Peter remind us of love learned and expressed through our encounter with Christ. The unnamed woman’s act is spoken against by others, thinking it a waste of the ointment, to which Christ memorably replies. “She hath wrought a good work on me: for ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good; but me ye have not always. … she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.” And the tears, too, are tears of repentance and that is a great good.
In both instances and throughout this part of Mark’s Passion we are caught up into the swirl of emotions that attend profound events. Everything here is seen though through the words of Christ which challenge our interpretation and understanding. We confront aspects of ourselves in our thoughts and actions against one another and in the folly of our own self-certainties; from those who question the woman’s action to Peter’s moment of self-realization. He has followed him afar off but when challenged about being “with Jesus of Nazareth” denies that he even knows him. “The second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him.”
Jesus explains the action of the unspeaking and unnamed woman; Peter recalls the word which Jesus had said to him. In his Passion we encounter the Word and Son of God. How will we respond? In love and loving action, in tears of repentance and sorrow? Or in stubborn denial and indifference? With the silent, unnamed woman and with Peter we see something of what is wanted in terms of our response. It is to be like Mary for that is to be turned wholly to Christ.
“Be it unto me according to thy word”
Fr. David Curry
Monday in Holy Week, 2018