The village of Bethany
Southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives
Two miles east of Jerusalem
Thirty years after the death of Herod the Great
The man the authorities plan to kill has just arrived. It has taken him six hours to walk the thirteen miles from Jericho, the city where Herod the Great died, where Herod’s son Archelaus built an opulent palace, and where the Israelites first won victory upon entering the land of promise.
He might have been here sooner. He had intended to pass quickly through Jericho and to arrive in Bethany yesterday. Then crowds had formed and the road had filled up with people eager to watch as he passed by. This slowed him down, but it was that pitiful tax man who caused the big delay. When he saw the blustering little official sitting on the high branch of a tree, trying to see over the heads of his taller neighbors, something about the scene had moved him and he decided to spend the night in the man’s house.
This disgusted the gossips and the narrow of heart, who thought it wrong for a man of God to associate with publicans—despicable men who collected inflated taxes to profit for themselves. They would sell their own people to Rome. Few are as hated. Yet that night changed everything in Zakkai’s life. He stopped being a traitor to Israel and became a righteous man in the course of one evening.
The next morning, the hunted one pressed on. He was just putting Jericho behind him when a blind man called to him from the side of the road. There were appointments to keep, but something he heard in the voice calling out from its darkness captured him. He spoke with the man and with a second blind man who was there too. Then, without ceremony, he restored their sight. They wept and clung to him, the pain of the blackened years seeping away. He, knowing what the future held for Bar Timaeus and his companion, asked them to join him on the road to Jerusalem.
Finally, he has arrived in Bethany with his men. It is a strategic move. The authorities suspected he might sneak into the city during Passover to lead some kind of revolt. They put out the word that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he had a duty to inform. He has outwitted them. He has come six days before the Passover and has decided to stay just an hour’s walk from the City, though on the opposite side of the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem. He is within reach but out of view, then, and the authorities cannot find him.
He has come here for yet another reason, something other than trying to stay alive. Bethany is where Lazarus lives, the man he raised from the dead a few days ago. When the temple officials heard about it, they decided once again they had to kill Jesus. They decided to kill Lazarus too. The authorities wish this story of resurrection to go away. Jesus has come to Bethany to make sure it does not happen.
It is Friday, the 8th of Nisan. This evening Shabbat, the Sabbath, begins. Friends are holding a feast in his honor, for Bethany is hailing him as a hero. It is being held in the home of the man called Simon the Leper—though he is a leper no more. Mary and Martha, grateful for their brother’s return from the dead, excitedly serve the guests.
This is what he needs now: to relax among friends, to lean back against the cushions around the table and slowly, deliberately taste the food. He needs a cup or two of wine and a well-told story and some meaningful conversation with his men.
But then it happens. He is savoring the sumptuous meal. A small crowd of onlookers watches from the edge of the light. Suddenly, Mary steps behind him. She has a marble-looking bottle in her hands, and when she abruptly breaks it open, everyone recognizes the smell of nard. The discerning know by the scent that it is actually pure nard—and shockingly expensive. Without waiting for permission, she pours the silky perfume upon his feet. The guests stare in wonder. Why hasn’t she left this for the servants?
Mary stops. Some are relieved, but then, she does the thing that ought not be done. Slowly, naturally, she reaches up and unbinds her hair. There are protests. She doesn’t care. Her hair falls loosely about her shoulders, something a respectable woman would only let happen in private. Then, with utter calm, she takes a portion of her hair in her hand and uses it to rub the nard into his feet.
He does not move. He receives. A woman with her hair unbound is kneeling at his feet and rubbing appallingly expensive perfume upon him with her hair. It is understandable that some in the room should squirm. The nard is worth a year of a workman’s wages, and yet it is being poured out on one man’s feet? The news will spread. It will be a scandal. Then there is the matter of this woman and her familiar ways. Surely he knows what they will say about this. He should know, since he allowed this to happen once before, slightly more than two years ago when he first started out. A woman was involved then, too. His men remember the waste and the shame and the questions. For some it is far too much. They rage. How dare she! The expense! The presumption! They start pushing Mary away.
He raises his hand. This stops them. He seems moved and says he is grateful to her. She has prepared him for burial. Take care of the poor whenever you want. He says this to the ones incensed by the price of the perfume. Take care of them well, for they will always be with you. But I’m not here much longer. Let her do what she was meant to do.
After this, nothing is the same. His men look at him differently.
One of them, the one who tends the money and keeps the books, is so disgusted with this wasteful, sensual display that he slips out the back door. He knows what to do. The others are from the mountains up north but he’s a Judean. He’s local, has connections and understands the way things work. He leaves to make the necessary arrangements, certain the man he has been following is no longer a man of God.