Journey to the Cross 
Pause
Poet Mary Oliver asks: where may the extraordinary happen? Not usually “among crowds, in drawing rooms, among comforts and pleasures” … but instead on “the edge.”
in Upstream: Selected Essays (2016)
Take a deep breath and turn your gaze to the Extraordinary of Holy Week.
You might have to look away from the action and towards the edge to find it, but it is there, ready to meet you.
Listen
Six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, home of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Lazarus and his sisters hosted a dinner for him. Martha served and Lazarus was among those who joined him at the table. Then Mary took an extraordinary amount, almost three-quarters of a pound, of very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She anointed Jesus’ feet with it, then wiped his feet dry with her hair. The house was filled with the aroma of the perfume.
John 12:1-3
Think
As a young girl, Barbara Brown Taylor would entertain herself with a giant book full of word puzzles and picture games. Her favorite activities asked her to search for different pictures that were cleverly hidden within the scene. “It was for me a source of unending delight,” she says, “to confront the ordinary in full confidence that it would yield the extraordinary…if only I kept at it and did not give up.” (The Preaching Life, 1993)
Today’s text shows us an ordinary scene of Jesus sharing a meal with his friends. After dinner, Mary takes a jar of expensive perfume and pours it on Jesus’ feet. Some people can’t imagine why she would do something like this – especially a woman like “her.”
But if we look more closely, what do we see?
Perhaps Mary shows us that even within ordinary humanity is the capacity for extraordinary Love. Maybe she is giving us a glimpse of the sacrificial Love that is to come.
Mary Alice Birdwhistell
Pray
God of Extravagant Love, may I have the eyes to see you hidden in ordinary spaces and the courage to share your Love in extraordinary ways. Amen.
Go
As you go about this Holy Week,
don’t be afraid to go to the edge
of what seems most ordinary
and comfortable
and familiar.
Because if you pay attention,
you will find that
extraordinary Love is hidden
in the most unexpected places around you,
and even within you.
And once you encounter it,
this Love will
never leave you the same.
May you have the courage to show up this week.
May you live fully in each fragile moment.
And may you do even the smallest things with extravagant Love.
Amen.
