We talked about this great story on Friday. I translated it from a chapter of the book “In meinem Herzen Feuer” (Fire in my Heart) by Johannes Hartl.

This is the first hot day this spring. The wind turned last night and now it blows warm air from Negev over Bethany. This is the last week before the big feast. There are already a few dozen pilgrims who, just like this time every year, move into their quarters in the small towns right behind the Olive Tree Mountain. Commercial activities carried out on the streets, flocks of sheep and children yelling…

The last few days had been exhausting. Hiking through different places, quarrelling with more and more hostile pharisees and rabbis. Whispered claims of a murder plot… Apparently everywhere in Jerusalem people are talking about Jesus and the resurrected Lazarus. Worrying gossips can be heard from Herod’s palace.

Jesus is exhausted too. The way from Ephraim was dusty and steep. They departed in the morning and they are just rejoicing over meeting their friends in Bethany. Jesus was sometimes strange in the last few days. He talked anxiously about his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. About conflicts, betrayal and about dying. How good that these can be forgotten as they see the first mud huts in Bethany which stand on the mountainside. The synagogue with its curly roof beams, the village dwellings and, like everywhere: gathering children, curiously staring or happily waving village people. Jesus is back again. But there’s no preaching today, no visit to the synagogue, and no healing.

A small, paved path along a stonewall, a few steps from the village center, leads to Simon’s estate. Yes, that widowed spice grocer who became sick from leprosy a few years ago, shortly after which he had to be excluded from the village and shortly after which he passed away. The house of Lazarus and his older sisters who cared for him and the household instead of his parents.

“Shalom lach, Marjam”, Jesus says, entering the room first. With complete joy Maria turns around: “Jeshua! Shalom lecha!” she says, shining. “I didn’t know that you would arrive so early! Take a seat!” The younger ones also enter. Martha and Lazarus hurry to them. “How beautiful it is that you are here!” says Martha and hands over a clay bowl filled with water to wash their hands. “You must be hungry.”

She immediately disappears into the kitchen. Lazarus lies down at the table. “How good it is to be here again!” Jesus says, as he takes a sip from the cup in front of him. Oil lamps will be lit, bread and spicy dip will be served.

Jesus is the honoured guest. The family’s friend. “Tell us Jesus, where have you been? We heard you have some enemies.” The guys tell them about the last week’s journeys, the wanders and the quarrels. Here comes Martha. You must taste this wine, I bought it for Passover, but I will use this jar today. Pickled olives, ewe’s milk cheese, raisins and fresh, crunchy pita: a feast meal for Jesus. They hand around salt, herbs and olive oil in a small bowl for the cheese. A joyful conversation starts about common memories, happy events and every now and then a word from Jesus that pricks up their ears.

Suddenly Maria stands up from the table. She was silent so far —as always she just looked at Jesus, listened to his words. The conversations at the table, eating, the work— all of these seem to her to happen just in the background. She disappears into the side room and for some minutes her absence is hardly noticed. None of the guests notice as she silently enters the living room again from the back. In the shadows, out of the oil lamps’ cone of light she approaches Jesus. No one guesses what is about to happen. And as Maria starts, some seconds pass before anyone can react. In her arm she carries an alabaster amphora, artistically designed, shimmering in light rose-tones. This is one of those bottles that one can find on markets at the spice merchants, only those are usually smaller. The bottle is sealed. Immediately it will be clear for Martha and Lazarus what Maria is doing. They know that bottle.

Their father, Simon, inherited a small shop from his father. He bought mastic, baldanum and similar incense resins from Persian merchants in Jericho and he sold them in Jerusalem. He extended his business further with noble spiced wine from Lebanon, red make-up from Tyrus, Kassia and India and cloves from Egypt. He himself produced perfumes and mixes for embalmment and therefore he owned a small collection of the noblest and most expensive fragrances.

To acquire such an amount of spikenard was seldom. But it seemed to be the business of his life: pure, valuable nard from the land between the Euphrates and Tigris. He got to smell a few drops and it was enough: this was the finest spikenard he had ever seen. He saw in front of his eyes dozens of big embalmment amphoras that he could make smell gloriously with a few drops of this aroma essence. The oil’s price was high. He had to invest a grand part of his liquid funds. 150, 200, 250, 300 silver coins… he counted on the table of the caravan leader. But he could produce expensive perfumes with this essence for several years and aim for a good turnover.

All of these run through Martha’s and Lazarus’ head: the father passed away two years ago. Martha, the oldest one inherited the house, Lazarus inherited the liquid funds and the land on the hills. And Maria - the still sealed amphora. The spike oil is her whole inheritance. Her financial safety, her marriage portion and through that the only chance to find a man, have children and social safety.

She holds exactly this alabaster amphora in her hands and… with a confident movement she breaks the bottle’s thin neck and starts to pour the content on Jesus’ head. Eyes and mouths stay open in shock - she shakes the oil properly. That oil from which already very few, carefully dosed drops are enough to aromatise all the king’s men.

Still she does not stop there. A thin, shiny trickle runs out of the broken alabaster. It moistens Jesus’ thick hair, runs over his forehead, soaks in the edges of his garment. She is nearing Jesus’ feet. She pours it richly over them too and she massages the perfume in with her hands. The flowery essence possession captures the whole room like an explosion of the charming fragrance. Sweet, oriental, tempting and endlessly saturated, awaking thousand memories and beguiling the senses. “What is she doing?” is written on the faces of the visitors and some of them articulate it by whispering as well. And it is not enough yet. With a deft movement she pulls the veil of her hair and frees the wooden clasp from her thick, dark brown hair, falling down in long waves now. Holding her head very close to Jesus’ feet, she winds her hair around his feet like a towel to dry them.

This is really going too far. Everything smells like spike oil: it is dripping from Jesus’ head, his garment, his feet, Maria’s hair and it runs on the covers Jesus lies on.

“What’s all this fuss about?”, explodes Judas. “That is spike oil, it is worth a fortune. One could have sold it for 300 Denarius and give the money to the poor. What a nonsensical waste.” The others also agree: “This was her inheritance!” “If Simon would know!” “This is really excessive!” “Why doesn’t Jesus say a word?” “Imagine, 300 Denarius.”

But Jesus doesn’t seem to hear all of that. Rather than smiling, he silently and knowingly looks at Maria, whose eyes are steadfastly directed to him.

“Let her!”, he says, as if he would talk rather to her than to the others. “You will always have the poor, but not me. I tell you, wherever on the whole earth the gospel will be declared, people will talk about what she has done.”

It is a few days later. His hair and his garment hasn’t been washed since then. It is the day before the Passover. Maria’s oil is still in his thick, wavy hair, as the first stick hits his head. His forehead seems to shimmer from that oil as the finger long thorns sting through his skin up to the skull bones. As they tear his clothes from his wounded body, his garments smell like oil as Psalm 45 promised. As his feet are pierced through by the nails, they remember her hair on his skin. And in the last moment before Jesus’ senses fade away on the cross… he can smell the spike oil on his skin. “Maria anointed this body for the burial. She has done good to me. This will never be forgotten of her.”