The Gospel of John describes Mary of Bethany as a peculiar woman. Other women, such as the mother of Jesus at the scene of the wedding of Cana, the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, Martha of Bethany and Mary Magdalene, though they were different from each other in characteristics, being influenced by Jesus, come to try to make the relationship of “God and a man and the neighbour” considering their neighbours when they face Jesus. Martha of Bethany was lifted being guided by Jesus to the extent that she said the same confession as Peter the Apostle did.*1 She was connected to the Father like Peter.*2 However, Mary of Bethany was not.
*1
“Yes,
Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into
the world.” (John 11:27)
*2
“Blessed
are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but
my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17)
Let
us look at the scene of Luke first. The straightforward word of Marta, who was distracted
with much serving, to Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left
me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me” (Luke 10:40), suggests that
there was already a relationship of trust between the two. The description, “she
went to him and said” (Luke 10:40), also tells the fact well, and we can
guess it from the fact that Jesus calls her name for the second time in a row,
“Martha, Martha…”. He said, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled
about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion,
which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42). He advised Martha
that “one thing” that she needed was to become Mary’s neighbour and to
respect her choice.
The
parable of “Good Samaritan” is placed just before this episode of Bethany (cf.
Luke 10:25-37). We can see in the dialogue between Jesus and the lawyer in this
paragraph the same themes as that between he and Martha. One of them is that they
draw dialogues from Jesus in a good relationship with him. The second is that
Jesus makes them attentive to becoming a neighbour of others.
These
themes in Luke’s Gospel were taken over to John’s Gospel through the episode of
Bethany. John the Evangelist wrote Mary’s name ahead of Martha’s name at the
beginning of the scene of Jesus raising Lazarus: “Now a certain man was ill,
Laz'arus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha” (John
11:1). This is because he wanted to continue, “It was
Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair”
(John 11:2). The reason why he inserted this phrase, which was based on the
episode he was to write later, here deliberately is that he wanted to emphasize
beforehand the importance of the difference between Mary and other women who
appear in the Gospel of John. Then, he wrote, “Now Jesus loved Martha and
her sister and Laz'arus” (John 11:5); he did not write Mary’s name here.
John the Evangelist seems to have had no positive impression in Mary of
Bethany.
In
the scene of Jesus arriving in Bethany, the following phrase is inserted: “Now
when Jesus came, he found that Laz'arus had already been in the tomb four days”
(John 11:17). He, who had already determined to raise Lazarus, informed of his
arrival and was waiting for someone to come to guide him directly to the tomb
without entering the village. He, who did not know the decision of human free
minds just because he was God, must have thought that both Mary and Martha
would come.
However,
the Gospel reads, “When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met
him, while Mary sat in the house” (John11:20). Mary was sitting and waiting
in the house until Martha came back and said quietly, “The Teacher is here
and is calling for you” (John 11:28). Martha might have come to call her
voluntarily because it is written that she said to her quietly. She
wanted her message not to be heard by other people because the word, “The
Teacher is calling for you,” came from her wit. The Gospel reads, “Now
Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still in the place where Martha
had met him” (John 11:30). He was waiting for Mary knowing Martha’s
intension. Martha had clearly progressed by the advice of Jesus. She acted as
Mary’s neighbour. She respected Mary’s choice and had built the relationship of
“God and a man and the neighbour” with Jesus.
Martha
looks at Jesus, the God present, and follows his reality. This is because she,
being guided by Jesus, had been lifted to the extent that she made the same
confession as Peter the Apostle did, and she had really tasted the word of
Jesus: “Blessed are the eyes which see what you see! For I tell you that
many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to
hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Luke 10:23-24).
On
the other hand, Mary, when she heard the word of Martha, rose quickly and went
to Jesus. She was tired of waiting. She must have believed Jesus would come to
the house first because Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. So, she
was sitting in the house and waiting for Jesus to come. Immediately after coming
to Jesus, she said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have
died” (John 11:32). Martha had said the same word too (cf. John 11:21), but
Mary had no idea to say like Martha: “[E]ven now I know that whatever you
ask from God, God will give you” (John 11:22). We can see this from the following
description: “When the Jews who were with her in the
house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her,
supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there” (John 11:31). Mary,
who had been consoled by “the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling
her,” rose quickly and went to Jesus seeking for the same consolation from
him.
“When
Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was
deeply moved in spirit and troubled; and he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’
They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’” (John 11:33-34). The day when
Jesus would fulfil the plan of God was at hand. The last table, at which he was
to constitute the Eucharist and which was to become his true bride, as well as
the Cross, which was to become his wife next day, were already waiting for him
(cf. John 3:29). He accepted the fact that everything was accelerated towards
the time with his whole body. Passion and death were at hand. He must raise
Lazarus and let time go forward.
Jesus,
on the other hand, looking at the state of Mary, one of his disciples whom he had
personally trained, wept with deep pity. The knowledge of good and evil of
Mary, who grew up as a Jew, had already taken in God’s plan together with the
information of the serpent (the accidental information) as her knowledge
from her memory of five-sense data. However, she, even though she had met Jesus
and had been guided by him, never turned to God’s plan. She had made up her own
fictional world out of the information of the serpent (the accidental
information) and lived there like Eve in Genesis (cf. The Estuary of
Theology issue 14). “Jesus wept. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved
him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man
have kept this man from dying?’” (John 11:35-37). Even now many people
accuse God like this. Soon, this word of accusation is replaced with those
words of insult that Jesus will hear on the Cross.
“You
who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you
are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” (Matthew 27:40), “He
saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come
down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.” (Matthew 27:42), “He
trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, ‘I am
the Son of God.’” (Matthew 27:43), “Aha! You who would destroy the
temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!”
(Mark 15:29-30), “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ,
the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.”
(Mark 15:31-32), “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ
of God, his Chosen One!” (Luke 23:35), “If you are the King of the Jews,
save yourself!” (Luke 23:37), “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and
us!” (Luke 23:39)
“Then
Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb; it was a cave, and a stone lay
upon it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man,
said to him, ‘Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead
four days.’” (John 11:38-39). Martha does not fear to communicate with
Jesus the way she is. She follows his reality, the reality of God, with the autonomy
to the end. This very autonomy aiming God’s plan is love. This love draws dialogues
from Jesus. “Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you would
believe you would see the glory of God?’” (John 11:40). This dialogue
between Jesus and Martha is repeated between the Holy Eucharist and Christians
even now.
John
the Evangelist, who has emphasized that “It was Mary who anointed the Lord
with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair” at the beginning of the
scene in which Jesus raises Lazarus, focuses on Mary’s behaviour in the
following scene, the supper in Bethany (cf. John 12:1-8).
People
were taking supper in Bethany. Martha served. Then Mary brought a pound of
ointment of nard and anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. The
Gospel reads, “the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.”
Who wants the place where you are enjoying a meal to be filled with the
fragrance of ointment? The Gospel of Mark writes that at the table of a meal
some people said indignantly to the woman who poured the ointment over Jesus’
head: “Why was the ointment thus wasted? For this ointment might have been
sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor” (Mark
14:4-5). It also reads, “And they reproached her.”
Disciples
were in an atmosphere of tension because they thought Jesus might rise in
revolt based on the situation written in the previous chapter of the Gospel of
John (John 11:7-16, 46-57). So, they might have got irritated with the woman bringing
the ointment and anointing Jesus in such a situation. Or they might have
thought they could buy a sword if selling it. The Gospel of Matthew writes that
when the disciples saw a woman pouring the ointment on Jesus’ head, “they
were indignant, saying, ‘Why this waste? For this ointment might have been sold
for a large sum, and given to the poor.’” (Matthew 26:8-9). Supposing from
these facts, we can say that no one among the disciples was much concerned with
the poor at that time. Jesus knew their minds and reproved them by saying, “For
you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me” (Matthew
26:11).
Considering
the difference in behaviour between Mary and other women described having
poured the ointment on Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, we will be able to
conclude that Mary was spinning her own fictional story with Jesus for herself.
The two women in the Gospel of Matthew and Mark poured the ointment on Jesus,
and that is all (cf. Matthew 26:7, Mark 14:3). The woman in the Gospel of Luke
was “a sinful woman”, and it reads, “[S]tanding behind him at his feet,
weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair
of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment”
(Luke 7:38). It was her tears that she wiped with her hair. What Mary of
Bethany did was unusual and was different from things that these three women did.
It was only her that “anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her
hair” (John 12:3). By this action, she made her hair absorb the fragrance
of the ointment of nard with which she anointed Jesus’ feet.
Like
other disciples, Mary must have sensed the situation Jesus was confronting
right now. John the Evangelist put the following episode: “Many of the Jews
therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what
he did, believed in him; but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them
what Jesus had done” (John 11:45-46). The fact that the Evangelist
purposely wrote, “who had come with Mary,” suggests that she might have
known at second hand that the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the
council and planned to kill Jesus. They indeed decided to kill him (cf. John
11:47-57).
Mary
sensed that the atmosphere of tension suggesting the future danger was filling
the place. She understood that the Teacher would rise in revolt and never
return to her. This supper may become the last one. She made up her mind. She
must have envisioned a fictional story in which Jesus’ feet which she anointed
with the ointment of nard come to her bed this night seeking for her hair with
the same fragrance. She made herself the bride of Jesus, the bride of
Christ.
At
that moment, Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ disciples, who was to betray him
later, said to Mary, “Why was this ointment not sold
for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” (John 12:5). Jesus
reproved him, but his word was blunt. On the other hand, in the Gospel of
Matthew and Mark, Jesus tells in support of the motive of the woman who poured
the ointment on his head; he says, “In pouring this ointment on my body she
has done it to prepare me for burial” (Matthew 26:12), and says, “She
has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burying”
(Mark 14:8). Also, Jesus interceded by saying, “[W]hy do you trouble her?
She has done a beautiful thing to me” (Matthew 26:10, Mark 14:6). Furthermore,
he even says, “Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the
whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her” (Matthew
26:13, Mark 14:9). In contrast to these, Jesus in the scene of anointing the
ointment in John’s Gospel only said, “Let her alone, let her keep it for the
day of my burial” (John 12:7).
John
the Evangelist explains, “This he said, not that he cared for the poor but
because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was
put into it” (John 12:6), after the word of Judas, “Why was this ointment
not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He put Mary of
Bethany alongside this “Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to
betray him)” in his Gospel. It must be because, looking through the eyes of
John the Evangelist, the image and the behaviour of Mary, who was one of the
disciples trained directly by Jesus yet made up a fictional world and has seen
Jesus while immersed in it, seemed to overlap with these facts of Judas. Though
they were with Jesus and experienced the reality that God was among people,
they lived in the fictional world they made up, and they did not even give a glance
at the contradiction between the two worlds. They completely ignored Jesus, who
was the enmity itself that God had put in the knowledge of good and evil
in Genesis so that people could solve the contradiction (cf. The Estuary of
Theology issue 14).
The
behaviour of Judas Iscariot and Mary of Bethany comes from the fictions they
made up by themselves. These fictions are the evolved form of the fictitiousness originated from Eve, who personified the
accidental information, which has come to be shared by people of more than
one person when they are with each other (cf. The Estuary of Theology
issue 11), and called it the “serpent” (cf. The Estuary of Theology
issue 14). Human beings made a dramatic evolution when they acquired the
ability to create a fiction and to share it with others through language.
However, at the same time, this fictitiousness was put together with the Adam-originated
human tendency of justifying one’s own memory of an action remaining in his
five-sense data by attributing the cause of having a contradiction to God
(others) (cf. The Estuary of Theology issue 14) and produced the work
of men. Human destiny which had been determined towards the work of men
by the acts of Adam and Eve firmly re-directed its helm to God’s plan announced
by God at the beginning of the creation of human beings* when Jesus has atoned
for sins and prepared everything perfectly for the Holy Spirit, who was to
descend to the earth, and for people. John the Evangelist challenged the task
of handing down things that Jesus had prepared preserving them amid the
persecution so that Christians, who live with the Holy Spirit, can fully use them
by the Holy Spirit.
* “Then
God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon
the earth.’” (Genesis 1:26)
To
be continued.
Sep. 2020 in
Hiroshima
Maria K
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