Prairie Musings

He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity, and as one from whom others hide their faces….But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. This reading from Isaiah, the Suffering Servant hymn, is found in the Good Friday liturgy in the earliest known lectionary, from the 5th century. It draws parallels between Jesus and the annual Day of Atonement ritual in ancient Israel. This was (and still is) the holiest day of the year for Jews, the day when the High Priest would take two goats, sacrificing one on the altar, and putting his hands on the head of the other to lay on it the collective sins of the community, then releasing it into the wilderness, where it would carry off the sins, neither the goat nor the sins to ever be seen again: God had put the sins of the people away, cast them out. If you ask the average American Christian o...

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. (John 12:3) Psychologists tell us that our sense of smell is more powerfully linked to our brains, and our memories, than any other sensory perception. I certainly believe them. For me, one of those potent olfactory memories is the smell of that pink bottle of Johnson’s Baby Lotion. Sometimes it’s hard for me to fight back the tears, even though my youngest child is 13, when I smell that moisturizer—all I have to do is close my eyes and I see my kids fresh from the bath; I hear the music of their giggles as we play the stinky feet game, and I rejoice in the gift of love and I marvel in God’s sacred miracle of new life. Today’s Gospel reading gives us another story of anointing with perfumed oil, one that I don’t doubt stayed with the disciples just as tangibly as baby lotion does with me: Mary pours her perfumed oil on Je...