Wednes­day

The Phar­isees and Sad­ducees, for once, were in agree­ment: they need­ed to be rid of Jesus of Nazareth. On Tues­day Jesus’ ene­mies hound­ed him with ques­tions — try­ing to dis­cred­it him in the eyes of the crowds who had filled the city for Passover, hunt­ing for spe­cif­ic evi­dence which would prove him guilty of some pun­ish­able crime.

At the end of the day Jesus and his dis­ci­ples walked back to the town of Bethany where they had been stay­ing, away from all the scruti­ny and hatred of the reli­gious authorities. 

So a safe and qui­et place to spend the night was impor­tant, a refuge for him from all the harangue and pres­sure. Unques­tion­ably Bethany was that place. But it wasn’t his favorite because of the loca­tion or the accom­mo­da­tions, per se. This small vil­lage was the home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus — Jesus’ very dear friends. 

So what does the Bible tell us about them? Do we know any­thing about this family? 

The first thing we notice is that scrip­ture invari­ably refers to their res­i­dence as ​“the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.” Jew­ish homes were always, always, referred to as the home of …who­ev­er the man of the house was. But not this one. This home was owned by Martha. The man of the house would have been named first, unless for some rea­son he was not capa­ble of man­ag­ing a home.

Like what? Why might Lazarus not have been the own­er? Hold that thought.

Trans­la­tors have thought that Bethany meant ​“house of figs.” Makes sense — with so many fig trees on that east­ern slope above Jerusalem. The Hebrew let­ters in the two words are sim­i­lar. But oth­er schol­ars sug­gest that in Ara­ma­ic, the com­mon lan­guage which Jesus spoke, beth ​‘anya, or beth ani means ​“house of the poor” or ​“house of afflic­tion.” In fact, many archae­ol­o­gists now believe the vil­lage of Bethany was a cen­ter for car­ing for the sick and the des­per­ate­ly poor — some­thing along the lines of today’s Sal­va­tion Army, or Shriners Hos­pi­tal, or a nurs­ing home com­mu­ni­ty. The ancient Dead Sea Scrolls indi­cate that there were to be three places des­ig­nat­ed for the care of the sick, includ­ing one for lep­ers, and they are to be locat­ed out of view, on the hill­side, east of Jerusalem. 

Could this be Bethany? 

Think about it… The evening meal Jesus had on Tues­day night was at the home of Simon the Lep­er. Lep­ers were barred from enter­ing com­mu­ni­ties of healthy peo­ple. And the encounter with Mary and Martha that we know best is when their broth­er is ill— and then dies. Was Lazarus an invalid, or a lep­er, and his sis­ters’ home his hospice? 

It casts such an inter­est­ing light on the scene that hap­pens when Mary anoints Jesus. This sure­ly was a most beau­ti­ful moment in Jesus’ life.

It was two days before the Passover and the fes­ti­val of Unleav­ened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were look­ing for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, ​“Not dur­ing the fes­ti­val, or there may be a riot among the people.”

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the lep­er, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very cost­ly oint­ment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the oint­ment on his head. But some were there who said to one anoth­er in anger, ​“Why was the oint­ment wast­ed in this way? For this oint­ment could have been sold for more than three hun­dred denarii, and the mon­ey giv­en to the poor.” And they scold­ed her. But Jesus said, ​“Let her alone; why do you trou­ble her? She has per­formed a good ser­vice for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kind­ness to them when­ev­er you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anoint­ed my body before­hand for its bur­ial. Tru­ly I tell you, wher­ev­er the good news is pro­claimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remem­brance of her.”

Then Judas Iscar­i­ot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them.¹

Anoint­ing a guest with oil or a few drops of per­fume was a com­mon prac­tice of hos­pi­tal­i­ty. But Mary poured the whole jar on Jesus’ head. It was an extrav­a­gant sign of her love for him. But the dis­ci­ples — Judas in par­tic­u­lar — object to what they con­sid­er to be a cost­ly waste. ​“Sure­ly the per­fume could have been sold and used for the poor,” they say. Why would they sud­den­ly be con­cerned about peo­ple in pover­ty? One com­men­ta­tor has asked if this objec­tion was made in embar­rass­ment — here they were in Bethany among those who care for the poor.

Jesus sim­ply says ​“The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.”

Mary under­stood this. There in the midst of the men Jesus had spent hours and hours with, prepar­ing them for his inevitable death, Mary is one who real­ly under­stood. The trea­sured bot­tle of per­fume was to be for the bur­ial of a loved one. She did not wait for that. Instead she chose to sac­ri­fice what she had, pour­ing love on the head that would soon wear thorns. Against the back­drop of hatred and treach­ery, in the midst of those who were slow to under­stand, her love for the Lord shines as a sin­gle candle.

And Judas left the house.

There is almost noth­ing said in any of the four gospels about what hap­pened on Wednes­day. Silent Wednes­day has become a fas­ci­na­tion for me. I can’t help but won­der why none of those hours were record­ed. There seems to be some­thing qui­et­ly inten­tion­al in not record­ing Wednes­day as a day of events.

But it’s not impos­si­ble to imag­ine what Jesus did on Wednes­day. We have clues through­out his min­istry as to how he retreat­ed from time to time. He often went up into the moun­tains to pray. He got in a boat and went to the oth­er side of the lake to have a break from the ever-press­ing crowd. And although it is only men­tioned by name twice, it is like­ly that the beau­ti­ful gar­den of Geth­se­mane was a reg­u­lar place of pri­vate prayer for our Lord. 

Mary’s faith and love was a pre­cious pre­lude for a day of qui­et med­i­ta­tion and time in prayer. If Jesus had not known what was com­ing, it might have just been downtime…rest. He sure­ly need­ed that. But he did know what was ahead. 

Wednes­day was lit­er­al­ly Jesus’ last time away from all the mad­ness. And I won­der if there is some­thing so very instruc­tive to us about the fact that even the gospel writ­ers did not know— or chose not to dis­close— what our Lord did to pre­pare him­self for the cer­tain death that lay ahead. 

I think we can safe­ly assume that he took com­fort from the love and ado­ra­tion of Mary. I imag­ine he had to do some seri­ous pray­ing about for­giv­ing the ene­mies who await­ed him. Per­haps being in Bethany, the ​“house of suf­fer­ing,” pre­pared him to face his own suf­fer­ing with stead­fast­ness unto obedience.

When is the last time you and I had our own Wednesday? 

Our suf­fer­ings can­not com­pare to those of Jesus Christ, but we do face dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions — all the time! We do have ene­mies. We do need courage to do the right thing. We do need strength when we are in pain, or are fear­ful. And we do need rest. And thanks to Jesus who mod­els the life of faith­ful­ness— thanks to his invi­ta­tion — we can take all of those needs to God our Father, and he will give us what we need. 

Some­time Wednes­day Judas Iscar­i­ot slipped back into Jerusalem and found the Chief Priest. He had seen enough. His inter­est in Jesus as a polit­i­cal sav­ior had dis­solved, and he was will­ing to switch sides. He would betray Jesus in exchange for a bag of coins. He would give them a sign — he would feign affec­tion and betray the Son of God with a kiss. 

Wednes­day of Holy Week is often referred to as ​“Betray­al Wednes­day.” I don’t choose to give betray­al that place in the sto­ry. I would rather think of it as the day Jesus spent with his Father in prayer, in the lit­tle town of the poor and suf­fer­ing whom he came to save.