Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus. (John 12:1–11 NRSV)
What we witness on earth holds power—intense, undeniable, and formative, for better or worse. Nostalgia and trauma, two sides of the same coin, shape our understanding of life, refining how we see the world and its impact on us. Each week in my trauma therapist’s office, I wrestle with the remnants of a violent event I experienced, seeking to untangle its grip while challenging the idea that one experience defines the truth of the world and attempting to trust Jesus to help me learn how not to live in fear but to trust him.
Never have I related more to the story of Mary of Bethany—who witnessed and experienced the trauma of her brother Lazarus’s death, her brain and body unwillingly collecting the evidence to prove to herself that it was true while wishing she was wrong. The lack of movement. The blue lips. The tears of her friend Jesus, who she had witnessed perform miracles. Surely, his weeping made her believe the situation was hopeless.
I often think about how Jesus knew this wasn’t the end for his friend Lazarus and wept not out of hopelessness but out of empathy for his friends Mary and Martha, just before doing the unimaginable and somehow reversing what was true into a more miraculous truth. I wonder what his internal dialogue was at that moment. I like to think it was 90 percent, “I can’t wait for them to see that I’ve been given the power to make the sad come untrue” and 10 percent, “Watch this ultimate party trick.” But I’m sure it was 100 percent the former.
Now, in John 12:1–11, Mary kneels before Jesus, this time not in grief but in bold devotion. She has been radicalized by her experience with Jesus. She takes a jar of expensive perfume, breaks it open, and anoints his feet. The fragrance fills the room, a tangible sign of her love and surrender.
Mary is unafraid. She has been transformed by what she has witnessed.
Judas scoffs, calling her offering wasteful, yet Mary is unselfconscious and has no concern for his opinions. She has seen Jesus command death out of her brother, and nothing else matters. When you know Christ holds power over the unconquerable, what is there to fear?
This is the unity we get as a gift from the Cross. We have collectively seen Jesus conquer what we thought could not be conquered. Sin. Fear. Despair. Death itself. We carry different burdens and bear different scars, but we are united as those who have witnessed the great undoing.
As we enter Holy Week, we are again given the opportunity to let this truth shape us. Each year, we walk through the story of Jesus’s suffering, death, and resurrection—not as passive observers but as people who are meant to be changed by it. Mary had already seen Jesus undo death once. Soon, she would witness it again—not just for Lazarus, but for the world.
Sarah Sciarini is the director of communications for First Baptist Church in Lodi, California, and for NorCal NAB.
