Another week, another story of siblings, another festive dinner, but this time the mood is joy. Or is it?

There is a shadow hanging over the celebration. The authorities are now seeking to arrest Jesus, and as he sits just miles from Jerusalem, it’s clear that his end is approaching. Mary knows this as she breaks open the good oil to anoint Jesus in anticipation of his death.

Judas casts a shadow of his own when he asks the question that everyone is thinking – is this extravagance really necessary? Isn’t there a better use for these resources?

From his own wilderness of impending death, Jesus points to the open-handed, open-hearted love that is fully on display in Mary’s act of anointing. To be sure, Mary pays a steep price for her open-hearted act of love. She pays with propriety. She pays with her standing in the community and her respectability. She pays with financial resources. And yet as the eyes of the disciples dart around the room and share knowing looks, Jesus declares: Leave her alone.

All four gospel writers include some version of this story. Jesus knows that open-hearted love is the only way to approach God’s vision of a world where the wilderness of scarcity and need blossoms into a new way of abundant life. Jesus knows that living that kind of open-handed, open-hearted love in our own lives will always feel risky and dangerous and ineffective and inefficient and imprudent and wasteful.

As Jesus turns toward Jerusalem and his coming death, Mary, Lazarus, Martha, and Judas, and all the others gathered in Bethany, as well as you and me, will be front of mind for him. As Jesus is lifted on the cross of Golgotha, he will open his own arms wide, and reveal the same open-hearted love for all!

We live in the light of this great love!