“Celebration”
SCRIPTURE
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?” 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.” —John 12:1-11
DEVOTIONAL
In the congregational read, “Following Jesus,” Henri Nouwen writes,
Celebrating life is not a party, but an ongoing awareness that every moment is special and asks to be lifted up and recognized as a blessing from on high…Celebration doesn’t mean to celebrate only the good moments. Ecstatic joy embraces all of life and does not shy away from painful moments, departures, and even death. Death is celebrated not because it is desirable but because death has no final power over us. There is never a death that cannot bear fruit.
We can celebrate pain not because pain is good but because we can pray with it and break bread together. Difficult moments can be lifted up. We lift them in gratitude. Celebration is really an expression of gratitude. Death doesn’t have the final word. Even agony, pain, struggles, war, all of that, is somehow not the final power. God is a God of the living.
- How is Mary’s offering (framed by Jesus as for the day of his burial) a celebration?
- On Sunday, we will witness Jesus’s great entry into Jerusalem before his arrest, crucifixion and death. Considering Nouwen’s perspective about “celebrations,” how might you understand this parade as a “celebration?”
- Where (and how) can we “celebrate” in the dark, somber days to come? What might that look like? Why would we do such a thing?
PRAYER
“God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” Amen.
1 Nouwen, Henri. Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety. (New York: Image, 2024),
106-8.
The daily devotionals for the season of Lent are written by Rev. Dr. Kirk Hall, Associate Pastor of Formation at First Presbyterian Church from 2010-2013. He is currently a founding partner at The Metis Project, LLC. and lives with his wife and two girls in Salisbury, Connecticut.