The Church
of the Ascension
Fifth Avenue at Tenth Street
New York City, New York

Mailing address:
12 W. 11th St
New York, NY 10011

v: 212-254-8620
f: 212-254-6520

Worship schedule
Sundays: 9am, 11am
Monday–Friday: 6pm

Monday, April 02, 2007

Monday in Holy Week

Psalm 36:5-10
Isaiah 42:1-9
Hebrews 11:39-12:3
John 12:1-11

Each of today's readings has a theme — love, justice, faith, humility — that is presented to us in an emotionally engaging way. The two readings from the Hebrew scriptures are lyric poetry at its most uplifting. The Psalm verses are, literally, a hymn whose images comfort us (we can "take refuge under the shadow of thy wings") and assure us of God's love (we can "drink from the river of thy delights"). In Isaiah, the "servant", who is meant to be Israel as a whole, brings "justice to the nations." Even in English translation, the poetry of the pre-exilic author lifts our spirits with exalted verses such as "I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness… I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations." The "nations" in Hebrew is of course the "goyim" – the non-Jews. The reading is a moving and beautiful glorification of Israel's mission to the world.

The New Testament readings are in prose, but still rich in literary beauty with such metaphors as "a great cloud of witnesses" and "let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us." The unknown author is writing to a community of Jews to convince them not to give up their Christian faith, which has faltered, probably in the face of persecution.

Finally there is John's moving gospel story of Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, anointing Jesus's feet with oil and wiping his feet with her hair. Both Mark and Matthew tell the story of Jesus's being anointed with oil by a woman in Bethany, though she is unnamed, as a symbolic precursor to his passion and death. Luke does not mention the anointing, but introduces the sisters Mary and Martha who serve Jesus in "a small village." The evangelist John synthesizes these stories so that the anointer is now Mary, in the presence of her sister Martha, both of whom live in Bethany and are sisters to the man Jesus raised from the dead, Lazarus. In any case, Mary's anointing of Jesus's feet (in Matthew and Mark, his head is anointed), and wiping it with her hair is a powerful image of humility. Wagner incorporated it into Act III of his great mystical opera Parsifal when the abject sinner, Kundry, bathes the feet of the pure hero and wipes them with her hair.

Peter Clark

posted by AscensionNYC @ 11:11 PM  |  link  |