'Fig Moday' Holy Monday, 14th April, by Fr Jack

Mary and the nard: St John's Gospel 12.1-11

In today’s Gospel, Jesus comes to spend time with his friends. With His friends.

We so often talk about marriage as if it was the only or highest form of Christian relationship. ‘Christ and His bride the church’ (Ephesians 5.22), the prominent place of the sacrament of marriage in the Church’s life, and the culture that has grown up around marriage in Christendom as we have received it.

But here, on this Monday in Holy Week - as the rubber hits the road in so many ways - we are reminded that that must never be allowed to obscure, or devalue the holy gift of friendship. 

Blood is thicker than water, you may say. There’s (tier A) ‘family’ and then (tier B) ‘friends’. But this is not the way the Saviour lives or shows us. Again and again He comes simply to hang out with Ss Mary, Martha and Lazarus. This gang of siblings that are His friends. We read His visits, and focus on things like Lazarus’ resurrection, Mary’s nard. And we should, they’re important! But we mustn’t lose sight on the friendship in which all this happens.

The Hebrew word Hesed is translated (not fulsomely enough in English) as something like ‘loving-kindness’. It is one of the essential and defining characteristics of God in the Old Testament. God is loving kindness, hesed. 

This word is used in relationships like Naomi and Ruth, these two women, friends, both widows, mother and daughter-in-law, who fall on hard times. And Naomi releases Ruth from her bond as daughter-in-law (Ruth 1.11). Ruth stays because of her love, her loving-kindness, hesed, her friendship with Naomi. And by using the same hesed for that relationship, as for God, we see something beautiful and true; something that can be so easily overlooked, or said cheaply, without noticing the depth of what we are saying. It’s there in Ruth and Naomi. It’s there in Jesus’ visit today to Ss Mary and Martha and Lazarus.

What do these women of the passion have to teach us?

God’s way of being is friendship. God offers us friendship. God desires our friendship. God is our friend. God desires us to share friendship, and shows us the way. Deep, loving, real, holy friendship, is at the heart of the Christian life. It isn’t a triviality, it speaks of God’s nature and God’s call on our life. 

Jesus lavishes His short time on earth amongst His friends, as He does so today. With this little family in the Gospel today, and with us.

'I no longer call you servants, but friends’ (St John 15.15). ‘Ye are my friends’ (St John 15.14)

Footnote: Fr Steffan Mathias