LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Between Devotion and Betrayal
Mark's account is sober and precise. In chapter 14, in two successive verses, 9 and 10, he unites two characters, both closely linked to the life of the Lord Jesus, but with very different fates. Two characters that are two ways of being before the Lord.
The first is a woman, the one who anoints the Lord in the house of Simon the leper. Her name is not indicated here, but that is not important; what matters is the gesture.
This woman brings a gift to the Lord. She has chosen the best perfume and with it she anoints His head. She is full of gratitude, of tenderness for the Lord. She has brought the best of her ointments. Is not a good perfume a fine treasure for every woman?
The disciples do not understand the gesture; their heart is still narrow. They murmur against her. They do not understand. She is ahead of them in appreciating the Master. Later, they too will appreciate him in this way. Now it is the anonymous woman who goes ahead of them to love him, to caress him as they could not.
But here, at this moment, according to Mark's account, another character emerges: this one is named. His name has traveled through the ages and latitudes with its weight of ignominy and death: he is Judas Iscariot.
He has been more than three years with the Lord. He has had the opportunity to see him, like few others, in his weakness and in his glory. He has heard from His lips the riches of Heaven. The needs of man have occupied the Master's days and nights; he has traversed the whole land of his fathers, inch by inch; he has borne his supply of life to pour it out upon afflicted hearts.
Now, at the crucial moment, Judas betrays him. He has forgotten everything, he has disregarded everything, he has despised everything. He transforms the fraternal embrace into an artful stab. He is one of the intimate ones, but he betrays him.
The woman and the man. This woman and this man. Devotion and betrayal. Two extremes that come together in the life of the Servant of God, and in the lives of all the servants of God.