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More from Fr. James:

GREAT AND HOLY WEDNESDAY

Every Wednesday of the year is a day of fasting, as is every Friday, with
exceptions and relaxations in accordance with the liturgical calendar. In
monasteries, Mondays are also days of fasting, since even the Pharisees fast
twice a week (LK 18:12). We fast on Fridays in remembrance of our Lord Jesus
Christ's crucifixion and death, and on Wednesdays to remind ourselves that it
was on Wednesday of Passion Week when, in his greed and ingratitude, the lawless
Judas sold his Teacher for thirty silver coins.

But another more beautiful, most consoling event is also remembered on Holy
Wednesday: the anointing of Jesus in the home of Simon the Leper at Bethany.

We should bear in mind that the burial customs of the Jews (not to mention us
orthodox Christians, who inherit some of these traditions as a consequence of
our self-understanding as the Israel of God) forbid embalming, and that the
usual practice is to wash a corpse and anoint it with fragrant oils, and to pack
its shroud with aromatic spices. While Jewish ritual law (halakah) would not
permit Jesus’s corpse to be washed, since He had been executed by Gentiles and
as a criminal, Whose blood stained His body and could not be desecrated by
washing it away, the other burial rites of anointing and enshrouding would
ordinarily have been performed.



But none of this was possible for Jesus, since He had to be buried hastily so as
not to violate the Great Sabbath of Passover (the paskha, in our Lord’s own
language, Aramaic), one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar. The
sacrilege would have had two aspects: first, that a Jew would remain unburied on
this holiest Sabbath (JN 19:31), and also that the ‘work’ of wrapping and
burying the dead was incompatible with the ‘Sabbath rest’. It was for this
reason that the women came with ointment (myron) and spices before dawn on
Sunday morning, so that they could then complete Jesus’s burial properly, having
postponed this sacred task until the Sabbath had passed.


‘While (Jesus) was at Bethany in the house of Simon the Leper, as He lay at the
table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard; she
broke open the jar and poured the ointment on His head.


‘But some of those present began to say indignantly to each other: “Why waste
this ointment? It could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii
(TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: this was about a year's wages) and the money given to the
poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

‘ “Leave her alone!” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done
something beautiful for Me. You will always have the poor with you, and you can
help them whenever you want, but you will not always have Me. She did what she
could: she poured ointment on My body to prepare ahead for My burial. Amen! I
tell you that, wherever this Gospel is preached throughout the world, what she
has done will also be told in memory of her.” Then Judas Iscariot, who was one
of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray Him to them’ (MK
14:3-9).

(Let us not use this statement of our Lord as an excuse for not helping the
poor. Even Judas did that, but this will have to be the subject of another
meditation.)

In the same way as Jesus permitted the anointing of His living body well in
advance of His death and burial (although He alone knew this to be the case),
and granted a great blessing to the woman whose instincts, surely prompted by
God’s Holy Spirit, urged her to do this in humble repentance, on this day we
also confer the Mystery of Holy Anointing even on the healthy, although it is
usually reserved for the sick.

In many places, the Anointing Service takes the place of all other services
which might be held on the night of Holy Wednesday (at least in one church in
each major city, as S.V. Bulgakov records was the Russian practice before the
Communist Revolution), even though the Typikon assumes that we will serve the
Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, which could, of course, be served
before the Anointing.

The great affection of our people for this Mystery of comfort and consolation,
indeed the deeply felt need of it, requires the pastors and teachers of the
Church to allow us to approach for Holy Anointing even while we are in good
health, since --like our Lord Jesus Christ -- the circumstances of our last
illness and death may not permit us to receive it then.

As for all the Christian Mysteries, we are required to prepare for Holy
Anointing by repenting and confessing our sins, and by a day of fasting. As we
present our eyes and ears, our hands and our whole bodies and souls for the
healing touch of the Holy Oil, let us be mindful of how often we have taken the
organs of our bodies, the senses and tools of the temples of the Holy Spirit
which we are, and used them for sin instead of godliness.

How often have we lied, or let loose a shameful word from lips created to praise
the Lord and speak comfort to each other? How often have our ears, created to
hear the Good News of Christ’s salvation, been the vessels of gossip, of
slander, of shameful stories, jokes, and lies? How often have our hands, created
to receive the Body of Christ, to be raised in prayer, to cradle the young and
comfort the old in Christ’s Name, been raised instead in anger and violence, to
touch forbidden flesh, to steal?

Lord! Oh, Lord! ‘Watch over us, and heal our infirmities, for Your Name’s sake.’