Slow MoverBetween Perfume and Silver
On this day, before the supper, before the garden, before the trial, Jesus stands in the narrowing space between love and betrayal.
One hand pours out costly perfume. Another reaches for silver.
One disciple offers a gift too deep for words. Another calculates a price.
And Jesus receives both the devotion and the treachery without turning aside from the road ahead.
Holy Wednesday is a quiet day in the Gospel story, but it is not an empty one. It is a day of gathering shadows. A day when motives are revealed. A day when the heart is weighed. Around Jesus, some are moved by love, others by fear, others by disappointment, others by greed. Yet Christ keeps walking.
There is something unsettling in this day because it reminds us that betrayal does not always come with a shout. Sometimes, it comes in a whisper, a private arrangement, a hidden bargain, a small surrender of the soul. Sometimes, it comes clothed in reason, practicality, or wounded expectation.
And still, Jesus goes on.
He does not flee the darkness gathering around him. He does not harden himself against love because betrayal is near. He allows himself to be anointed for burial. He receives tenderness even with the cross before him. He remains open.
Perhaps that is part of the invitation of this day: to ask what is being poured out from us and what is being sold off within us. What in us loves Christ freely? What in us bargains, withholds, calculates?
Holy Wednesday is a mirror.
It is the day that asks whether we will offer perfume or silver. Whether we will cling to Jesus only while it is safe or remain near when the cost becomes clear. Whether our devotion is real or only convenient.
The shadows lengthen. The story moves on. But even here, before the worst has happened, love is still poured out. That, too, is part of the Gospel. Before the nails, there is perfume. Before the cry of abandonment, there is this fragile, beautiful act of wasteful love.
Perhaps that is what we are called to today: not greatness, not certainty, not spectacle, but costly love offered while the shadows fall.
Amen.
Atheist Mom
