The House Was Filled With Fragrance

Despair, curiosity, trauma, heartbreak, disconnection — I wonder at the way early disciples felt on the first Holy Saturday. 
I’ve always appreciated this day marked by silence, but as we experience Easter plans thwarted by COVID-19, it feels all the more significant.

Sometimes the way we rush past the death of Christ and into the resurrection, we almost present the death of Jesus as if he performed a magic trick or was only sort of dead. I think this is why the traditional stations of the cross include “Jesus was laid in the tomb.” It’s why I’m thankful for holy saturday. The day of silence that gives us a moment to sit with reality and see that Jesus reforms it, but doesn’t rush it. 

Women Arriving at the Tomb by He Qi

This year, I’m thinking about the women who eventually made their way to the tomb. The women walked from their place of devotion at the foot of the cross to the tomb to see how the body was laid, then rushed to the market to make sure they had everything they needed to prepare burial spices. Luke tells us that the women “went home and prepared spices and perfumes; and on the Sabbath they rested in obedience to the commandment.”  (Luke 23:56 NEB) 

I’ve been cooking a lot during these quarantine days, attentive to the scents and the slow process in a new way. So I can’t help but imagine the way the aromas of the prepared spices and perfumes filled the home that sabbath. According to the sabbath laws, they needed to get the ointments ready quickly, so as to not work on the day of rest. What grief as they came to terms of the death of their beloved teacher! Wondering and disappointments wrapped up in the lingering scents. Did they wipe tears Saturday with their hands smelling faintly of myrrh? 

For Mary, in particular, this was not the first time fragrance filled the house.

Just before his death, Mary made her way into a dinner party and poured out oil at the feet of Jesus, provoking indignation from the religious leaders at her extravagance. John tells us, “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” (John 12:3) I’ve always loved that this costly, wild worship wasn’t momentary, but an enduring and embodied expression. When others saw this as a waste, Jesus rebuked them, saying, “Leave her alone.” 

I have to imagine that Mary remembered wiping his feet with her hair as she prepared spices. She knew that her life poured out at Jesus’s feet changed everything, even as she sat with her own disillusionment. 

The Scriptures speak often to our lives as a fragrance and our prayer as incense before the Lord. Holy Saturday is the moment to sit with our own confusion and unanswered questions and allow them to become the oil poured out before the Lord.

We can sit in the tension of waiting for resurrection, because we have seen the worthiness of Jesus. As we sit in the in-between space, it becomes the very fragrance of our lives. We are free to sit in the tension of the tomb, because confusion isn’t final.

Holy Saturday reorients every moment of silence, confusion, and dreams that feel shattered. We’re reminded that God is always moving, never truly silent. If we will allow our hearts to sit in the waiting, it can become the fragrance that fills the house as a costly offering.