Dirty hair
I was in church on Sunday, and the speaker mentioned something about the story we find in John 12:1-8 where Mary anoints Jesus by pouring expensive perfume on His feet and wiping His feet with her hair. Honestly, I don’t even remember the point that the speaker was trying to make as I was sifting through the many thoughts going through my mind at the moment.
As I spent some time in prayer and thought over this, I began to see a wonderful correlation between the act Christ provided for us in His crucifixion and the act of Mary cleaning Jesus feet with her hair. Jesus’ feet must have been extremely dirty, and I’ve tried to imagine how her hair must have felt and smelled afterwards. I mean, how soon was she able to go and wash her hair? An hour, a day, a week, a month? It could quite have possibly been a long time that she carried around the dirt, grime, and filth of Jesus right by her face and nose, a place that reminded her often of what she had done.
In much the same way, Christ wiped us clean. But He didn’t just wipe us clean, He actually took our dirt, grime, and filth upon Himself in much the same way, in such a manner that would be hard to forget. He carried our filth all the way to the cross, in an incredibly public and visible way.
I know the comparison hardly begins to give a true taste as to what Christ went through for us. However, this served as a powerful moment of realization for me. This served as a moment of incredible symbolism for me. It has moved me to just spend time thinking about how publicly Christ bore my sins, my filth, and my dirt. And maybe, just maybe, this has moved me a little closer to more fully appreciating what Mary did for Christ, and what Christ did for me. May I never again be ashamed of Christ, because He sure wasn’t too ashamed to bear all my sins.