According to the gospel we call Mark, today is the day Jesus is anointed by a woman.

To us, she has no name.

After Sunday’s dramatic rebuke of Rome, Monday’s trashing of the money-changers and dove-sellers, and Tuesday’s teaching at the Temple in which he humiliates and condemns the Temple leadership, Wednesday is a true down day. A true hump day. He doesn’t go into town. He stays out in the ‘burbs. Apparently chilling.

It is also the day of extravagance. This costly perfume, “wasted” on Jesus. Intuition tells me that people have a harder time hearing this gospel lesson than the three preceding chapters of radical, abrasive Jesus. Here, Jesus is taken for callous and wasteful. My heavens! And Rand’s disciples gleefully hear

For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me.

as an excuse to condemn the poor to their poverty.

But, like any Wednesday, Jesus’s mission shouldn’t be defined by this one day. In fact, this one day should be defined by his actions the rest of the week.

He enters Jerusalem humbly, but is abrasive and aggressive at the Temple. He sternly rebukes the system that impoverishes the poor and lines the pockets of the wealthy. He schools the Temple authorities for their hypocrisy and reveals it to the masses. He is cheered on Sunday by the crowds and jeered on Friday by the leaders. This day, this simple little Wednesday, the day before the Passover and the last moment with the disciples, his final meal before his execution, that day is the day of preparation. The day to get ready. Because tomorrow will be here before we know it.

Tomorrow, the day of the dinner, the foot washing, the kiss, the betrayal, is when it all comes down.

Tonight, we wait. We ready ourselves. We bless one another. This is a holy Wednesday.