The Last Of What She Left

It is at the back, on the right.

You know where it is without opening the cupboard. It has moved backward over the years, a little at a time, as the things in front of it changed and it did not.

It is hers. She bought it, or she made it, or she brought it over one afternoon and left it, and there is about a third of it left, and that third has been there for a long time.

And every so often you take it down and hold it and put it back.

Because using it would finish it. And when it is finished there will be no more of it, and no possibility of more, and the small amount of her that is in that cupboard will be a thing that used to be there.

Nobody in that house says anything about the jar. But everybody knows not to touch it.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything about a kitchen.

This is about her and the cooking is second.

Nothing here is going to tell you to use it, and nothing here is going to tell you what she would have wanted. And if you read this to the end and decide it stays at the back of that cupboard for another twenty years, that is a complete and good ending and this article will say so.

The house was filled with the smell of it

There is a moment in John where somebody uses up something valuable, all at once, and the room changes.

Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. (John 12:3, King James Version)

And the house was filled with the smell of it.

That is the detail. Not the cost, which the text mentions, and not the objection, which comes a verse later. The smell got out. It went everywhere. Everybody in that house was in it, whether they had anything to do with the act or not.

And it could only do that because the jar got opened.

You are holding something that can only do its work by being opened, and a thing kept sealed has never once filled a room with anything. John 12:3 puts the whole house into that smell the moment the ointment is poured out, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who has taken something down and put it back again.

And notice what the text does not say about the waste.

It records the objection and it does not agree with it. Nobody in that account is told they have been careless with something precious, and the act is defended rather than explained away.

The pound of spikenard was worth a great deal and it was used, and the using is not the tragedy in the story.

You have permission that the text itself gives, and something costly used up has never once been the same thing as something wasted. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody who has been guarding a third of a jar, and John 12:3 lets the ointment be poured out and defends the one who poured it.

What the jar is actually holding

Here is the second part, and it is about arithmetic.

Underneath the jar there is a sum, and it goes like this: there is a finite amount of her left in the world, and this is some of it, and using it reduces the total.

That sum feels true and it is not. She is not stored in that cupboard. The amount of her in your life is not a quantity that goes down when a jar empties, and you know that when you say it out loud, and the knowing does not seem to reach the shelf.

But the instinct is not stupid. It is the same thing that makes people save a voicemail and not play it, and it comes entirely from love.

You were protecting her rather than hoarding a jar, and an instinct to save the last of somebody has never once been a foolish instinct. John 12:3 fills a whole house from a jar that got opened, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man running a sum on a shelf.

And here is what is worth knowing about jars in particular, and it is the hard half. That third is not staying the same. Things at the back of cupboards do not hold still, and there is a version of this where the decision keeps getting deferred until one day the thing is no longer usable, and then it gets thrown away, and the throwing away is the ending nobody would have chosen. Using it is one ending. Keeping it deliberately, and knowing why, is another. Losing it slowly is the only one of the three that is not a choice.

You have two good endings available and one that will happen by default, and a decision made on purpose has never once been the same thing as a thing running out. The Spirit of God is the one at that cupboard with a man who can choose, and John 12:3 has somebody decide, in public, with the objection in the room.

What this week is, with that jar

So here is the assignment, and most of it is not cooking. Take the jar down, hold it, and use it this week or decide not to.

Take it down first and hold it. Properly, for a minute, not the quick lift and replace that has happened a hundred times. Look at it. Say out loud what it is and who it came from, in that kitchen, in a normal voice, because the jar has been a silent object in that house for years and silence is most of what has made it impossible.

It will be difficult. That is the point rather than an accident.

You are saying out loud what has been silent on a shelf, and a thing named in a normal voice has never once stayed as heavy as a thing nobody mentions. John 12:3 lets the smell out into a whole house, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that kitchen with a man holding a jar properly for the first time in years.

Then the second half, which is genuinely open. Use it this week, or decide not to. If you use it, use it in something ordinary rather than saving it for an occasion worthy of it, because there is no such occasion and waiting for one is how it got to the back of the shelf. And if you decide not to, say that out loud too, and move it to the front, so that it is a kept thing rather than a hidden one.

You are keeping it on purpose rather than losing it slowly, and a jar moved to the front has never once been the same object as one at the back. The Spirit of God is the one at that cupboard with a jar going back on the front of the shelf, and John 12:3 defends the one who poured it out rather than the one who saved it.