6. Is aware of death threats		ye seek to kill / she prepares me for day of burial
7:14-53	Temple / home		12:1-11	Bethany/home(?)

7:14-53 Now as it was in the middle of the feast Jesus went up to the temple and taught (openly). The Jews marvelled at him saying "How does this man know (so much) since he has not been trained (by the chief scribes etc)? Jesus therefore answered them and said "My teaching is not mine but it comes from the one who has sent me. If anyone wants to do his will (the One who sent him) he will know about my teaching and whether it is from God that I speak or from myself. The one who speaks from himself is seeking his own glory. But the person who seeks the glory of the one who has sent him, this man is true and there is no unrighteousness within him. Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you carries out the law. Why do you seek to kill me?" The crowd answered "You have a demon. Who wants to kill you?" Jesus answered and said to them "I did one work (the miracle of the curing the man at the pool of Bethsaida?) and you all make a fuss about it. It was because of this (your narrowness?) Moses has given you circumcision, not that it was of Moses but rather of the fathers. On a Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on a Sabbath and the law of Moses is not broken, why are you angry with me because I made a man whole and healthy (on the Sabbath). Do not judge according to "face" but judge according to what is right." Now some of the people who lived in Jerusalem said "Is not this the man that they are seeking to kill? Yet here he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Perhaps indeed the rulers have known that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from When the Christ comes, no one will know about where he comes from." Therefore Jesus cried out in the temple as he taught saying "You both know me and you know where I come from. (But) I have not come from myself. The one I have come from is truth itself and him you do not know. I know him because I exist from him and he has sent me." They therefore sought to arrest him yet nobody laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. Amongst the crowd there were many who believed in him and said "When the Christ comes, could he work any more signs that what this man has done?" The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things about him. The chief priests and the Pharisees sent attendants to arrest him. Jesus therefore said "For a little time I am with you and then I am going to the one who has sent me." You will seek me and will not find me for where I am you cannot come." The Jews therefore said to themselves. "Where is this man about to go to that we will not find him? Is he about to go to the dispersion of the Greeks (around the Roman Empire) and so teach the Greeks? What does this word mean that he said "You will seek me and will not find me and where I am you cannot come?" Continued Over Page

12:1-11 (Because people come to the Passover early to purify themselves), Start Jesus came to Bethany (near Jerusalem) six days before the Passover. This was where Lazarus lived. He was the one whom Jesus had raised from the dead. They made a supper for him there and Martha served. Lazarus was one of those who were reclining with him (Jesus). Therefore Mary, taking a pound of pure and costly spikenard ointment anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Now Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples and who was the one who was about to betray him said "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" But he said this, not because the poor mattered to him but because he was a thief. He carried the bag that was common to the group. Jesus said Continued

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Now on the last and major day of the feast Jesus stood up and cried out saying "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. As for the one who believes in me it will be as the Scripture says "Rivers of living water will flow out of him." Now he said this in relation to the Spirit which those who believed in him were about to received. As yet the Spirit had not come because Jesus was not yet glorified. Some of the crowd, on hearing these words said "This man is truly the prophet. Others said "This man is the Christ." But others said "But the Christ does not come out of Galilee. Doesn't the Scripture say that (he comes) from the seed of David and from the village of Bethlehem which was the village of David?" And so there was a division within the crowd because of him (Jesus). Some of them wanted to arrest him but no one laid a hand on him. When the attendants returned to the chief priests and Pharisees they said to them "Why did you not bring him back with you?" The attendants answered "Never has a man spoken like this man speaks." The Pharisees therefore answered them "Have you not also been deceived as well? Is it not so, that none of the rulers or Pharisees believe in him? But this crowd, because it does not know the law is cursed. Then Nicodemus who had actually come to him (Jesus) and who was also one of the Pharisees, said to them "Doesn't our law require that a man is not judged unless he is heard first and what he does is examined." They answered and said to him "Are you also linked with Galilee? Search (the scriptures) and see that no prophet is raised out of Galilee. Then, they all went home.

"Leave her alone. It is right that she keeps it (the ointment) for the day of burial. The poor you always have. But me you do not always have. There was a great crowd of Jews who knew that he was there and they came, not only because of Jesus but because they wanted to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. The chief priests took counsel about whether or not they might kill Lazarus as well. It was because of him that many of the Jews went (to Bethany) and believed in Jesus. Finish

One can only wonder about the 'ointment woman’ incident here. Again there is criticism from Judas about the use of the ointment. But here is Jesus in what is most likely the nearest thing he had to a home. It is a fairly natural gesture for Mary here not to waste the expensive ointment so she dries this off with her hair. (Was this ointment left over from Lazarus' burial?) Lazarus his dear friend is reclining as the custom was, with Jesus at the table.

It seems instead of transferring Mary over to the scene in the Pharisee's house and presenting her with the image of a public sinner, the gospel writer John has rather taken the incident of the ointment woman with all its confrontation and put it into a domestic situation where (apart from Judas) people share in mutual love, respect and concern.

If one looks at the four accounts of the ointment woman, each is different. Together they suggests there was a story - even a family scandal, that went on in the background. Is this why church tradition aligns the ointment woman with Mary Magdalen and it ignores the testimony of John's gospel? Was Mary, sister of Lazarus, from a prominent family of priests and unable to marry a non-Jew? Did she actually elope to the city? Did she then realise the damage this was doing to her family and return distraught. Even so, was she still considered by Jews as a sinner and unclean? Was Jesus' acceptance of her considered to be a final scandal as to what constitutes the "type" of someone in the Kingdom of Jesus? Did John add in the story of the woman taken in adultery because she was the ointment woman?

There are some interesting parallels here with the Tao Te Ching of Taoism! One chapter exhorts the reader to "keep to the role of the female," and "if you are a ravine to the empire..... you will return to being a babe", and also "keep to the role of the disgraced." It seems Mary, sister of Lazarus matches all of this.