**sermon art: Unction of Christ by Maria Stankova

Pastor Kent Mueller along with Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on April 6, 2025

Kent Mueller talks about his wife Elizabeth’s life and death five years ago. He asked me to preach it with him as someone who was present for both.

You may watch the sermon preached here at minute 30:27:

Sunday Service – 04/06/2025 – Augustana Lutheran Church Denver

[sermon begins after Bible reading]

John 12:1-8  Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. ² There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. ³ Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. ⁴ But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ⁵ “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” ⁶ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) ⁷ Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. ⁸ You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

[sermon begins]

PASTOR KENT: 

In our Church Year we have one particular day set aside for honesty about mortality. And you might be thinking: “Why Good Friday of course, when Jesus died on the cross.” No. It’s Ash Wednesday. It is the day that we speak the truth of our frailty. Our vulnerability. Our mortality.  

Ashes are what is left when the life itself is gone. And on Ash Wednesday we smear an ashen cross on our forehead, making visible the cross that was anointed with oil at baptism—when the waters of baptism wash over us and we are named as a child of God. Ash Wednesday is our ritual of honesty, symbolizing that beginning and endings, that life and death. Are entwined together. 

PASTOR CAITLIN: 

I had been in contact with an Augustana family through the years as the mother’s health issues mounted. Her heart failure was more and more serious, such that she was approved for a heart transplant. It was August 26, 2019, when they got the call late at night that the gift of a heart was now available. There is no hiding from mortality when getting such a phone call. 

The heart transplant took place the next day, and it was a resounding success, with healing and recovery on the way. They had hope again! It was a miracle brought about through astonishing medical technology… but made possible only by the death of another. There are no words for such gratitude. 

PASTOR KENT: 

Endings and beginnings. Death and Life. Together. 

But as a people, a culture, we aren’t very comfortable with mortality. You would think that we’d be better at it, as people of faith. But American culture prizes youth, and health, and productivity. And we have medicalized mortality. The point of our medical institutions is to keep someone alive. Aging and death are seen as failures rather than natural transitions, making it difficult to openly discuss or accept mortality. And then when death comes, we are unprepared, anxious, even afraid.  

Contrast this with the death of Jesus, when he was taken down from the cross by Joseph of Arimathea. And Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes for preparing the body. Since Jesus had died shortly before the Sabbath, they had to prepare his body hastily, and the women who followed Jesus planned to return after the Sabbath to finish anointing him properly. 

Today’s Gospel text from John, then, is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ body being prepared for burial. Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with costly perfume and wiping them with her hair is an act of devotion, a gesture of love, and—whether Mary fully understood it or not—a preparation for Jesus’ death and burial. 

PASTOR CAITLIN: 

For several months, the heart transplant recovery continued slowly and deliberately with a program of cardiac rehabilitation, designed to strengthen the heart and the body. But then, something wasn’t right. Recovery progress plateaued, followed by problems with memory and balance. Five months after the heart transplant, she was hospitalized to try and figure out what was happening.  Hope was slipping away, and the pastors and parish nurse took turns to go to the hospital, to visit, to pray.  To be an embodied presence of the prayers lifted by the Augustana community. 

PASTOR KENT: 

Beginnings and endings. Life and death. Together. 

Mary’s anointing in today’s scripture echoes an ancient, sacred practice—preparing the body for burial. In the Jewish tradition, the body was washed, perfumed, and wrapped in linen before being laid to rest.  Anointing was an act of reverence, a final blessing, a way to prepare the body for its return to the earth and its journey with God. Most other faith practices include such rituals—Islamic families wash their dead, Jewish burial societies purify, Hindus use sacred oils and water. 

These practices allow for a tangible, intimate, embodied confrontation with death, offering healing. Love.  Closure. By turning away from such rituals in our time, we have lost the profound and sacred act of caring for loved ones, and the communal embrace of shared grief—a farewell where hands and hearts meet in healing. 

PASTOR CAITLIN: 

After several weeks in the hospital, she was transported to Denver Hospice. A family member asked that I be prepared to come there after the time of death to lead prayers and a ritual of washing and anointing. I gathered together a bag of items to be ready at a moment’s notice day or night: A bowl for warm water, a few cloths and towels for ritual washing, oil for anointing, some candles. And we waited for death to come. 

PASTOR KENT: 

Endings and beginnings. Death and Life. Together. 

I asked Pastor Caitilin to tell this story, as I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell it myself. Because her story is my story. 

For five years now, I’ve wondered if there might be a time, when I could share this story, which now concludes with a Rite for Preparing the Body for Burial. I would not have known to consider this ritual, had my brother not told me about it.  He’s a pastor in Chicago, and he knew of this liturgy, which is not found within our official Lutheran worship books. (What does that say about our comfort with mortality and death?) 

I’m sharing this story today because it’s not the American way of death.  So that you might become familiar with these words and actions–– rituals––that honor the mortal body that we are in life and in death. And that proclaim that God’s love is eternal, beyond our beginning and endings, in life and in death.

PASTOR CAITLIN: 

Kent called me midafternoon on March 11, 2020. Elizabeth had died.  I was here in the office and made my way the short distance to Denver Hospice over on the Lowry campus. In Elizabeth’s room, we filled the bowl with water, opened the oil, and lit the candles. We began with a prayer of preparation… 

• We come to this moment in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We come surrounded by the saints who have done this work before us.
• When Jesus was preparing for his own death, he knelt down and washed the feet of his disciples and then taught them to wash one another.
• And on the way to Jerusalem, Mary the sister of Martha anointed Jesus with costly perfume.
• Prepare us, cleansing spirit. 

Then, as they played music, they ritually washed and anointed Elizabeth’s body as named in these holy blessings: 

• Over her eyes: All that Elizabeth’s eyes have seen in this life, O God, we commend to you.
• Over her ears: All that Elizabeth’s ears have heard in this life, O God, we commend to you.
• Over her mouth: All that Elizabeth’s tongue has tasted and all the words that her mouth has spoken in this life, O God, we commend to you.
• Over her hands: All the work that Elizabeth’s hands have done in this life, O God, we commend to you. 
• Over her feet: All the journeys of Elizabeth’s pilgrimage on this earth, O God, we commend to you.
• Over her forehead: This life, baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, O God, we commend to you. You belong to Christ, in whom you have been baptized.  Amen 

Hymn during the anointing:

There Is a Longing

Hymn after the sermon:

Holy Woman, Graceful Giver ACS 1002

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Sources and resources 

• Rites for Preparing the Body for Burial by Pastor Rebekkah Lohrmann 
• https://sylviaschroeder.com/why-did-mary-anoint jesus-for-his-burial-before-he-died/ 
• h”ps://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised common-lec8onary/fifth-sunday-in-lent-3/commentary on-john-121-8-2 
• h”p://words.dancingwiththeword.com/2016/03/the annoin8ng.html 
• Any Body There? by Craig Mueller