Text:

She poured perfume on Jesus' feet
and, bending, wiped them with her hair.
If guests dropped jaws, she wouldn't care—
since he'd raised Laz'rus from the dead,
her brother, lively, eating there.
And the scent released from perfume filled the house.

How could they not now celebrate?
Four days, four days, had Laz'rus been
in his stark grave. But Jesus then
called him to "Come out," back to them,
make family complete again.
And the fragrance of rich perfume filled the house.

"Such a waste!" sniped Judas.
"One year's wage," he cried,
"amounts to what this perfume cost.
Think how, for the poor, that money's lost."
But Judas felt it lost to him.
Less donated, less to skim.

"Let her alone," Christ Jesus said.
"The poor you'd help right here will be,
but I will not— and it is she,
beforehand for my burial,
so beautif'ly anointing me."
And the fragrance of that perfume filled the house.

 

This song for choir recounts the poignant story from John 12:1-8, in which Lazarus's sister Mary anoints Jesus' feet with very expensive perfume before his death.
The John version of this story appears in the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C,
for the 5th Sunday of Lent. Other versions of the story occur in Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14:3-9.