March 8, 2015

Raspberries. When I say that word does it make your mouth water? That sweet-sour taste. The sticky red-purple juice. That beautiful smell of ripeness. Raspberries. In the city of Boston is a memorial to the Holocaust. On one of the clear plastic walls of the memorial, built in a corridor that runs for about a city block, is a moving story attributed to Gerda Weissman Klein. Gerda experienced first-hand the horror of the German concentration camps in World War II. It is hard for us to imagine the stark conditions in those camps. However, in the midst of the hate and violence of the Nazi regime Gerda tells a lovely story of beauty and grace. Gerda is befriended by a young Jewish girl named Ilse. One day coming home from a work party, Ilse finds a delicious raspberry. A raspberry was a delicacy in such an environment. Ilse places the raspberry in the ragged pocket of her overcoat--to lovingly share it with Gerda that night. Gerda writes, "Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one red raspberry and someone shares it with you, a friend." It is a haunting story. To think that in such a hostile place such a lovely act could still live on is a testimony to the enduring power of love and the triumph of the human spirit over great odds. Ilse left a lovely fragrance that helps us overcome the stench of hatred and evil from that terrible time in history. In a like manner today’s text speaks of a woman who anoints Jesus with expensive nard, and Indian spice. She does a beautiful thing for Jesus… a fragrant, extravagant act of love and sharing. An act that showed the value of Christ being broken for our sins, even when the world could not understand. At the moment of Jesus’ anointing, it’s raspberry time. It’s time to focus through an extravagant, costly act of love upon his extravagant costly act of giving his life for the sins of the world. As we imagine the strong aromatic fragrance of that perfume filling the room and the head of Jesus still damp… I wonder, What is your raspberry? … What is your focus? … What is your good and beautiful thing… that extravagant gift of love that God calls out from your life? For what purpose does God desire the priceless vessel which is you to be broken open and poured out like expensive perfume? Where does God want the sweetness of extravagant love God has bottled up in you shared for the sake of others? Raspberries. There’s a whole sanctuary filled with them here today. May we remember the extravagant love God gives us, and like this woman, pour our love out in a way that the world will remember. Jesus says, “She has done what she could.” May we do likewise!