“Anticipatory Grief & Love” - A Holy Week Reflection from Rev. Dr. Leanne Wade

Link to Scripture: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2012%3A1-11&version=NRSVUE

I am a bivocational pastor who is also a board-certified music therapist. I work in hospice when I am not working for the church. Most of my patients do not know they are dying (due to dementia), but their families do. Frequently, the families share their hopes, concerns, and grief with me. We forget that Jesus had friends and disciples; his talking about his upcoming death would concern anyone. Like my patients’ families, Jesus’ friends would have been experiencing anticipatory grief.

It matters when our Holy Week goes from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday without the details and the impact of the days between. It causes us to gloss over or to numb our emotions and jump to the good news of the Easter. In the center of the week are some very real emotions and heaviness, and they matter. 

Mary’s deeply moving anointing only gets one sentence: “Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair.” She puts her whole self into the anointing: her body, her hair, her love, and maybe her anticipatory grief. One can imagine Mary near Jesus’ feet, bent close to the floor to anoint and then wipe up with her hair all the perfume she used. Cleaning up with hair isn’t the most efficient way of doing things, but efficiency isn’t the goal. Her actions are mesmerizing, loving, caring, and deeply felt. The physicality of Mary’s love prepares us for what is to come.   

When we anticipate grief, we want to keep the most normal moments we can before it is finished. While giving of herself, Mary stretches that moment to take away everything she can. She walks away, linking a smell to the memory and keeping the moment alive, keeping Jesus alive. 

Mary’s thoughtfulness and giving of good care are in contrast with Judas trying to be right. It’s the loud, dominating voices that always get the attention. Mary knows how to hold space. 

Not that she needed it, but Jesus stands up for her, stating she bought it and prepares me for burial. We know what is to come. She knows what is to come. 

Like my hospice patients’ families, we know what is coming, and the moments together become sacred for them, their family, and even me as a caregiver. Anticipatory grief carries its own heaviness, and this week is full of grief, but we don’t carry it alone. Maybe all these years later, when we read these sacred words, we too experience the love we have for Jesus again. 

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Rev. Dr. Leanne Wade is the pastor of United Congregational Christian Church in Lodi, CA. She is a DSF/PSR graduate (M.Div./2006) and has a Ph.D. in Music Therapy.