The gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ

Here's the reflection I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this evening:

As a child my faith was impacted by a musical drama of the life of Christ using scripture drawn from Genesis to Revelation which was called Yesterday Today Forever and was staged in Oxford in the mid-1970s. It was an ambitious production with three complete stage sets, a complicated lighting system, quadraphonic sound, a 50-piece choir, a 12-piece band, dance, narration, a great variety in music, and a back projected film. I was impressed by the integration of the Arts and scripture in a way that I had not seen prior to that point.

Included in the show was a beautiful ballad based on this story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair (Luke 7.36 – 8.3). Called ‘Remember Mary’, the song imagines Mary’s thoughts as she carries out this extravagant gesture:

“I cannot look at your face - I dare not - for I have sinned so much and you know my heart. I want to look at you Jesus, but I have not the power to lift my eyes for I am guilty - oh so guilty. What can I do? For I am lost and yet you care - even for me. So I will pour this ointment upon your feet, dear Lord. The ointment smells so sweet; smells so. sweet; and yet I am a broken creature, I'm only but dust, only dust …”

Jesus responds: “You have done a beautiful thing to me Mary, in pouring this ointment on my body, you have prepared me for burial. Your sins are forgiven, for you have loved much.”

It was Mary’s own decision to pour ointment over Jesus’ feet and to dry his feet with her hair. No one expected her action – it was not done out of duty - and at least one person criticised her severely for it. It was entirely her decision, her personal way of giving to Jesus.

Giving in this way involved giving generously from her possessions because the ointment that she used was expensive (imported from countries such as India) and extravagant (half a litre was an enormous amount to use in this way). It also involved giving generously of herself as Jewish women traditionally kept their hair tied up in public and only unloosened their hair in the presence of their husbands. What Mary did in wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair was the ultimate sign of her love for and commitment to Jesus. She did all this, not with regret or out of a sense of duty, but gladly and generously.

In fact, her gift to Jesus is a response to the love that Jesus has shown towards her. She gives because Jesus has first given extravagantly and generously to her. This is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which we see summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son …” God so loved that he gave.

Love is the reason for giving, not duty, not regret, but love. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us that he would give up all he had in order to all the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross.

‘This is what Mary saw in Jesus and why she responded by giving extravagantly and generously to him. Jesus then astonished the disciples by giving Mary the highest commendation anyone receives in the pages of the Gospels:

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6 -9)’

In reflecting on this story the artist Makoto Fujimura has said that he prays that, ‘there will be a new aroma in the air: an aroma of Mary of Bethany, who in response to Jesus’ tears in John 11 and 12 brought her most precious belonging, her most gratuitous, expensive nard. I pray that in the days to come, this aroma will fill the air whenever the words of Gospel are spoken, that outsiders to faith will sense this extravagant air and feel it, particularly for them. I pray that when our children speak of faith, this gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ will be made manifest in their lives.’

May that be our prayer this day and throughout our lives.

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John and Ross Harding - Yesterday Today Forever.

11:59 & Yesterday Today Forever

11:59 were an 'English Christian acid folk band, named after the time on the “Doomsday Clock” ... [who] produced as their only recorded legacy ... a wonderful, pastoral, non-judgmental record.' Their early 1970’s album (released on Dovetail Records c. 1974) This Our Sacrifice Of Praise 'has dreamy, moody production values, with special effects (nature sounds like sea gulls and babbling brooks) set against a beautiful landscape of acoustic guitar, soaring Mellotron, flute, autoharp and male/female vocal harmonies.'

Yesterday Today Forever 'was a musical drama of the life of Christ from Genesis to Revelation.' 'There are three complete stage sets. There's a complicated lighting system. There's quadraphonic sound, a 50-piece choir, a 12-piece band, dance, narration, and great variety in music - rock, folk, classical, Elizabethan, plain song, blues And the film. Back projected on a huge screen, and shot specially for the show, mostly in the USA, by Jim Swackhammer.'

Yesterday Today Forever was 'based in the stirring UK folk and rock style of groups like Cloud, Valley Of Achor and 11:59. In fact most of the members of 11:59 are here, together with a few additional participants. Begins with selections inspired by Genesis (‘Let There Be Light’, ‘The Fall’), on to the life of Christ (‘Behold The Lamb Of God’, ‘I Am’, ‘Blessed Are You’, ‘Father Forgive Them’), closing with the Revelation-based ‘They Have Conquered’ and ‘And There Was Light’. Mostly a gentle progressive folk/praise atmosphere utilizing such instruments as acoustic and electric guitars, synthesizer, piano, string organ, flute, percussion, plus a long list of unusual items (sugar shaker, road drill, baby rattle, cough medicine bottle and plastic guitar to name a few). A few driving fuzz guitar moments here and there, coupled with some harsh dissonant psychedelic experimental passages. Vocals are provided by six different male/female lead singers, along with a small choir that has a moving style very similar to Cloud. A number of spoken-word-over-music portions, alternating the ultra-fragile 13 year-old Hedi Taylor (female) with the bold dramatic tones of Nigel Goodwin (whose poetic readings can also be heard on the UK albums Alive! and Sound Vision In Concert). Includes re-interpretations of ‘The Earth Is The Lord’s’ and ‘The Sacrifice’ from 11:59’s This Our Sacrifice Of Praise. Written by 11:59’s John and Ross Harding. Another peak moment for ‘70s British Jesus music.' (The Archivist, 4th edition by Ken Scott).

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11:59 - Psalm 115 - To Thy Holy Name.

Performance: An evening of music and poetry

The final event in this year's Barking Episcopal Area Arts Festival was Performance: An evening of music and poetry at Holy Trinity Hatfield Heath. I opened the evening with a selection of poems that included The Mark and Worthship. Colin Burns performed songs and instrumentals from his Emerald and Gold album, as well as new material. Jane Grell read from her newly published Collected Poems Praise Songs. The first half of the programme was brought to a resounding conclusion by the Brass of St Mary's (Sheering) that included both Be Still and Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines. Mal Grosch made a humorous start to the second half of the programme with poems from his new collection entitled Blackfriars. A choir from Holy Trinity and St Mary's reprised songs from the Roger Jones musical David. The evening's varied and thoroughly enjoyable  entertainment concluded with songs, a poem and a story by Jane Grell.

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Mal Grosch - Sweet England.  

'Life of Pi' and 'Les Miserables'

What can you say about Life of Pi that hasn't already been said? Just to reiterate that it is a beautifully shot and beautifully paced movie. The special effects are stunning and, unlike many films in which 3D seems to be a gimmicky add-on, I imagine here would add to the sense of magical realism. All this is, of course, essential if the point being made about the kind of stories we value is to carry imaginative force. That Ang Lee manages this is the supreme achievement of this marvellous movie.

Les Miserables, based as it is on a very different style of novel, is therefore a very different proposition as a movie. Victor Hugo's writing has the breadth of Dickens, without the emphasis on grotesque caricature, but what both do on a grand scale is to reveal the plight of those at bottom of the pile in society. While Dickens engages through satire and sentiment, Hugo utilises a depth of emotion which is what has been tapped in making the musical and film of the musical so successful.

Cameron Mackintosh has written of how the show elevated both the audience and the cast "to a state of powerful emotion rarely seen in the theatre." Tom Hooper utilises close-ups of his characters combined with live singing to ratchet up the emotional content of story and song. Hugo's story, with its themes of repentance and redemption, has sufficient depth and seriousness of content and character to sustain this approach. With the comic relief of the Thénardiers, Hooper's approach changes focussing on the comedy of their thieving which then has the effect of dissipating the comic bombast of their singing. With this aside, the emotive flow continues to a climax which both returns us to the story's redemptive beginning and releases the central characters and ourselves, as audience, from its relatively unrelentingly grip.

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Anne Hathaway - I Dreamed A Dream.

The Million Dollar Quartet and the Godmother of Rock 'n' Roll

Yesterday's Independent had a feature on the Million Dollar Quartet, in the light of the new musical of that name which opens at the Noel Coward Theatre on 28th February.

The musical is inspired by the fabled Million Dollar Quartet of 4 December 1956, when Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, all enjoying the first flushes of success, found themselves in the same studio. The show imagines these fathers of rock'n'roll and country bashing out hits including "Blue Suede Shoes", "Folsom Prison Blues", "That's All Right", "I Walk the Line", "Great Balls of Fire", "Hound Dog", "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and many more.

But as the article points out that wasn't what happened at all. The truth is less immediately satisfying but much more interesting. There is no evidence that they played any of these songs – none are on the tapes. Instead, there are fragments of gospel and standards, with a smattering of rock'n'roll.

What this demonstrates is the extent to which rock and pop music emerged out of the Church. The early stars of Rock 'n' Roll, like Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley, drew on a shared background of Spirituals, Gospel, the charismata of Southern Pentecostalism and all faced anxiety over their decision to substitute secular words and movements for sacred songs and mannerisms.


This influence formed the centrepiece of Mick Csaky's BBC biopic, The Godmother of Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe. During the 40s, 50s and 60s Sister Rosetta Tharpe played a highly significant role in the creation of rock and roll, inspiring musicians like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. She may not be a household name, but this flamboyant African-American gospel singing superstar, with her spectacular virtuosity on the newly-electrified guitar, was one of the most influential popular musicians of the 20th century.

Tharpe was born in 1915, close to the Mississippi in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. At the age of six she was taken by her evangelist mother Katie Bell to Chicago to join Roberts Temple, Church of God in Christ, where she developed her distinctive style of singing and guitar playing. At the age of 23 she left the church and went to New York to join the world of show business, signing with Decca Records. For the following 30 years she performed extensively to packed houses in the USA and subsequently Europe, before her death in 1973.

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The Million Dollar Quartet - Just A Little Talk With Jesus.