Tuesday, April 03, 2007 Malilong: Vicious cycle By Frank Malilong The Other Side
WE ARE familiar with the story of Lazarus, the man whom Jesus raised from the dead. He had been buried for four days when Jesus went to his tomb and ordered the removal of the stone that sealed its entrance.
“There will be a bad smell, Lord,” Martha, the dead man’s sister, warned. He told her to believe in Him and, after the stone was removed, ordered Lazarus to come out of the tomb.
What I did not know was that Jesus went back to Bethany, where Lazarus and his sisters (the other was Mary) lived. He was accompanied by his disciples, including Judas Iscariot. After dinner, Mary took a whole pint of expensive perfume, which she poured on Jesus’ feet. She then wiped it with her hair.
Judas remonstrated. We could have sold the perfume for three hundred silver coins, he said, and given the money to the poor. In fact, when the bag was handed over to him, Judas pocketed some of the money.
This particular episode (which, by the way, was last Sunday’s reading) struck me because I did not realize until then that hypocrisy, of the type that Judas displayed, is as old as the Good Book. Take a bow, Judas Iscariot, wherever you may be. You may have died an ignominious death but you ought to be proud of your progeny.
We will be witnessing more of the same hypocrisy as the election campaign heats up. The poor will again be held up as an example of the failures of the title-holders and as reason for the outsiders to get in. We will take care of the poor, that’s the promise.
In fact, the poor are, as in the case of Judas, farthest from their minds. They just want to get hold of the moneybag so they could help themselves to its contents. When that happens, the other side will be the ones crying out loudly for the poor. It is a vicious cycle.
What is ironic is that the people’s money that they help themselves to have a way of making thieves smell like Mary’s perfume instead of the odor of a rotting body that has been buried for four days. For some perverse reason, we seem to remember Jesus’ triumphant return to Bethany not so much for his anointment as for Judas’ thievery.
But the bad guys also lose sometimes. Pardon the thought in this season of Lent but would the world be a little better if after being exposed, the modern day Judases would be so stricken with shame and remorse as to hang themselves like the original one?
