All twelve abandon Jesus. We know the name of a passer-by named Simon, of one called Simon in Gethsemane, and of a leper, Simon. The names of Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome who observed from a distance are familiar to us. There is one whose name we do not know who anointed the Anointed One and whose identity is she who anointed with remarkable extravagance of oil and heart.
Mary Ann Evans (‘George Eliot’) wrote, "The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."
In Mark’s poignant drama of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, and the anointing, passion, death, and burial of Jesus’ body wrapped in a linen cloth, there is hope. There is hope because the three holy women who went to anoint the body of Jesus “very early on the first day of the week” could not do so, for the body was not in the tomb. The once shattered alabaster jar of the body of the Anointed One lives.