Jesus
Is Anointed By Mary
“Therefore
Jesus said, ‘Let her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.’”
John 12:7
We
are coming up on what is known as Holy Week.
Holy Week is the week-long celebration of the work Christ did for us on
the cross. It will end on Easter Sunday
the day Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
There is a lot written about this week in the four gospels. Many churches will have things going on to
remember the works and teaching of Christ each of the days of Holy Week. The day before the week began Jesus is in
Bethany at Lazarus’ house. This is the
same Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead.
Martha is there serving the people and Mary will take some perfume and
anoint Jesus’ feet with it.
As
we examine the story we see that the perfume is pure nard. Scripture in verse 3 tells us that it was a pound,
or about 12 ounces. Pure nard is an
extract from India and at the time was very costly. Mary is taking this perfume and putting it on
Jesus’ feet while he is reclining at the table.
What an act of humility on her part.
The smell would have filled the whole house, and everyone would be aware
of what Mary was doing.
Judas
knows that it was worth lots of money.
He was the keeper of the money for the Apostles and was also a
thief. The love of money, as everyone
knows, can be the root of evil and for Judas he loves money. Judas will stir up the apostles about the value
of this perfume and how it is being wasted when there are poor people who need
food and things. Judas doesn’t care
about the poor people only the money, but he does get the people around Jesus
to talking about what was going on.
Jesus
will correct those in the crowd around Him.
What she is doing is preparing Him for what is going to come by the end
of the week. There are always going to
be poor people, but Jesus would not always be on the earth and she is preparing
him for His burial. Money is temporary,
but what Jesus was about to do was going to be everlasting. The Apostles don’t now understand what is
going to come, even though Jesus did teach that He was going to die and be
raised to life again.
Sometimes
when people are put into their place it can lead to bitterness and even
anger. This can lead us to do things
that are not good. Everyone needs to
learn to deal with correction and rejection, because if we don’t we can end up
doing damage that goes beyond ourselves.
Judas does not handle this correction well. He wanted Jesus to make Him rich and because
Jesus does not elevate making money from this perfume, Judas will go for money
another way. Judas will sell Jesus to
the Chief Priests for 30 pieces of silver.
The
Chief Priests are looking to put Lazarus or Jesus to death because they are
losing the people to Jesus. They, like
Judas, want a Jesus to elevate and give them glory. But Jesus instead has been driving a change
that does not drive people to them and elevate the good works that they
do. Jesus even teaches them to love the
people that they do not love. We all
need to have ourselves checked in how we view Jesus. Selfishness is something we all can struggle
with, as well as the desire to be the one in control instead of Christ. It should always be about Jesus, not about
ourselves and we should all be about Jesus’ will, not our own.
As
we come to Easter let us examine our lives as to how we serve Jesus. It was Jesus’ plan to come and die for us,
yet His Apostles and those around Him had other plans for Jesus. We need to live our lives by the word of
God. If we want to be what Christ wants
us to be, that means following His word through the power of the Holy
Spirit. Love for how Christ loves needs
to dominate our lives. Too many times we
make God and Jesus as a Santa Claus that we can somehow control to get our way
and then we leave the faith when it doesn’t go our way. If we want to be blessed, we should always
seek Christ’s will for our lives through the Bible. Easter is all about Jesus and the work of the
cross not about ourselves.
All Scripture is from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Ca.
Photo by Brina Blum on Unsplash
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