John 3-12:1 NIVUK
[1] Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. [2] Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honour. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. [3] Then Mary took about half a litre of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. https://bible.com/bible/113/jhn.12.1.NIVUK
Perhaps when you read these verses, you were a little confused. After all, this study is on a number of events that, on the surface at least, appear to be tragic. However, when we look deeper into them, we see that they are not.
But this event doesn’t seem to be tragic at all. It appears to be a beautiful outpouring of love and devotion. It’s quite a wonderful thing.
So how can it be tragic? Where is the tragedy here?
As in most events in life, it all depends on our perception. With the benefit of hindsight, we see this event, and other recorded events in the Gospels that are similar (see Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:1-11 and Luke 7:36-50) as acts of worship.
But for other people at the time, they were scandalous – a tragic and shameful waste of resources.
And we will begin with this perspective as we examine The Brittle Religious.
This perspective doesn’t just begin as a reaction to the extravagant gesture in all of these anointings. It actually begins before them – in how the Jewish leaders in particular were reacting to Jesus: who He was, what He said and what He did:
John 53-11:45 NIVUK
[45] Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. [46] But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. [47] Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. ‘What are we accomplishing?’ they asked. ‘Here is this man performing many signs. [48] If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.’ [49] Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, ‘You know nothing at all! [50] You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.’ [51] He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, [52] and not only for that
nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. [53] So from that day on they plotted to take his life. https://bible.com/bible/113/jhn.11.45.NIVUK
Mark 2-14:1 NIVUK
[1] Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. [2] ‘But not during the festival,’ they said, ‘or the people may riot.’ https://bible.com/bible/113/mrk.14.1.NIVUK
Now, isn’t this highly ironic?
These religious people had longed for years – for centuries, even – for their Messiah to come. John sets the anointing of Jesus by Mary in the context of the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
So the Jews are longing for a Saviour, A Messiah, to come from God and rescue them. Jesus has just come to Bethany and raised a dead man from the grave.
And not just any old dead man. We could understand medical errors taking place in those days, and someone they thought was dead waking up later. It still happens nowadays in some places. It's not impossible.
But when Jesus raised Lazarus, he had not only been dead for four days, he had also been buried for four days. He would have been out cold. Rigour mortis would have been well in progress.
Yet Jesus still raised him from the dead.
There could not be a more likely candidate to be their Messiah.
Yet the Jewish leaders rejected Him.
Why?
Because He didn’t fit their preconceived ideas of what a Messiah would be, and even where He would come from? Absolutely (see Luke 7:34; John 7:52).
Because He challenged their balancing act with the Romans, their real politik that allowed them to keep their power, position and wealth provided they also kept the peace? Absolutely (see John 11:48).
Because He saw through their false religion and saw their unrepentant, uncircumcised hearts? Absolutely (see Matthew 23:13-36).
But most challenging of all, Jesus exposed the reality that they had stopped wanting a Messiah to come at all. They had become so attached to the trappings of their position and no longer wanted to sacrifice them to be saved.
Their religion had stopped being one of longing. Instead, it was just rule-keeping and ritual.
We live in a situation that explains the situation perfectly. Our town, like many towns and cities in the UK, has many urban foxes. They are cute, but they forage as much as they hunt, if not more.
That causes problems, because they will often forage for food in garbage. So, if you've left the remains of something they want to eat in a garbage bag, they will break the bag to get it, and leave a big mess in the process.
It happened to us on not a few occasions. Until, that is, we worked out how to resolve it. We left out for them the food we knew they would forage for in our trash. The result is that they leave the trash alone and make less of a mess.
The Jewish leaders were acting a little like we do towards those foxes: they were leaving a little of their lives out for God in the hope that He would not ‘make a mess’ of the rest.
And people still do that nowadays. We haven’t learned a thing. We leave out for Him our Sundays, because we weren’t planning to do anything that great then anyway. We leave out the dog end of our day. We leave Him the odd prayer or three when we’re in trouble. And we do it so He will leave the rest of our lives alone and not ‘make a mess’.
We are doing just what the Jewish leaders did.
Just look what it made them do.
When Jesus became too much for them, they plotted to kill Him.
And when anyone, like these women, showed any kind of sincerity or extravagance, or even enthusiasm, in worship, they looked down on them.
Is the truth hitting home yet?
This leads us nicely from the brittle religious to The Brittle Disciple. To see this, we need to look at John’s anointing story. In other versions, someone expresses disapproval of the women’s actions. In Matthew, it’s some of the disciples (Matthew 26:8-9). In Mark, it’s some of the people who are there (Mark 14:4-5).
But in John, the spotlight is on one disciple in particular: Judas.
And that spotlight is very bright indeed:
John 6-12:4 NIVUK
[4] But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, [5] ‘Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.’ [6] He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. https://bible.com/bible/113/jhn.12.4.NIVUK
So Judas isn’t just confused by the act of extravagant worship, he actually objected to it. And he objected to it because he personally could not gain from it.
Worse, John tells us plainly that Judas wasn’t just on a different wavelength to Jesus, he was actually ripping Jesus off. He was stealing from Him.
And that is shocking. Really shocking.
And yet there are many who rob God from within the church, as the last prophet in the Old Testament states:
Malachi 14-1:6 NIVUK
[6] ‘A son honours his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honour due to me? If I am a master, where is the respect due to me?’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘It is you priests who show contempt for my name. ‘But you ask, “How have we shown contempt for your name?” [7] ‘By offering defiled food on my altar. ‘But you ask, “How have we defiled you?” ‘By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible. [8] When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?’ says the Lord Almighty. [9] ‘Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?’ – says the Lord Almighty. [10] ‘Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will accept no offering from your hands. [11] My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,’ says the Lord Almighty. [12] ‘But you profane it by saying, “The Lord’s table is defiled,” and, “Its food is contemptible.” [13] And you say, “What a burden!” and you sniff at it contemptuously,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?’ says the Lord. [14] ‘Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and my name is to be feared among the nations. https://bible.com/bible/113/mal.1.6.NIVUK
This is precisely the problem. When we view God as some kind of prayer-answering slot machine, where we ‘pay-in’ our church attendance and good deeds and He ‘pays-out’ blessings and good fortune, then we immediately have a problem: real life isn’t always that simple.
So what happens?
Reality bites. Hard times come. God appears to have a different agenda to us. We give Him half-hearted devotion, because He ‘just isn’t working for us’. That devotion gradually decreases until we become completely ‘done with God’.
Worse, in Judas’ case, once we realise that Jesus will not dance to our tune, we completely betray Him.
And other people’s extravagant devotion seems strange to us. We don’t understand it. We may even criticise it.
Because while the flame of devotion burns brightly in their heart, in has long since gone out in ours.
What an awful state! That is truly a tragedy.
Do you want to know if you are there already? Ask yourself this question: how do I react when other people are extravagant or enthusiastic in their worship? How do I react when they make a large donation to a cause from which I will not benefit? How do I react if someone else dedicates themselves to missionary or full-time Christian work?
Are you critical? Do you gossip about them? Do you question their motives?
If you do, then you are keeping some very dangerous company – you are standing with Judas.
And what happened to him?
In Luke’s recording of an anointing, something quite astonishing happened. Jesus’ host doesn’t criticise the woman doing the anointing. No, he actually criticises Jesus!
Luke 7:39 NIVUK
[39] When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is – that she is a sinner.’
Why?
Because the woman anointing Jesus is a sinner, and Jesus accepts her worship.
And that’s just it: when we find ourselves criticising those who have decided to be extravagant with their worship of Jesus, we are also criticising Jesus for accepting it.
That, too, is not a comfortable place to be.
As well as the brittle religious and disciple, lastly we see The Broken Women.
You see, while we have four accounts, from the details, we appear to have two events: the same event in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but a separate and different event in John.
What I’m saying is that Jesus was anointed twice: one on the head, again on the feet, and by two separate women.
However, they both have something striking in common.
Both women experienced brokenness.
The woman in Matthew, Mark and Luke was one who was known for having a sinful way of life. She came to Jesus for forgiveness, as Luke in particular highlights (Luke 7:39). Luke goes on to record why she did what she did – because she had been forgiven much and was giving extravagantly as a reaction to what she had been forgiven (Luke 7:40-43).
She was broken by sin.
The incident recorded by John, however, is different. There we see Mary – whose sister was Martha and whose brother was Lazarus – carrying out the anointing, and anointing Jesus’ feet, not His head (John 12:3). Before this event, when Lazarus had died, she had been broken by something else: by circumstance (John 11:32-33). Her worship was an expression of deep gratitude at how Jesus had understood their need and raised Lazarus from the dead.
Two women. Broken by heavy loads they could not bear. Raised up and healed by Jesus. So they respond in extravagant worship as a sign of deep gratitude.
You might notice that I have used a picture of brittleness, followed by brokenness. There is a reason for that. In the Matthew-Mark-Luke anointing, the perfume was stored in an alabaster jar. Alabaster is a form of gypsum – a rock. Its ancient, Middle Eastern form was mined at Alabastron in Egypt, where it was highly prized for its use in canopic jars (containing the internal organs of the deceased in tombs) or small perfume bottles. It was a stone that was carved by hand.
These were the work of craftsmen. The bottles themselves would have been valuable.
They were not like clay pots, which could be created from a soft, malleable material and needed to be baked to set hard.
These jars were also sealed tightly. For the fragrance to escape, there was only one thing that could happen: the jar needed to be broken.
It is telling that the women who anointed Jesus had both been broken.
It is telling that those who objected to this extravagant act of worship were those who were unbroken: who clung to their position in life no matter what.
For them, what happened here was a tragic loss of a precious resource or reputation.
For Jesus, it was an act of worship because it was an expression that He was worth it. This is what Jesus says about this act:
Matthew 26:13 NIVUK
[13] Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.’
And here were are, fulfilling this prophecy. Her simple, relatively private gesture of worship leads to renown throughout the ages.
But Jesus said something else about this anointing:
John 12:7 NIVUK
[7] ‘Leave her alone,’ Jesus replied. ‘It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.
There is a strong element of truth in that. The dead were perfumed in those days to try and prevent the smell that would result when the body decayed in suffocating heat.
But there is something else quite special about this anointing. Matthew and Mark record the perfume as being poured on Jesus’ head; Luke and John (recorded later) on His feet. These are both parts of the body that speak of His incarnation and exaltation: the feet were feet that trod this filthy earth of ours; the head was the head that bore a crown of thorns, and would one day bear a crown of gold in Heaven.
There is a deep significance to these.
Many years ago, I worked in a call centre. It was my first job. One day the computer system failed. So instead of talking to our customers, we began to talk to each other.
The job was not pleasant, so the topic of conversation quickly turned to why we were doing it. Some were paying mortgages, others putting together a holiday fund, others still just needing a little money to get them through college or university.
Then they asked me. I was open. I told them I was raising money to spend two years as a missionary in Romania.
They were shocked. They could not believe it. They thought it was, quite frankly, ridiculous.
They couldn’t make any sense of it.
This is what happens when anyone makes an extravagant gesture of worship to Jesus. No-one in this world understands it. They think it is, quite frankly, ridiculous. A thoroughly odd thing to do.
The real tragedy is when people inside the church think the same.
But God sees. God knows. And God will make sure we are amply rewarded.
So let me ask you again: if you see someone making such a gesture, how will you react?
And if these women’s extravagant worship was triggered by their salvation, how grateful are you to be saved?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you for saving me. Help me to worship You with everything f I have and to not worry about what other people will think of me. Show me how I can do this. Amen.
Questions
1. What was the reason why both of these women did what they did? Why is that important?
2. Why did other people condemn them? What was their motivation? Is that right or wrong?
3. How can you show your gratitude for what God has done for you?
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