Mark 14:3-9 — A Beautiful Thing

 Mark 14:3-9

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. 

There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 

But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

Comments:

Photo by Katherine Hanlon on Unsplash

It intrigues me that they met in the home of Simon the Leper. Was this Simon someone that Jesus had healed (most likely), or someone who had been an ancestor of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus? I think of the passage in Matthew where Jesus answered those sent by John regarding his own identity as the Messiah. He said, "The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Certainly, if Simon was living, he was an ex-leper, just as Lazarus who sat at the table was an ex-dead person. Martha served. Mary worshiped and some were indignant at her "waste" of good perfume.  Mary broke her alabaster flask of oil of spikenard. The perfume was worth a year's wages. It was probably her dowry. In using it on the Lord she was likely giving up any hope of marriage. Mark doesn’t name the woman, but John’s gospel does (12:2-3) and places Mary, Martha, and Lazarus there.

The darkened hearts of some of the others, Judas especially (see John 12:4-6), are made visible in this episode. They were angry with her for wasting something that they could have benefitted from or that could have been used to "help the poor". But love and devotion to Jesus is never a waste. 

This woman was pouring her very life out upon the Lord and some thought that she wasted it. When we pour our lives out for the Lord, setting aside our dreams and those of our family as well, there are some, even in the church, that may think it is a waste—of talent, education, money, etc. 

Jesus did not share their opinion and once again came to Mary's defense. We should note that the poor are not God. We should do good for the poor but never at the expense of our first love in Jesus Christ. We should not miss any opportunity to serve and worship Jesus, even extravagantly by human standards. He said that it was an anointing for his burial. She poured it upon his head and it must have run down upon his robes reminiscent of Psalm 133:2 "It is like the precious oil upon the head, Running down on the beard, The beard of Aaron, Running down on the edge of his garments." 

I wonder if his robes and his hair and his feet still carried the smell of the spikenard to the cross, and to the grave? I wonder if in the midst of the Roman brutality, even as they stripped and beat him, Jesus might have caught a whiff of the oil with which he had been anointed? Might it not have encouraged his heart in those dark hours and reminded him what it was all about? So, when we face our darkest moments, will remember the Lord’s act of love on our behalf? I hope so!