Mark 14 - Anointing Jesus

The events of the first half of Mark 14 lead up to the arrest of Jesus, and the stage is already being set. The Pharisees have decided, after being outsmarted by Jesus in the public forum, that he must die.

It is amazing that these men, who considered themselves the most spiritual people on the planet, were able so easily to plot the death of an innocent man. But that, of course, is human nature. We tend to judge others much more harshly than we do ourselves. Anyone who thinks that they are on the moral high ground should consider their own sin. As Jesus said, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Jesus is spending the night in Bethany, as was his habit. He would go only during the day into Jerusalem. No doubt it would have been a dangerous place for him at night, if the Pharisees knew where he was staying.

A woman joins their dinner party. Her behavior is erratic. Strange. She stands behind Jesus and breaks an expensive jar of perfume. She pours it over his head, over his feet. She is washing his feet with her hair. It is almost like… an act of worship. The scent fills the room. Noses snort in disgust. How could she waste the whole bottle on Jesus like that?

The gospels all treat this story a little differently. Matthew and Mark are essentially identical, but John gives different details, and Luke’s has a different point. He also puts the story much further back. Some believe Luke’s account was a completely different event. There are some indications that they are the same event, but the disciples remembered different things about it.

At any rate, the significance of the woman’s act is different in the different stories. In Matthew, Mark, and John, the significance is on the woman’s love for Jesus and it serves as the impetus for Judas to betray Jesus. In Luke, it is the woman’s love for Jesus and the fact that she is sinful and made clean.

Mark says the woman comes and breaks the very expensive jar filled with very expensive oil over Jesus head and pours it over him. The emphasis is the extravagance of the gift. The disciples protest, this is worth a year’s wages! All poured out for Jesus. What an incredible gift this was. What a costly gift. Remember the poor widow woman who gave the two pennies. She gave the greatest gift at the temple because it was costly. Here is another costly gift. King David said, when he was offered the land to build the temple on for free, I will not offer to God something that cost me nothing. Devotion to Jesus is costly.

John informs us the woman was Mary, sister of Lazarus and Martha. This changes the context somewhat. Just before this in the book of John, we find that Lazarus had been raised from the dead. Mary, raised from the depths of grief, has seen the first fruits of our greatest hope. Eternal life with God. She received back her brother from the dead. The overwhelming gratefulness in her heart is on display here. There is no gift that is too much for our Lord. She is a woman who knows what God has done for her. She knows the incomprehensible value of our savior. And more than that, when Jesus came to Lazarus’s tomb, he wept with them. He experienced their pain and shared their suffering. One of the reasons that Jesus came to this earth was to suffer with us. Whatever pain you have experienced, Jesus has been there. He was beaten, mocked, shamed, betrayed, and carried the sins of the world. He can identify with your pain. He never promised us that we wouldn’t suffer. In fact, he promised the opposite. “In this life you will have trouble…” (John 16:33). But he did promise to go through it with us. “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5).

When the disciples, led by Judas, see this anointing, they are indignant. They are struck by moral outrage. This could have been sold and given to the poor. That is a good thing, it is a moral thing, but it is not the best thing. Jesus defends the woman. He says, “she has done a thing beautiful for me.”

And as we look deeper, the moral high ground begins to teeter. John tells us Judas said this and informs us that Judas was a thief. He would steal the money that was to go to the poor. The money that Mary “wasted” was money that he foresaw going to his own pocket. It is always a good idea, whenever there is moral outrage to see if someone is standing to get a financial payoff. Shortly after this, he goes to betray Jesus. Apparently, for Judas, this was the last straw.

Now one more important thing here. Jesus says that Mary did this to anoint him for his burial. In Mark, we have seen in the last few weeks, that Jesus has foretold his death no less than three times. The disciples seemed to have a difficult time with this. Peter rebukes him about it, and later they are afraid to ask him about it. It seems that Mary is the only one who actually believed him.

She gives him this anointing, to prepare his body for the grave. She was the only one able to do so, by the way. You will remember that on the first day of the week, the women came to the tomb to anoint Jesus body, but he was not there. He was already risen. So, Mary gets to do what no one else could. Jesus calls it a beautiful thing.