“She has done what she could…” Mark 14:3-11 ESV
Jesus has left the city and returned to Bethany, where he is having dinner at Simon the leper’s house. While they are eating, a woman enters the room with an unusually precious box of spikenard. No one is concerned with her presence but all are startled by what she does next.
She breaks open the alabaster container and begins pouring the ointment on Jesus’s head. The act of such an annointing was not unusual in Jewish culture, but perhaps it was somewhat unexpected during the evening meal!
Mark records only one reaction to her. There was no middle ground. No one questioned how she came about having such a costly item. No one moved to prevent her entrance to the house or meal. But they were all indignant at what she did.
They didn’t complain about the brashness of her actions, but against the waste of such a costly item! It could have been sold to raise a lot of money to provide for the poor. They began to murmur against her.
However, Jesus defends her. He is critical of their criticisms: you have plenty of opportunity to help the poor any time you want. She has done a good thing. She has annointed my body in preparation for burial. That’s right – if you’ve been listening – you know my death is imminent. I will not be with you much longer.
How hard it must have been to remember those last words later and come to the gut-wrenching realization that you wasted an opportunity to be close to Jesus! Who cares what happens to expensive perfume when you have the precious Savior sitting next to you?
Once again, Jesus looks beyond what has captivated everyone’s attention and reveals what really is happening. What we value is not necessarily what is valuable. Those things that we feel are so urgent and important are but a mere distraction from where our attention and energies should be applied (remember the widow’s mite, Mark 12:41-44). Jesus says that what this woman has done will be recounted wherever the gospel story is told. It will be a memorial to her.
Afterwards Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, makes a decision. If the story was not so well known, we would be shocked to read it. He goes to the chief priests to betray Jesus, to turn him in. They are glad to hear it and promise him money when the deed is done. Judas now looks for a “convenient” time to betray Jesus. How sad. One of Jesus’ hand-picked followers, who has seen and heard so much, now acts the traitor. By the way, we remember him, too.
What’s your choice? Are you devoted enough to Jesus that you don’t care what others think of you? Or do you follow the crowd, pretending he’s not that much of a big deal?
Copyright 2023 David J. Cooley