A Beautiful Deed
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3 While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
4 Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages[a] and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.
6 “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
Intro: I used to be in a Junior School choir. My fondest memory was singing at the Portadown Music Festival. I can remember what we sang: ‘When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah.’ We sang with gusto… I can still remember the buzz. I can still remember the words. Strangely, I don’t remember the name of our music teacher but she certainly got the best out of us scrawny, fidgety, spotty kids. We sang like larks but strangely I can't remember the teacher's name, I can picture her… with her back to the audience, facing us, arms waving and her face smiling, exaggerating and mouthing the words for us….getting the best out of us. I can't remember her name. I remember Mr Turner Maths teacher (Kenny) he made fun of me in class; I remember Miss Creighton, she lost her temper with me and threw the blackboard rubber at me. But, I can't remember the name of the teacher who did a beautiful thing for our junior choir at the Portadown Music Festival in 1966. I will always remember that good and beautiful thing she did, but I can’t remember her name.
In the week before Good Friday, just before or just after the Triumphal entry, Palm Sunday donkey ride to Jerusalem, a very beautiful deed was done to and for our LJC. I am referring to the anointing of JC at Bethany as recorded in Jn 12:1-11, Matt 26:6-13, Mk 14:3-9 and Luke 7:36-38. Most Scholars have concluded that these episodes are not necessarily a record of the same event. The Luke event was recorded as occurring earlier in JC’s ministry. The other three episodes place it just before or just after Palm Sunday and in Matt and Mark the woman is deliberately unnamed. So, I believe it is a good place to begin our Palm Sunday and Easter Holy Week preparations by looking at the beautiful deed this woman performed on JC. I say, ‘beautiful deed,’ because that is exactly what Jesus called it καλὸν ἔργον ἠργάσατο ἐν ἐμοί (kalon ergon ērgasato en emoi): ‘She has done a beautiful deed to me.’
Let us read Mark 14:3-9
This deed takes place in Bethany, I want to say it is Saturday before Palm Sunday [because that is today]. I would like to present this, well known, encounter by looking at three key moments or phrases. [1] Extravagant Generosity, [2] Excessive Objection and [3] Godly Commendation.
Extravagant Generosity
Indignant Objection
Godly Commendation
The Extravagant Generosity
IThere is such drama in this story right from the get-go. There is a strong likelihood that this meal was the Habdalah to the end of the Sabbath. Prayers and food to mark sundown Saturday. The day before Palm Sunday. It was at the home of Simon the leper we don't know more than this about him. My guess is that he was a leper who had been healed. He is hosting this Sabbath meal for Jesus, unknowingly our Lords last Sabbath.
Into that scene of people feasting and prayers and praises a woman purposefully walks in and goes straight to Jesus. I say purposefully because she is not challenged or checked so it looks like JC is OK with it.
The diners would have been casually lounging/reclining around a low table laden with food so it would be possible for this woman to stand directly behind Jesus at first and then to kneel behind him.
She walked in with this alabaster flask and broke the flask and poured it over his head.
Let us pause just there and think about the ointment and the jar and the quantity and the value. First of all the quantity, a lot, 300 denari, was the value - a year's wages and enough oil to embalm a whole body and more. The main thing here is not the cost but why did she have such a horde of pure nard? It could be a couple of reasons: She is holding the ointment for a dowry in the event of her betrothal for marriage or it could be held for her own embalming her own death.
So we can say this woman is giving up what she had for her future as she cracked the top off of this jar. Once the jar is broken this ointment is going to be poured. In for a penny in for a pound - nothing held back - this is extravagant generosity - no thought for herself as her future is poured out from this jar. Her focus is totally on her LJC. Such love, such abandonment, such surrender of her own plans and her nest egg security.
Imagine for a minute this woman's quiet time that morning. She learns that Jesus is coming to Bethany, she hears about Simon's meal and praise and longs for an encounter. It is likely that she has been forgiven much, and she is eternally grateful to Jesus for saving her, rescuing her from trials and tribulations unknown to us. She was a free woman all because of Jesus. In her QT she picked up the flask of nard and with the Holy Spirit at work in her heart she resolved to risk all and do this beautiful thing for Jesus.
When she arrives at Simon's house, she was not asking permission, none would have been given - she was doing it and her QT w/h strengthened her resolve - go sister.
and so she knelt and broke it and poured it and poured - his head his face his shoulders, his hands and feet were covered in this beautiful deed.
In my time as a healthcare chaplain one of the beautiful things some volunteers used to do for a patient was to oil and massage and pedicure hands. Even male patients commented that it was such a beautiful thing to have done. A platonic loving act.
Here our unnamed woman lavishes the whole caboodle on our Lord. Jn 11 comments on the aroma that filled the room. Can you imagine the aroma of our Lord after this? Dior Sauvage w/be nothing compared to this. [206 per 100 ml].
Such extravagant generosity of this unnamed woman. I find myself saying to the Lord, Lord I want to be totally devoted, totally abandoned to loving you - help me Lord.
But I wonder Lord am I more likely to be an indignant objector? Which crowd am I in?
Let us look at the indignant objectors.
The indignant objection
Mk 14:4 says ‘some of those present were indignant and, v5, rebuked her harshly.’
These people were guests of Simon. I surmised that they may be feasting at the end of the Sabbath, a ritual prayer would have been said, their honoured guest was Jesus.
Bethany was a very pro-Jesus town. Remember Lazarus was resurrected there; Mary and Martha were close friends. You could say this was a safe house for Jesus, especially with the rising hostility of the authorities and the rising enthusiasm of the followers/ believers.
It was a well-guarded secret when I was a teenager that our house in Co Armagh was a safe house for high-ranking RUC officers. From time to time, plain-clothed officers would drop in for a bite to eat or a cuppa. And my mother would always pray over them. We never asked questions of what they were doing. Our house was a safe house to them.
I'm getting that type of vibe about Simon the leper; some commentaries speculate that he was the father of Lazarus and Mary and Martha but that is conjecture.
Having said that, it is all the more appalling that some of the guests and even a disciple or two, Judas was named Jn 12:4. These guests indignantly object Mk 14:4. Indignant is an unusual word to be used here by both Matthew and mark. It means to show anger annoyance because something is unjust or wrong. The Greek word aganaktountes Means angry annoyed irritated by what they perceived as a waste of expensive perfume - a foolish act.
When someone does an extravagant, beautiful thing for Jesus the different reactions are very interesting, aren't they? How may you have reacted?
What could have happened. Applause? You go sister. or ‘Wow, lady that is such a beautiful aroma, good on you.’ Or it could have gone like this, she receives a warm embrace from some of the disciples and warm words about what a wonderful, extraordinary, extravagant thing to do for Jesus.
But none of that is true, none of that happened. What did happen is a bunch of the diners got on their high horse and said what a waste and told her off.
She has sacrificed her future for this present anointing of her Lord Jesus and it is met with such disapproval that Matthew, Mark and John all recorded her being scolded, saying it is wasteful, bad stewardship, this could have been sold and given to the poor.
Friends, which crowd are we in here today?
Oh yes we all want to say I'm with the woman - but these moaners with tight fists and cold hearts are in our fellowships when it comes to being all for Jesus, and we need to examine ourselves in the light of this story. Even disciples are in the group, they had been with Jesus for three years and this is the culmination of their discipleship training. And yet again as often before the disciples failed to read the situation and understand the move of the Holy Spirit. Feeding 5000, walking on water, the parables. They had misread it before now a lady lavishes her love and her future provision on Jesus and they say ‘what a waste.’ Judas was one of them and in this story he is a good example of some who are in the church close to Jesus, interested in what they can get from Christianity, but cold and hard hearted. These types will moan and oppose extravagant gestures of beautiful deeds and unashamed uninhibited worship of people like this unnamed lady.
The awkward challenge for us this morning is to ask, dear people, which crowd are we in? We all want to be the lady but maybe we have leanings towards the disciples the diners - prone to moan and scold, prone to read the situation incorrectly.
Hear the words of our Lord on this last Saturday in Bethany, seated with his friends, Mk 14:6 ‘leave her alone….. She has done a beautiful thing to me.’
And so we come to our final phrase - a Godly Commendation
A Godly Commendation
Just as indignantly they told her off, Jesus vehemently told them off and commended her for this beautiful deed. ‘Leave her alone…. Why do you bother her, the poor you will have with you always - you won't always have me. She has done a beautiful deed – kalos agathos
Then he expands on what she has actually done - she has anointed my body beforehand for my burial.
Think back to her QT that Saturday morning and that HS prompt to lavishly cover JC from head to toe in pure nard. The HS is ahead of her - only God could know that this is his last Sabbath, only God would know his burial in the toumb on Good Friday would be rushed, and no ointment to embalm him would happen. Only God would know the woman on Easter Sunday would prepare ointment to visit the tomb but there would be no body, no Jesus in the tomb - Hallelujah.
Thank God for this lady’s QT and her bold resolve to do this beautiful thing.
Jewish law requires a sacred ritual of washing and purifying the deceased before burial, Taharah meaning purify. As a chaplain, several times I had to support our nursing staff to advise them how to prepare a Jewish deceased for burial in the absence of family. It is considered true kindness ‘chesed-she-lemes, ’ something that cannot be repaid. So Jesus said what she has done is a beautiful deed - true kindness.
The following Thursday night Jesus was arrested, on the Friday he was beaten and mocked and falsely convicted and crucified. After he had expired he was taken from the cross before sundown and the beginning of the Sabbath, and the Jewish ritual off Taharah was trumped by the Sabbath law. True kindness didn't happen on Good Friday, but it did happen at the tending of this unnamed woman during the week before he was crucified.
I guess his body still had the aroma of this beautiful deed performed by this wonderful woman. She kept the taharah for our LJC – how marvellous, the HS tending the holy son every step of the way from life to death and onto resurrection.
And listen to this, and I will finish here - Jesus finishes his commendation in this way Mk 14:9 ‘Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world,’ - Jesus says she will be known for this beautiful extravagant loving deed for all time.
Well, we all know that Paul goes down in history as a giant of theology; we have his writings and his story and his name. But this woman has neither writings nor a name all we have is this beautiful deed. She anointed Jesus our saviour. She was so completely focused on Jesus, not a drop of worldly benefit would arise… nothing could justify this spillage except love alone. An absurd act of extravagant gratitude… just for love alone. Jesus in Mark 14v9 said ‘what she has done is a beautiful thing.’
To me she is a role model, not a waster of money… this woman inspires me.. she gave all she had…. I want to give all I have for Jesus…. She wasn’t bothered by how she looked in her worship and her adoration of Jesus… I want to be ‘not bothered’ by how my love for Jesus looks to others. She became known for this one loving act, nothing more, nothing less. She loved our Lord extravagantly. I want to be known…not for being Irish or disabled or a Chaplain.. I want to be known for my love for Jesus.
How will you be remembered…in you church… in your neighbourhood, your family?
Is there something you are putting before your love for the Lord? Bring that to Jesus….
