“Anointing Jesus”
[John
12:1-8]
July 17, 2016 Second Reformed Church
We last saw Jesus in Ephraim, and
there the Pharisees decided that for the good of the nation – for the good of
the stability of the Sanhedrin – for the good of the power and perks of the
priests living under the watchful eye of Rome – they had to find a way to put
Jesus to death.
And we read:
“Six days before the Passover, Jesus
therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the
dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one
of those reclining with him at table.”
In looking at the rest of the text
and keeping in mind that days are counted from sundown to sundown in Judaism,
scholars agree that Jesus arrived Friday night before the Passover, the dinner
described – which the other Gospels tells us was at the house of Simon the
leper – a party celebrating Lazarus’ resurrection – was that Saturday evening,
with the so-called “Triumphal Entry” that Sunday morning.
So Jesus and the disciples arrived
at the house of Simon the leper on Friday evening to share the Sabbath with
them and to be ready to celebrate at the dinner Saturday evening – they were
back in Bethany. Simon was hosting the
celebration, and Martha was serving the guests.
Lazarus reclined at the table – the honored guest. Minimally, with Jesus and His apostles, Mary,
Martha, Lazarus, and Simon, the party was for a group of seventeen.
Can we picture the party? A good friend of the family was hosting a
party to celebrate Lazarus’ resurrection.
What a joy after such sudden sorrow.
Jesus was there – Who raised Lazarus by the Power of God – and His
disciples with Him. Jesus was happy to
be with His good friends in the home of their friend, Simon. Food and drink were being offered all
around. What a time of joy before the
crucifixion. Joy, thanksgiving, food,
friends, and drink all around. Have you
ever been to a joyous celebration like that?
And then the smell of ointment – not
ointment like “Blue Ice” or “Ben Gay,” but a beautiful, exotic aroma in an
ointment form – longer-lasting than a mere perfume.
And we see, Jesus is worth all of
our best.
“Mary therefore took a pound of
expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and
wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the
perfume.”
Ah, Mary.
We have the consistent portrayal of the sisters: Martha, the DIY sister, is running back and
forth, serving the food and drink, making sure everything is just perfect and everyone
is satisfied and happy with the party refreshments, but Mary sat at Jesus’ feet
at the table – as was custom – for women to sit at the feet or behind the men.
And Mary took out a bottle of ointment. It was a large bottle. The word that is used actually indicates
twelve ounces – a large amount of ointment.
And this was not ointment from the dollar store – this was pure nard.
Nard is an ointment that is made from an
aromatic herb which grows in the Himalayas between Turkey and India. So, this ointment would have come from a
distance. But this was not just an
ointment with nard in it – this was pure nard – this was the costliest, the most
fragrant, the purest ointment that could be obtained. Based on its size and purity, Judas estimated
it would have been worth three hundred denarii.
Now, a denarii was the pay given to the
average day laborer for a day’s work at that time. It would have been worth about $20 two
thousand years ago – that was the average pay for the average day’s work two
thousand years ago. The whole jar was
estimated at costing three hundred denarii – about $6,000 in the money of two
thousand years ago.
Another was to think of it would be that
it was worth three hundred days pay – ten months pay. The 2015 income tax records [not including
government officials] show that the residents of Irvington earned salaries
between $19,000 and $135,000, with the average income being $51,000.
If we were to put this history in
Irvington in 2015 with a person of average income, ten months of salary would
be $42,500. So we can think of it like
this – if we put this bottle of ointment in our circumstance, we could say it
was worth $42,500 – three hundred denarii – three hundred days pay – ten months
pay.
Where did Mary get such an expensive
bottle of ointment? We don’t know. But we do know what she did with it: she anointed Jesus with it.
Anointing was usually just done on the
head, but as we see from the other Gospels, she began by anointing Jesus’ head
– and John tells us she anointed Him down to His feet – Mary emptied out the
entire bottle of ointment on Jesus. She
spread the entire bottle of this precious ointment from Jesus’ head to His
feet. She spread $42,500 worth of
ointment over Him.
And as the ointment ran down His body and
began to drip from His feet, Mary used her hair to catch the excess and massage
it into Jesus’ feet.
Do we have that picture?
Mary, in thanks to Jesus for His raising
her beloved brother, Lazarus, from the dead, and in love of Jesus as her God
and Savior – as she and her sister had
confessed Him at the tomb, she thought it only right to greet Jesus and anoint
Him with all of this expensive ointment in devotion to Him – as a lavish sacrifice
to Him – to show how much He was worth to her.
What is He worth to you and me?
Every mere human being is born a sinner,
guilty of sin, under the Wrath of God – and none of us can do anything about
that because we are born spiritual dead in our sins. But God chose to glorify Himself and show His
great love to us by paying the debt we owed Him Himself.
God came to earth in the person of Jesus,
lived a righteous life – which He credited to our accounts – so we are now seen
as righteous before God. And Jesus took
our sins from our account and credited them to His own account so He would
suffer the eternal Wrath of God for each one of us on the cross. And then He rose because death could not hold
Him – and death cannot hold us – what is He worth?
Jesus is here. What have we done with the stuff and the
talents we have – in joy – to show how much we believe Jesus is worth? Do our friends and families look at us and
the things we do and naturally conclude that we believe Jesus is worthy of all we
are and have and the best of who we are and what we have?
Consider also as we think about this –
people were anointed to holding some office.
Kings and prophets were anointed.
The Savior that God promised to send was called “Messiah” or “Christ” –
both of which literally mean “the anointed one.” There is no reason to think that Mary had
this symbolic meaning in mind, but as we read the Scripture, we can see that it
is obviously placed there so were would recognize the symbolic declaration of
Jesus being God the Son, the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One
Who came to save His people.
So Mary believed and showed that she
believed that Jesus was worth all of her best.
I pray that we all use all of our very
best to worship and glorify Jesus, because He is worthy of all of our very
best.
Second, nothing is wasted in the
worship of Jesus.
“But Judas Iscariot, one of his
disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this ointment not
sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?’ He said this, not
because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge
of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.”
Judas could not comprehend the generosity
in Mary’s worship: “No one is worthy – and no one needs – to be anointed with
an entire bottle of ointment! No one is
worthy – and no one needs to be anointed with $42,500 worth of ointment! And if there was anyone who was worthy of
such excess, he or she would refuse it while there are so many people starving
and without basic needs! It was a waste
to pour it over Jesus when it could have been sold and the money used to help
the poor suffering around us!”
Judas was an embezzler. Judas oversaw the money for Jesus and His
inner circle, and Judas stole money from Jesus to line his own pockets. Judas was angry because he thought he was
more worthy of stealing the money the ointment was worth than anointing Jesus
with it.
Perhaps he would have given some of
the money to the people he was crying out for, but most of the money would go
to his salary, bookkeeping, office supplies, and various fees – we’ve seen this
on the news.
And, unfortunately, we call sinners
to pastor our churches – I am one of them.
And we have sinners count the money and write the checks and greet you
after worship and serve you coffee and pie – and every one of us is tempted to
sin and every one of us sins – and because we are sinners, we hold back because
we rightly believe that you can’t trust sinners!
And so we end up giving of ourselves
just what we are willing to risk to lose and still feel like we are taking care
of our portion of the church.
We have a tendency to think, “Well,
I’ve got Jesus down, down, down, down, down in my heart, but He’s not
here. If He was here, I would trust Him
with more than I trust the church with.”
Brothers and sisters, Jesus is
here. He is here spiritually. He is here in the reading and preaching of
the Word of God. He is here in the
sacraments. He is here – living within
each one of us who believes. No, He is
not physically here, but He is really here, and no matter how true it is that
the church is a bunch of sinful people, we are the body of Christ together, and
Christ is here now as the Head of the body.
Our primary focus and the primary meaning of our gathering and giving of
ourselves is not the bills, but the worth of Jesus.
Judas was not a believer; he did not
believe the Gospel. He thought Jesus was
a great teacher who got out of hand with what He was teaching. But he didn’t believe that Jesus is God the
Messiah – the Christ – the One Who is worthy of all of our best. Yet if Jesus truly is God the Promised Savior
that nothing is wasted that is offered with faith in Jesus Alone and in
worship.
People who don’t believe might see
it as a waste. Why do you waste your
money on that church? Why do you waste your
time with that church? Why do you waste
your abilities giving them to that church?
Wouldn’t you help more people giving that to such and such a politician
or to an environmental group or to a soup kitchen?
Listen: everything we do here should have to do with
the worship of Jesus – showing through our words and actions how worthy – how
worthwhile – we believe Jesus is – and if we believe He is Messiah – isn’t He
worth absolutely everything?
My hope is not in this
building. My hope is not in all of
you. My hope is in Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, He Who credited me with His
righteousness and took my sin and the punishment for my sin on Him and secured
my salvation through His Resurrection.
So, pray God, I am will to give everything I have and am to Him because
nothing is wasted in the worship of Jesus.
What about you?
And third, Jesus is sovereign over
our worship.
“Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone, so
that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have
with you, but you do not always have me.’”
Jesus responded to Judas strongly:
Jesus told Judas to leave her alone,
because what she was doing was entirely appropriate. In fact, she was moved by the Holy Spirit to
begin Jesus’ burial preparations in this act of anointing His body as it would
act as a preservative and would keep critters from consuming His body.
Jesus did not commend Mary to say
that this is something that should occur on a regular basis, but, in the
Sovereignty of God, God moved her to make this profound gift and to give it to
Jesus in the spirit of thanksgiving and worship – yes, in joy – as He continued
to move towards accomplishing the work God anointed Him to accomplish.
And then Jesus told Judas that there
would always be poor people, but He would not be physically present much longer
– and we can take this as a pretty harsh statement: didn’t Jesus care about the poor? Was He saying, “Who cares about the poor,
focus on Me?”
No, Jesus cared about the poor very
much – as we see in the Gospels – and as Paul notes in his letters – those who
follow Jesus tend to be the poor, the sick, the needy. Jesus does not appeal to those who believe they
have everything they need and don’t need help.
What Jesus was saying – knowing in
His Divinity that Judas was a thief – and that was why he was concerned about
the money – Jesus was telling Judas something along the lines of: “This act of
Mary’s was sovereignly ordained to prepared Me for death. There will always be people in need that you
can and should minister to – if you really care.”
Jesus was dead and in the grave six
days later.
But He rose from the dead on the
third day to the Glory of the Father and for our salvation and for the life we
would lead as the Church until His return.
What is He worth to us?
How will we show it and live it?
Let pray:
Almighty God we thank You for
sending Your Son. We thank You that You
ordained that Mary would show the incredible worth of the Anointed One, and
that this history would be recorded as an example for us. Help us to know You and Your worth in all
Three Persons. We ask that the Holy
Spirit would show us that our view of You is still too small. Be pleased to amaze us and change us, and may
all glory be to You. In Jesus Name,
Amen.
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