'Then Jesus, six days before the passover, came to Bethany, where
Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead. There
they made Him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them
that sat at the table with Him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of
spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His
feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the
ointment. Then saith one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son,
which should betray Him, Why was not this ointment sold for three
hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared
for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare
what was put therein. Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day
of My burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you;
but Me ye have not always. Much people of the Jews therefore knew that
He was there: and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they
might see Lazarus also, whom He had raised from the dead. But the chief
priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; because
that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on
Jesus.'—JOHN xii. 1-11.
Jesus came from Jericho, where He had left Zacchaeus rejoicing in the
salvation that had come to his house, and whence Bartimaeus, rejoicing
in His new power of vision, seems to have followed Him. A few hours
brought Him to Bethany, and we know from other Evangelists what a
tension of purpose marked Him, and awed the disciples, as He pressed on
before them up the rocky way. His mind was full of the struggle and
death which were so near. The modest village feast in the house of
Simon the leper comes in strangely amid the gathering gloom; but, no
doubt, Jesus accepted it, as He did everything, and entered into the
spirit of the hour. He would not pain His hosts by self-absorbed
aloofness at the table. The reason for the feast is obviously the
raising of Lazarus, as is suggested by his being twice mentioned in
verses 1 and 2.
Our Lord had withdrawn to Ephraim so immediately after the miracle that
the opportunity of honouring Him had not occurred. It was a brave
tribute to pay Him in the face of the Sanhedrim's commandment (ch. xi.
57). This incident sets in sharpest contrast the two figures of Mary,
the type of love which delights to give its best, and Judas, the type
of selfishness which is only eager to get; and it shows us Jesus
casting His shield over the uncalculating giver, and putting meaning
into her deed.
I. In Eastern fashion, the guests seem to have all been males, no doubt
the magnates of the village, and Jesus with His disciples. The former
would have become accustomed to seeing Lazarus, but Christ's immediate
followers would gaze curiously on him. And how he would gaze on Jesus,
whom he had probably not seen since the napkin had been taken from his
face. The two sisters were true to their respective characters. The
bustling, practical Martha had perhaps not very fine or quickly moved
emotions. She could not say graceful things to their benefactor, and
probably she did not care to sit at His feet and drink in His teaching;
but she loved Him with all her heart all the same, and showed it by
serving. No doubt, she took care that the best dishes were carried to
Jesus first, and, no doubt, as is the custom in those lands, she plied
Him with invitations to partake. We do Martha less than justice if we
do not honour her, and recognise that her kind of service is true
service. She has many successors among Christ's true followers, who
cannot 'gush' nor rise to the heights of His loftiest teaching, but who
have taken Him for their Lord, and can, at any rate, do humble,
practical service in kitchen or workshop. Their more 'intellectual' or
poetically emotional brethren are tempted to look down on them, but
Jesus is as ready to defend Martha against Mary, if she depreciates
her, as He is to vindicate Mary's right to her kind of expression of
love, if Martha should seek to force her own kind on her sister. 'There
are differences of ministries, but the same Lord.'
Mary was one of the unpractical sort, whom Martha is very apt to
consider supremely useless, and often to lose patience with. Could she
not find something useful to do in all the bustle of the feast? Had she
no hands that could carry a dish, and no common sense that could help
things on? Apparently not. Every one else was occupied, and how should
she show the love that welled up in her heart as she looked at Lazarus
sitting there beside Jesus? She had one costly possession, the pound of
perfume. Clearly it was her own, for she would not have taken it if
Lazarus and Mary had been joint owners. So, without thinking of
anything but the great burden of love which she blessedly bore, she
'poured it on His head' (Mark) and on His feet, which the fashion of
reclining at meals made accessible to her, standing behind Him, True
love is profuse, not to say prodigal. It knows no better use for its
best than to lavish it on the beloved, and can have no higher joy than
that. It does not stay to calculate utility as seen by colder eyes. It
has even a subtle delight in the very absence of practical results, for
the expression of itself is the purer thereby. A basin of water and a
towel would have done as well or better for washing Christ's feet, but
not for relieving Mary's full heart. Do we know anything of that
omnipotent impulse? Can we complacently set our givings beside Mary's?
II. Judas is the foil to Mary. His sullen, black selfishness,
stretching out hands like talons in eagerness to get, makes more
radiant, and is itself made darker by, her shining deed of love.
Goodness always rouses evil to self-assertion, and the other
Evangelists connect Mary's action with Judas's final treachery as part
of its impelling cause. They also show that his specious objection, by
its apparent common sense and charitableness, found assent in the
disciples. Three hundred pence worth of good ointment wasted which
might have helped so many poor! Yes, and how much poorer the world
would have been if it had not had this story! Mary was more utilitarian
than her censors. She served the highest good of all generations by her
uncalculating profusion, by which the poor have gained more than some
few of them might have lost.
Judas's criticism is still repeated. The world does not understand
Christian self-sacrifice, for ends which seem to it shadowy as compared
with the solid realities of helping material progress or satisfying
material wants. A hundred critics, who do not do much for the poor
themselves, will descant on the waste of money in religious
enterprises, and smile condescendingly at the enthusiasts who are so
unpractical. But love knows its own meaning, and need not be abashed by
the censure of the unloving.
John flashes out into a moment's indignation at the greed of Judas,
which was masquerading as benevolence. His scathing laying bare of
Judas's mean and thievish motive is no mere suspicion, but he must have
known instances of dishonesty. When a man has gone so far in selfish
greed that he has left common honesty behind him, no wonder if the
sight of utterly self-surrendering love looks to him folly. The world
has no instruments by which it can measure the elevation of the godly
life. Mary would not be Mary if Judas approved of her or understood
her.
III. Jesus vindicates the act of His censured servant. His words fall
into two parts, of which the former puts a meaning into Mary's act, of
which she probably had not been aware, while the latter meets the
carping criticism of Judas. That Jesus should see in the anointing a
reference to His burying, pathetically indicates how that near end
filled His thoughts, even while sharing in the simple feast. The clear
vision of the Cross so close did not so absorb Him as to make Him
indifferent either to Mary's love or to the villagers' humble
festivity. However weighed upon, His heart was always sufficiently at
leisure from itself to care for His friends and to defend them. He
accepts every offering that love brings, and, in accepting, gives it a
significance beyond the offerer's thought. We know not what use He may
make of our poor service; but we may be sure that, if that which we can
see to is right—namely, its motive,—He will take care of what we cannot
see to—namely, its effect,—and will find noble use for the sacrifices
which unloving critics pronounce useless waste.
'The poor always ye have with you.' Opportunities for the exercise of
brotherly liberality are ever present, and therefore the obligation to
it is constant. But these permanent duties do not preclude the
opportunities for such special forms of expressing special love to
Jesus as Mary had shown, and as must soon end. The same sense of
approaching separation as in the former clause gives pathos to that
restrained 'not always.' The fact of His being just about to leave them
warranted extraordinary tokens of love, as all loving hearts know but
too well. But, over and above the immediate reference of the words,
they carry the wider lesson that, besides the customary duties of
generous giving laid on us by the presence of ordinary poverty and
distresses, there is room in Christian experience for extraordinary
outflows from the fountain of a heart filled with love to Christ. The
world may mock at it as useless prodigality, but Jesus sees that it is
done for Him, and therefore He accepts it, and breathes meaning into
it.
'Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there
shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of
her.' The Evangelist who records that promise does not mention Mary's
name; John, who does mention the name, does not record the promise. It
matters little whether our names are remembered, so long as Jesus beam
them graven on His heart.