I.

_THE ANOINTING OF JESUS._

"Jesus therefore six days before the Passover came to Bethany, where

Lazarus was, whom Jesus raised from the dead. So they made Him a

supper there: and Martha served; but Lazarus was one of them that

sat at meat with Him. Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of

spikenard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped

His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of

the ointment. But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, which should

betray Him, saith, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred

pence, and given to the poor? Now this he said, not because he cared

for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the bag took

away what was put therein. Jesus therefore said, Suffer her to keep

it against the day of My burying. For the poor ye have always with

you; but Me ye have not always. The common people therefore of the

Jews learned 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 took counsel 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.

This twelfth chapter is the watershed of the Gospel. The

self-manifestation of Jesus to the world is now ended; and from this

point onwards to the close we have to do with the results of that

manifestation. He hides Himself from the unbelieving, and allows their

unbelief full scope; while He makes further disclosures to the faithful

few. The whole Gospel is a systematic and wonderfully artistic

exhibition of the manner in which the deeds, words, and claims of Jesus

produced,--on the one hand, a growing belief and enthusiasm; on the

other, a steadily hardening unbelief and hostility. In this chapter the

culmination of these processes is carefully illustrated by three

incidents. In the first of these incidents evidence is given that there

was an intimate circle of friends in whose love Jesus was embalmed, and

His work and memory insured against decay; while the very deed which had

riveted the faith and affection of this intimate circle is shown to have

brought the antagonism of His enemies to a head. In the second incident

the writer shows that on the whole popular mind Jesus had made a

profound impression, and that the instincts of the Jewish people

acknowledged Him as King. In the third incident the influence He was

destined to have and was already to some extent exerting beyond the

bounds of Judaism is illustrated by the request of the Greeks that they

might see Jesus.

In this first incident, then, is disclosed a devotedness of faith which

cannot be surpassed, an attachment which is absolute; but here also we

see that the hostility of avowed enemies has penetrated even the inner

circle of the personal followers of Jesus, and that one of the chosen

Twelve has so little faith or love that he can see no beauty and find no

pleasure in any tribute paid to his Master. In this hour there meet a

ripeness of love which suddenly reveals the permanent place which Jesus

has won for Himself in the hearts of men, and a maturity of alienation

which forebodes that His end cannot be far distant. In this beautiful

incident, therefore, we turn a page in the gospel and come suddenly into

the presence of Christ's death. To this death He Himself freely alludes,

because He sees that things are now ripe for it, that nothing short of

His death will satisfy His enemies, while no further manifestation can

give Him a more abiding place in the love of His friends. The chill,

damp odour of the tomb first strikes upon the sense, mingling with and

absorbed in the perfume of Mary's ointment. If Jesus dies, He cannot be

forgotten. He is embalmed in the love of such disciples.

On His way to Jerusalem for the last time Jesus reached Bethany "six

days before the Passover"--that is to say, in all probability[1] on the

Friday evening previous to His death. It was natural that He should wish

to spend His last Sabbath in the congenial and strengthening society of

a family whose welcome and whose affection He could rely upon. In the

little town of Bethany He had become popular, and since the raising of

Lazarus He was regarded with marked veneration. Accordingly they made

Him a feast, which, as Mark informs us, was given in the house of Simon

the leper. Any gathering of His friends in Bethany must have been

incomplete without Lazarus and his sisters. Each is present, and each

contributes an appropriate addition to the feast. Martha serves;

Lazarus, mute as he is throughout the whole story, bears witness by his

presence as a living guest to the worthiness of Jesus; while Mary makes

the day memorable by a characteristic action. Coming in, apparently

after the guests had reclined at table, she broke an alabaster of very

costly spikenard[2] and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet

with her hair.

This token of affection took the company by surprise. Lazarus and his

sisters may have been in sufficiently good circumstances to admit of

their making a substantial acknowledgment of their indebtedness to

Jesus; and although this alabaster of ointment had cost as much as would

keep a labouring man's family for a year, this could not seem an

excessive return to make for service so valuable as Jesus had rendered.

It was the manner of the acknowledgment which took the company by

surprise. Jesus was a poor man, and His very appearance may have

suggested that there were other things He needed more urgently than

such a gift as this. Had the family provided a home for Him or given

Him the price of this ointment, no one would have uttered a remark. But

this was the kind of demonstration reserved for princes or persons of

great distinction; and when paid to One so conspicuously humble in His

dress and habits, there seemed to the uninstructed eye something

incongruous and bordering on the grotesque. When the fragrance of the

ointment disclosed its value, there was therefore an instantaneous

exclamation of surprise, and at any rate in one instance of blunt

disapproval. Judas, instinctively putting a money value on this display

of affection, roundly and with coarse indelicacy declared it had better

have been sold and given to the poor.

Jesus viewed the act with very different feelings. The rulers were

determining to put Him out of the way, as not only worthless but

dangerous; the very man who objected to this present expenditure was

making up his mind to sell Him for a small part of the sum; the people

were scrutinising His conduct, criticising Him;--in the midst of all

this hatred, suspicion, treachery, coldness, and hesitation comes this

woman and puts aside all this would-be wisdom and caution, and for

herself pronounces that no tribute is rich enough to pay to Him. It is

the rarity of such action, not the rarity of the nard, that strikes

Jesus. This, He says, is a noble deed she has done, far rarer, far more

difficult to produce, far more penetrating, and lasting in its fragrance

than the richest perfume that man has compounded. Mary has the

experience that all those have who for Christ's sake expose themselves

to the misunderstanding and abuse of vulgar and unsympathetic minds; she

receives from Himself more explicit assurance that her offering has

given pleasure to Him and is gratefully accepted. We may sometimes find

ourselves obliged to do what we perfectly well know will be

misunderstood and censured; we may be compelled to adopt a line of

conduct which seems to convict us of heedlessness and of the neglect of

duties we owe to others; we may be driven to action which lays us open

to the charge of being romantic and extravagant; but of one thing we may

be perfectly sure--that however our motives are mis-read and condemned

by those who first make their voices heard, He for whose sake we do

these things will not disparage our action nor misunderstand our

motives. The way to a fuller intimacy with Christ often lies through

passages in life we must traverse alone.

But we are probably more likely to misunderstand than to be

misunderstood. We are so limited in our sympathies, so scantily

furnished with knowledge, and have so slack a hold upon great

principles, that for the most part we can understand only those who are

like ourselves. When a woman comes in with her effusiveness, we are put

out and irritated; when a man whose mind is wholly uneducated utters his

feelings by shouting hymns and dancing on the street, we think him a

semi-lunatic; when a member of our family spends an hour or two a day in

devotional exercises, we condemn it as waste of time which might be

better spent on practical charities or household duties.

Most liable of all to this vice of misjudging the actions of others, and

indeed of misapprehending generally wherein the real value of life

consists, are those who, like Judas, measure all things by a

utilitarian, if not a money, standard. Actions which have no immediate

results are pronounced by such persons to be mere sentiment and waste,

while in fact they redeem human nature and make life seem worth living.

The charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava served none of the

immediate purposes of the battle, and was indeed a blunder and waste

from that point of view; yet are not our annals enriched by it as they

have been by few victories? On the Parthenon there were figures placed

with their backs hard against the wall of the pediment; these backs were

never seen and were not intended to be seen, but yet were carved with

the same care as was spent upon the front of the figures. Was that care

waste? There are thousands of persons in our own society who think it

essential to teach their children arithmetic, but pernicious to instil

into their minds a love of poetry or art. They judge of education by the

test, Will it pay? can this attainment be turned into money? The other

question, Will it enrich the nature of the child and of the man? is not

asked. They proceed as if they believed that the man is made for

business, not business for the man; and thus it comes to pass that

everywhere among us men are found sacrificed to business, stunted in

their moral development, shut off from the deeper things of life. The

pursuits which such persons condemn are the very things which lift life

out of the low level of commonplace buying and selling, and invite us to

remember that man liveth not by bread alone, but by high thoughts, by

noble sacrifice, by devoted love and all that love dictates, by the

powers of the unseen, mightier by far than all that we see.

In the face, then, of so much that runs counter to such demonstrations

as Mary's and condemns them as extravagance, it is important to note the

principles upon which our Lord proceeds in His justification of her

action.

First, He says, this is an occasional, exceptional tribute. "The poor

always ye have with you, but me ye have not always." Charity to the poor

you may continue from day to day all your life long: whatever you spend

on me is spent once for all. You need not think the poor defrauded by

this expenditure. Within a few days I shall be beyond all such tokens of

regard, and the poor will still claim your sympathy. This principle

solves for us some social and domestic problems. Of many expenses common

in society, and especially of expenses connected with scenes such as

this festive gathering at Bethany, the question always arises, Is this

expenditure justifiable? When present at an entertainment costing as

much and doing as little material good as the spikenard whose perfume

had died before the guests separated, we cannot but ask, Is not this,

after all, mere waste? had it not been better to have given the value to

the poor? The hunger-bitten faces, the poverty-stricken outcasts, we

have seen during the day are suggested to us by the superabundance now

before us. The effort to spend most where least is needed suggests to

us, as to these guests at Bethany, gaunt, pinched, sickly faces, bare

rooms, cold grates, feeble, dull-eyed children--in a word, starving

families who might be kept for weeks together on what is here spent in a

few minutes; and the question is inevitable, Is this right? Can it be

right to spend a man's ransom on a mere good smell, while at the end of

the street a widow is pining with hunger? Our Lord replies that so long

as one is day by day considering the poor and relieving their

necessities, he need not grudge an occasional outlay to manifest his

regard for his friends. The poor of Bethany would probably appeal to

Mary much more hopefully than to Judas, and they would appeal all the

more successfully because her heart had been allowed to utter itself

thus to Jesus. There is, of course, an expenditure for display under the

guise of friendship. Such expenditure finds no justification here or

anywhere else. But those who in a practical way acknowledge the

perpetual presence of the poor are justified in the occasional outlay

demanded by friendship.

2. But our Lord's defence of Mary is of wider range. "Let her alone," He

says, "against the day of my burying hath she kept this." It was not

only occasional, exceptional tribute she had paid Him; it was solitary,

never to be repeated. Against my burial she has kept this unguent; for

me ye have not always. Would you blame Mary for spending this, were I

lying in my tomb? Would you call it too costly a tribute, were it the

last? Well, it is the last.[3] Such is our Lord's justification of her

action. Was Mary herself conscious that this was a parting tribute? It

is possible that her love and womanly instinct had revealed to her the

nearness of that death of which Jesus Himself so often spoke, but which

the disciples refused to think of. She may have felt that this was the

last time she would have an opportunity of expressing her devotion.

Drawn to Him with unutterable tenderness, with admiration, gratitude,

anxiety mingling in her heart, she hastens to spend upon Him her

costliest. Passing away from _her_ world she knows He is; buried so far

as she was concerned she knew Him to be if He was to keep the Passover

at Jerusalem in the midst of His enemies. Had the others felt with her,

none could have grudged her the last consolation of this utterance of

her love, or have grudged Him the consolation of receiving it. For this

made Him strong to die, this among other motives--the knowledge that His

love and sacrifice were not in vain, that He had won human hearts, and

that in their affection He would survive. This is His true embalming.

This it is that forbids that His flesh see corruption, that His earthly

manifestation die out and be forgotten. To die before He had attached to

Himself friends as passionate in their devotion as Mary would have been

premature. The recollection of His work might have been lost. But when

He had won men like John and women like Mary, He could die assured that

His name would never be lost from earth. The breaking of the alabaster

box, the pouring out of Mary's soul in adoration of her Lord--this was

the signal that all was ripe for His departure, this the proof that His

manifestation had done its work. The love of His own had come to

maturity and burst thus into flower. Jesus therefore recognises in this

act His true embalming.

And it is probably from this point of view that we may most readily see

the appropriateness of that singular commendation and promise which our

Lord, according to the other gospels, added: "Verily I say unto you,

wherever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this

also that she hath done shall be spoken for a memorial of her."

At first sight the encomium might seem as extravagant as the action. Was

there, a Judas might ask, anything deserving of immortality in the

sacrifice of a few pounds? But no such measurements are admissible here.

The encomium was deserved because the act was the irrepressible

utterance of all-absorbing love--of a love so full, so rich, so rare

that even the ordinary disciples of Christ were at first not in perfect

sympathy with it. The absolute devotedness of her love found a fit

symbol in the alabaster box or vase which she had to break that the

ointment might flow out. It was not a bottle out of which she might take

the stopper and let a carefully measured quantity dribble out, reserving

the rest for other and perhaps very different uses--fit symbol of our

love to Christ; but it was a hermetically sealed casket or flask, out of

which, if she let one drop fall, the whole must go. It had to be broken;

it had to be devoted to one sole use. It could not be in part reserved

or in part diverted to other uses. Where you have such love as this,

have you not the highest thing humanity can produce? Where is it now to

be had on earth, where are we to look for this all-devoting, unreserving

love, which gathers up all its possessions and pours them out at

Christ's feet, saying, "Take all, would it were more"?

The encomium, therefore, was deserved and appropriate. In her love the

Lord would ever live: so long as she existed the remembrance of Him

could not die. No death could touch her heart with his chilly hand and

freeze the warmth of her devotion. Christ was immortal in her, and she

was therefore immortal in Him. Her love was a bond that could not be

broken, the truest spiritual union. In embalming Him, therefore, she

unconsciously embalmed herself. Her love was the amber in which He was

to be preserved, and she became inviolable as He. Her love was the

marble on which His name and worth were engraven, on which His image was

deeply sculptured, and they were to live and last together. Christ

"prolongs His days" in the love of His people. In every generation there

arise those who will not let His remembrance die out, and who to their

own necessities call out the living energy of Christ. In so doing they

unwittingly make themselves undying as He; their love of Him is the

little spark of immortality in their soul. It is that which indissolubly

and by the only genuine spiritual affinity links them to what is

eternal. To all who thus love Him Christ cannot but say, "Because I

live, ye shall live also."

Another point in our Lord's defence of Mary's conduct, though it is not

explicitly asserted, plainly is, that tributes of affection paid

directly to Himself are of value to Him. Judas might with some

plausibility have quoted against our Lord His own teaching that an act

of kindness done to the poor was kindness to Him. It might be said that,

on our Lord's own showing, what He desires is, not homage paid to

Himself personally, but loving and merciful conduct. And certainly any

homage paid to Himself which is not accompanied by such conduct is of no

value at all. But as love to Him is the spring and regulator of all

right conduct, it is necessary that we should cultivate this love; and

because He delights in our well-being and in ourselves, and does not

look upon us merely as so much material in which He may exhibit His

healing powers, He necessarily rejoices in every expression of true

devotedness that is paid to Him by any of us.

And on our side wherever there is true and ardent love it must crave

direct expression. "If ye love me," says our Lord, "keep my

commandments"; and obedience certainly is the normal test and exhibition

of love. But there is that in our nature which refuses to be satisfied

with obedience, which craves fellowship with what we love, which carries

us out of ourselves and compels us to express our feeling directly. And

that soul is not fully developed whose pent-up gratitude, cherished

admiration, and warm affection do not from time to time break away from

all ordinary modes of expressing devotion and choose some such direct

method as Mary chose, or some such straightforward utterance as Peter's:

"Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee."

It may, indeed, occur to us, as we read of Mary's tribute to her Lord,

that the very words in which He justified her action forbid our

supposing that any so grateful tribute can be paid Him by us. "Me ye

have not always" may seem to warn us against expecting that so direct

and satisfying an intercourse can be maintained now, when we no longer

have Him. And no doubt this is one of the standing difficulties of

Christian experience. We can love those who live with us, whose eye we

can meet, whose voice we know, whose expression of face we can read. We

feel it easy to fix our affections on one and another of those who are

alive contemporaneously with ourselves. But with Christ it is different:

we miss those sensible impressions made upon us by the living bodily

presence; we find it difficult to retain in the mind a settled idea of

the feeling He has towards us. It is an effort to accomplish by faith

what sight without any effort effectually accomplishes. We do not _see_

that He loves us; the looks and tones that chiefly reveal human love are

absent; we are not from hour to hour confronted, whether we will or no,

with one evidence or other of love. Were the life of a Christian

nowadays no more difficult than it was to Mary, were it brightened with

Christ's presence as a household friend, were the whole sum and

substance of it merely a giving way to the love He kindled by palpable

favours and measurable friendship, then surely the Christian life would

be a very simple, very easy, very happy course.

But the connection between ourselves and Christ is not of the body that

passes, but of the spirit which endures. It is spiritual, and such a

connection may be seriously perverted by the interference of sense and

of bodily sensations. To measure the love of Christ by His expression of

face and by His tone of voice is legitimate, but it is not the truest

measurement: to be drawn to Him by the accidental kindnesses our present

difficulties must provoke is to be drawn by something short of perfect

spiritual affinity. And, on the whole, it is well that our spirit should

be allowed to choose its eternal friendship and alliance by what is

specially and exclusively its own, so that its choice cannot be

mistaken, as the choice sometimes is when there is a mixture of physical

and spiritual attractiveness. So much are we guided in youth and in the

whole of our life by what is material, so freely do we allow our tastes

to be determined and our character to be formed by our connection with

what is material, that the whole man gets blunted in his _spiritual_

perceptions and incapable of appreciating what is not seen. And the

great part of our education in this life is to lift the spirit to its

true place and to its appropriate company, to teach it to measure its

gains apart from material prosperity, and to train it to love with

ardour what cannot be seen.

Besides, it cannot be doubted that this incident itself very plainly

teaches that Christ came into this world to win our love and to turn all

duty into a personal acting towards Him; to make the _whole_ of life

like those parts of it which are now its bright exceptional holiday

times; to make all of it a pleasure by making all of it and not merely

parts of it the utterance of love. Even a little love in our life is the

sunshine that quickens and warms and brightens the whole. There seems at

length to be a reason and a satisfaction in life when love animates us.

It is easy to act well to those whom we really love, and Christ has come

for the express purpose of bringing our whole life within this charmed

circle. He has come not to bring constraint and gloom into our lives,

but to let us out into the full liberty and joy of the life that God

Himself lives and judges to be the only life worthy of His bestowal upon

us.