J Philip Bible Readings

Mark 14:1-9

14 It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, ² for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.”

³ And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. ⁴ There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? ⁵ For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. ⁶ But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. ⁷ For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. ⁸ She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. ⁹ And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

Amidst the clouds of bitterness and hatred that surrounded our Lord at this time, this brief interlude must have been for Him a moment of supreme sweetness and consolation, for it was a sacrament of entire devotion on Mary's part, the outpouring of a loving heart. This is the importance of the story for us, for it brings us to the heart of everything in the Christian life. Where this devotion to Christ is lacking, all else is vain. There is no effective substitute for it. How glad the heart of Christ must have been at such an expression of love for Him. We have only to recall His later question to Peter - 'Lovest thou me?' - to realise how much He desires a response of love from our hearts, answering to His own. The indignation of the others (4) is very revealing, for it was a cover for the embarrassment they felt at her action. They were embarrassed because an abandonment of love shows up hearts that do not abandon themselves to Him. This in large measure explains how glad dedication and abandonment are often criticised or tolerantly smiled at, or frowned upon, by people who have never understood the real nature of discipleship, or, worse still, who once understood it and have since departed from it. Nothing condemns an unconsecrated or backslidden life so much as a wholehearted and unreserved love for Christ.