An alabaster jar of very expensive perfume. . . .
It could have been sold for more than a year's wages.
Mark 14:3, 5
The incident recounted in Mark 14:1-9, in which a woman
broke a jar of expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus'
head, is a glowing example of the extravagance of love.
The context of the action highlighted the joy and comfort it
must have brought to the Lord when the shadow of the
cross loomed so near.
This lovely gesture was made when "the chief priests
and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way
to arrest Jesus and kill him" (v. 1). The implacable hatred
of religious man served as a dark backdrop to the devoted
love of a disciple.
The scene closes on an equally somber note: "Then
Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests
to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this,
and promised to give him money. So he watched for an
opportunity to hand him over" (vv. 10-11).Between those two sordid events,
there was enacted one of the most moving scenes of the Lord's life.
The identity of the anonymous woman has been widely
debated, but there are some grounds for thinking it may
have been Mary of Bethany, and I will follow that idea.
In the gospels, women often had a special ministry to
the Lord, and this was one of those occasions. In the East
it was a common practice to sprinkle a few drops of oil on
the head of a guest. The oil would cost only a few cents.
A feast was being held in the Lord's honor in the home
of Simon the leper. Was he the father of Martha, Mary,
and Lazarus? Did he, as a leper, live in a separate house?
These are questions to which Scripture gives no answer.
While Jesus was reclining at the table, Mary "came with
an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure
nard. . . . and poured the perfume on his head" (v. 3).
This was the most costly of all fragrant oils in the world.
Some ingredients came from the distant Himalayas, and it
was reserved for the use of royalty and the very rich. Mark
records that its value was more than one year's wages.
Stop and think of the average wage, and you will have
an idea of the cost to Mary of her impulsive act of love. In
a moment of time she had spent more than a year's
wages, seemingly for no useful purpose. The significant
thing was that she did not pour only a few drops on her
Lord's head. She broke the neck of the beautiful jar and,
with lavish hand, poured all the perfume on His head.
The Disciples' Assessment"Why this waste of perfume?" (v. 4)
It Was Sheer Extravagance. Why should the woman
be so lavish, when a few drops would have sufficed?
Prudence and parsimony, with cold calculation, would
dictate how much (or how little) would be sufficient for the
occasion. To them it was a matter of profit and loss. To
Mary it was the supreme moment of her life, the moment
when she avowed her pure love for her Lord.
Had Mary used only a few drops of perfume as they
suggested, the story would never have been passed down
through the centuries. Nor would other hearts be
stimulated to a similar expression of the love that means
so much to the Lord. Do we calculatingly reckon up our
gifts to Him, carefully measuring out the expenditure of
time and strength we devote to the interest of His
kingdom? His heart aches for the abandon of love, and His
work languishes when it is absent.
David set an example for us when he refused to accept
the threshing-floor of Araunah as a gift. "Shall I give to the
Lord that which costs me nothing?" he protested (2
Samuel 24:24).
"Why this waste of perfume?"
It Was Waste. Why not do something useful with the
money it would bring on the market? Why not be practical?
"You serve God best by serving His creatures." Think of the
number of poor people it would have fed! True, it would
have fed many, but thank God it was not sold.In His ministry, Jesus had
demonstrated abundantly that He was not indifferent to the plight of
the poor. He was constantly ministering to their physical as well as their
spiritual needs. It must have hurt Mary deeply when they
so harshly rebuked her.
There had been several options open to her: (1) she
could have sold the perfume-and turned it into hard cash
and done something "useful" with it; (2) she could have
saved it as provision for her old age; (3) she could have
used it on herself, to enhance her beauty in the Lord's
eyes; (4) she might have left it until too late.
Are there not somewhat similar options open to us in
our relationship to the Lord?
"What a waste!" they said when the brilliant young
Cambridge scholar Henry Martyn-who at the age of
twenty had gained the highest award in mathematics the
world had to offer-threw away his prospects in exchange
for seven years of missionary work. But in those seven
years he gave the world the New Testament in three of
the major languages of the East.
"What a waste," they said when William Borden, heir to
the Borden millions, turned his back on his alluring
business prospects to instead become a missionary to the
Muslims and died before he reached the field. But that
proved to be fruitful waste, for his biography, Borden of
Yale, has influenced thousands toward the mission field.
Perhaps God is not so economical and utilitarian as we
are. What waste and prodigality we see in His creation.
But there are some things of the heart and the spirit that cannot be measured in cold cash.
How much do we know in practice of this seemingly
wasteful and extravagant expenditure of ourselves in His
service out of simple love for Him? Or are we stingy and
calculating in our self-giving? "He who sows sparingly shall
reap sparingly."
Her Own Assessment
The jar of perfume was her own prized possession. It
may have been a family heirloom. She was under no
necessity to expend it on the Lord. She might have used it
to draw attention to herself, but she did not.
Are we using God's gifts to us for our own adornment,
or are we pouring them out at His feet? Mary's was the
spontaneous, uncalculating action of self-forgetful love.
Her greatest delight was to bestow her choicest treasure
on One she dearly loved.
One of the missionaries of the Overseas Missionary
Fellowship lay dying of cancer. Her only daughter was
about to sail for the mission field when the disease struck.
Naturally, the daughter wanted to stay and nurse her
mother in her hour of need. The mother could have kept
her "jar of fragrance" for herself, yet its sweetness would
have been spoiled for her. She would not let her daughter
postpone her sailing. The people without Christ in that far-
off land were in greater need than she was. To her,
nothing was too precious for Jesus.
Christ's AssessmentJesus rebuked the disciples as sharply as they had
rebuked Mary: "Leave her alone. . . . Why are you
bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The
poor you will always have with you, and you can help them
any time you want. But you will not always have me" (vv.
6-7).
Of course we must care for the poor, but the Son of
God, away from His home, longed for some personal
expression of love; something done for Himself alone, out
of pure, self-forgetful love. And Mary gave Him just that.
Otherwise the pouring of the perfume would have been
purposeless. It still means much to the Lord when He finds
someone with a heart like Mary's.
"She did what she could," Jesus said of her action.
There were many things that as a woman she could not
do; but she did what she could. She poured her perfume
on His head as an act of love while He was able to
appreciate it.
Christ's prediction in verse 9 has been wonderfully
fulfilled: "Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the
whole world, what she has done will also be told, in
memory of her." Implicit in this statement is the invincible
confidence Jesus had that His disciples would carry His
gospel "into the whole world." And we are the
beneficiaries of that promise. The fragrance from that
broken jar has reached us two thousand years later.
Her act won no applause from her companions, but to
her beloved Master it was a refreshing oasis in the midst
of the desert of man's indifference and hatred.Have we ever offered a gift,
done an act, emptied our jar of perfume out of pure love for Him alone?
This He treasures more than all our service, for it is the love
behind the service that makes the fragrance.