Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (Matthew 26:6-13 ESV).
The woman in this account provides something that would have been absent from the narrative and its context: she is the only one who seems to be giving honor and showing devotion to Jesus. We would not expect the Religious leaders to honor Jesus, they are busily conspiring how to kill him and will very soon find an accomplice in Judas. We would expect the disciples to honor Jesus, but they seem clueless about what is really going on. So clueless are they that they actually object to this woman’s act of devotion on the grounds that it was too extravagant. Jesus is not worth such a costly display of affection.
Only Jesus knows what is really going on here. Only Jesus fully understood that He was going to die, something He had previously told His disciples explicitly, which they either could not or would not understand. It made perfect sense to honor Jesus while He was still there with them. They should not have taken His physical presence for granted because He would not be with them much longer. So there was more meaning in this act of devotion than even the woman herself understood. Only Jesus knew what it really meant. The Jews often used perfumes to prepare a body for burial, but only after the person was already dead. Jesus was not dead yet, but this woman’s act was sort of like a silent prophecy foretelling Jesus’ death. It is interesting that it was the women disciples who were then determined to honor Jesus, even when His body was in the sealed tomb, by anointing Him again. But their plans were interrupted unexpectedly by the resurrection! These female disciples are held up in the Gospels as examples of love and devotion to Jesus. They continued to follow Him even into the darkness of the Cross and the Tomb. What is discipleship if not love and devotion like this?
In our text, the Gospel writer is intentionally making a contrast between the woman’s beautiful, loving devotion to Jesus and the ugliness of the religious leaders, not to mention the insensitivity of the disciples. In John’s version of this account it was Judas who voiced the objection to this woman’s act, not because he cared about the poor, but because he wanted to embezzle the money. Judas was devoted to Judas.
The woman who remains anonymous in Matthew is identified in John as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. This was the Mary who was described by Luke as sitting devotedly at Jesus’ feet listening to His teaching while her sister Martha fretted over the preparations. Mary was devoted to Jesus even though it seemed to get her in trouble! But Mary is the only one getting it right. Jesus is more important than anything else. This woman only cared about Jesus and what He thought of her.
She brought something precious and costly and she broke the vessel and poured out her gift, keeping nothing for herself. This act of devotion is a rebuke perhaps to us who may have lost our first love, like that Church in Revelation. This woman is a reminder that being a disciple of Jesus means having the singular kind of love and devotion that holds nothing back but pours itself out, in spite of what other people might say or do to oppose it.
Does it surprise you that this woman had her critics? How could anyone oppose such an act of love? Perhaps even more surprising is that her critics were the other disciples, who all probably chimed in with Judas. Anyone who wants to be a disciple of Jesus will soon discover that there are forces of opposition.
First, we must look inside ourselves. There is a natural self-centeredness that gets in the way of true devotion to Jesus. Don’t make the mistake of blaming something or someone else for your shortcomings! That is the oldest tendency in human nature, going all the way back to Eden. “It was the woman you gave me.” And the classic line “the Devil made me do it.”
We don’t like to admit that there are some things we do just for ourselves, because we want something really bad, and we aren’t thinking about anything or anyone else at that moment. We don’t like to admit that there is a little Judas in all of us, waiting to get out and express himself. That is what the New Testament calls the Flesh, which is that thing that we must crucify if we are to follow Jesus. There are no exceptions! Everyone must take up his or her cross, dying to self, in order to follow Jesus. This must be done first, at the beginning of our spiritual lives, or no further progress will ever be made.
Something else that can severely hinder our pure devotion to Christ is our lack of understanding. If we don’t really understand who Jesus is and what He came to do then we can never really enter fully into the Christian life. Jesus is not trying to hide the truth or fool us. Our spiritual obtuseness is not due to a lack of information or revelation. The dullness of the disciples was not due to a lack of clarity from Jesus, who had told them plainly on several occasions that He would be crucified when they got to Jerusalem. But the very idea of the Christ suffering and dying simply did not fit into their preconceived framework about the Kingdom of God. How could the Kingdom come if Jesus were to actually die? Perhaps He was speaking metaphorically, as He often did? We often think that God should conform to our own plans, ideas, and expectations. But when God breaks out of our little box we have put Him in, we become confused. What is God up to? It is crucial that we learn that following Jesus does not mean that He conforms to us, but that we must conform to Him and His agenda. When we do decide to actually follow Him, instead of trying to convince Him to follow us, we find that things begin to get clear.
Another powerful source of opposition to following Jesus is our desire to please others and win their approval. I am not a big fan of secular psychology. But even psychologists can see that our desire for approval drives much of what we do in life. And this tendency can be destructive, causing us to make the wrong choices for the wrong reasons. Secular counselors tell us we should just please ourselves instead of pleasing others, but that is not at all the mission of a disciple of Jesus. A disciple lives to please the Lord, not himself or herself.
But if we become overly concerned with what other people think about us, this concern will eventually collide with what Jesus wants. Your loyalty and devotion to Christ will eventually be tested by your desire to please others. And this test will determine the strength of your faith in Christ just as the weight of traffic will test the design of a suspension bridge. What do you really want? Do you want the praise of God or the approval of your peers? You won’t be able to have the best of both worlds, you will eventually have to make a choice.
Surprisingly, you won’t even be able to always win the praise of other Christians, not to mention the pagan world. It is the unbelieving world that will constantly be telling us that we are wasting our time following Jesus. “Why waste your life being religious instead of just enjoying life? Why don’t you ever do something just for yourself?” One of the big critiques of Christianity these days is that you can’t be a Christian and enjoy life. You can’t have any fun as a Christian because there are all those rules. How can you be happy if you have restrictions? You can only be happy if you say “yes” to all of life’s experiences. And remember that life is so short! So “carpe diem!” The world firmly believes that you only go around once, this life is all there is, so don’t waste your life serving some silent and ungrateful deity.
So there is perhaps still a lingering fear in our hearts that the Lord will not appreciate our devotion but will ignore us. Nothing is worse than pouring yourself out in a relationship with a partner who couldn’t care less and never reciprocates. Does the Lord even care about the things we do for Him? What has Jesus done for all the poor souls who have given their lives, perhaps even in literal martyrdom, while the world just sits around drinking pink champagne and laughing at these Christian fools? Maybe you have to be a fool to follow Jesus.
What this woman did to honor Jesus might look foolish, but Jesus did not think so. In the final analysis it is what Jesus thinks about us that really counts, not the opinions of our peers. The Lord highly valued the devotion of this woman, who was even willing to expose herself to abuse and criticism in showing that devotion. She cared more about the Lord than about the opinions of everyone else in that room. The rest of the people in that room did not value Jesus like that woman. Instead of congratulating her and following her example, they rebuked her. What people tend to value is what they think will make them look and feel good. I have my doubts about the sincerity of the disciple’s desire to help the poor. We know Judas didn’t mean it! It is very easy to say what we think people want to hear without caring one iota about the real issue. People do this in groups all the time. When speaking about teens we call it peer pressure. But adults experience the same thing.
There is nothing wrong with helping the poor, but this was the wrong time. When Jesus is in the room the thing to do is honor Him. What is more important than Jesus? Let’s get our priorities straight! No amount of good works or religiosity can replace a pure devotion to Jesus. It is possible to do good works and to even be religious without really being devoted to Jesus or doing what you do for Him. These people might impress other people, but the Lord will not be impressed.
What really impresses Jesus is sincerity or honesty. The Lord will not accept pretense or hypocrisy. In fact, there is probably nothing the Lord hates more than a religious actor putting on a performance for all to see. Jesus once watched the people putting their offerings in the Temple treasuries. There were many who put in large amounts with much fanfare. Then a woman, who was also a widow, put in two small pennies, worth almost nothing, yet all she had to live on. Like the woman who anointed Jesus, that woman gave everything she had, holding nothing back. The woman in our text gave a costly gift, worth much more than the widow’s coins. But that is not the point.
The gift was received in both cases because of the devoted hearts of the givers, not the actual value or size of the gifts. The Lord is concerned about our hearts, not just the offering we bring. Even the right offering is wrong if offered to God in pretense. Cain’s offering is always rejected because Cain is rejected. And even the plowing of the wicked is sin. Whatever is not done in faith is sinful. God does not accept bribes and payoffs. And if we want the praise of men, we can have that, but nothing more from the Lord.
The person the Lord honors is the person who seeks only the Lord’s approval. The approval of other people can easily become an idol – a replacement for the approval of the living God. We seek the approval of others because we want instant gratification. The people we seek to please we can see right there in front of us. But how do we get the approval we crave from a God we can’t see? The woman in this account had an opportunity we don’t have. She had Jesus right there in front of her! We like to think that if we had been there we would have done what she did, or something like it.
But would we have had her faith? She still had to exercise faith in Jesus, even though He was physically present. She had to believe the words of Jesus just like we do today. We must live by faith, even when that means waiting for our devotion to be rewarded. The true reward of faith will never be given in this world. Can you wait on the Lord? The approval of the Lord, and hearing those glorious words “well done, good and faithful servant,” will come at the End, on that great Day of Judgment, and not before. But if the Lord’s approval is what we want, then it is worth waiting for, even at the expense of this present world and its pleasures.
Perhaps the idea of standing before the Lord on the Day of Judgment is intimidating. How could anyone hope for His approval? Don’t we rather fear His scrutiny? Won’t He manage to find some fault in us, something that displeases Him? We have all known someone who could not be pleased, but was always finding fault. This might have even been someone close to us, someone from whom we desired nothing more than approval, but from whom we only got rejection. Many people view God like that. God is impossible to please and will always find something in us to condemn. But Jesus as not harsh and critical of this woman. He did not come to condemn the world, but to save it. God is not looking for a reason to condemn us. We know that He could find reason if He wanted to! But your judge is also your redeemer. I am not saying that Jesus is soft on sin. But He is never harsh with sinners who are turning to Him in repentance. The Prodigal Son is always received when he comes home, without any fault-finding or punishment. It is grace that justifies, not Law.
And that’s why grace is the most beautiful thing in the world. Not only is God’s grace beautiful, it makes us beautiful too. Grace is much more than just getting sins forgiven. Grace has power to transform the structure of our hearts. What this woman did for Jesus was beautiful because knowing the grace of Jesus had made her beautiful. This woman’s beauty is a stark contrast to the ugliness of the religious leaders and Judas.
Selfishness makes people ugly.
A medieval Italian artist made a painting of the arrest of Jesus in the Garden. Judas is leading the mob through the darkness to give that fateful kiss. The artist paints Judas with a dark and deformed face, almost animal-like, while the face of Jesus is beautiful and surrounded by light. The ugliness of Judas is contrasted visually with the beauty of Christ and His sacrificial love. Sacrificial love is beautiful. A self-centered life is ugly and it makes us uglier and uglier. Each day we have the ability to form beauty or ugliness.
In his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde tells about a young man who has his portrait painted. Dorian Gray is a handsome, vain man and his portrait captures the essence of his character in a surprising way. As Dorian begins to live an increasingly reckless, selfish, and wicked life, the portrait begins to change, accurately reflecting and capturing the essence of the man’s character. While Dorian outwardly appears the same, his portrait deteriorates, like his character, until the image is hideous and monstrous.
Imagine looking at a picture of yourself so that the reflection was that of the condition, the true condition, of your own soul! Would that be horrifying? C.S. Lewis said that the final and absolute horror is being horrified at one’s own self.
The beauty of this woman in our text is actually a reflection of the beauty of Christ Himself. Just as this woman poured out her precious perfume on the body of Jesus, the blood that was in that body would be poured out unto death. Under the Law of Moses there were certain offerings that were to be poured out upon the altar of sacrifice. The offering being poured out is given completely to God. It only makes sense to pour out our lives for the One who poured out His life for us. We live for Him because He died for us. This woman’s act of breaking and then pouring out her precious gift calls us to do the same with our very lives, holding nothing back from the Lord. Nothing can be raised unless it dies first. This woman anointed Jesus’ body for death and burial. We must be prepared to die with Christ, our old life of sin buried and forsaken, so that we can then share in the power of His resurrection.
We may look like fools now, pouring ourselves out for Jesus, while the world and its pleasures offer instant satisfaction. Just remember that the World passes away, along with its lusts. Only what is done for Christ will last. Jesus said that what that woman did would be told and remembered. What she did for Jesus would live forever because Jesus lives forever. A life poured out for Jesus is never wasted.
But I am afraid there are people who think this kind of devotion to Jesus is only for the spiritually elite, or perhaps someone who has been dramatically saved from an immoral life. Normal Christians, regular Church members, are exempt from such extreme acts of devotion. Pastors and missionaries pour out their lives for Jesus, but is every Christian expected to do so? So most Christians are pretty casual about their faith in Jesus. We don’t want to go overboard, to become religious fanatics. After all, what would people think of us?
No comments:
Post a Comment