THE ANOINTING AT BETHANY

Lazarus, the man miraculously called out of the grave, lived in Bethany, just a mile or two east of Jerusalem. Presumably Lazarus lived with his two sisters, Mary and Martha. I speculate that the entire family lived in the home of their father, Simon (Matthew 26:6).

It was at Simon’s home that we learn a lesson about true worship… authentic worship… sacrificial worship (Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-8).

The family had a first-hand understanding of God’s grace. Lazarus had been dead for four days when Jesus called him out of the grave, and Simon was nicknamed “the leper.” Obviously, he had once been plagued with the nasty, deadly, uncurable disease. Likely it was Jesus’ compassionate touch that ushered him from sickness to health, from death to life. The family loved Jesus because Jesus first loved them.

So, the family threw a party in Jesus’ honor.

While they were gathered around the banquet table, “Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped his feet with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” (John 12:3).

At first appearance, it seemed wasteful. The perfume was expensive, the gift was excessive, the act was extravagant. Some of the onlookers were “expressing indignation to one another: ‘Why has this perfume been wasted? For this perfume might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor’ ” (Mark 14:4-5).

Was it too much? Is anything too much for the Healer, the Savior, the King?

Jesus accepted her worship. “She has done a noble thing for me” (Matthew 26:10).

“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).