A Blossom Bible Podcast
A Blossom Bible Podcast
Mark 14:1-11 Beauty Amid Betrayal: Mary Pours Out Her Heart at Jesus' Feet
Mark.
Speaker 1:Chapter 14 is where we're at New chapter. Here we go. Who knows how long it'll be, we're not sure, but it'll be okay. Alright, we're standing here at the door to verse one of chapter 14. And really, in so many ways we switch back to more of a narrative, right, just a different flow. In chapter 13, we had a lot of teaching. Jesus has addressed some questions from his disciples about the last days and the fulfillment of all things, and we spent a good amount of time on that because Jesus spent a good amount of time on that. There you go and uh and uh. That was great.
Speaker 1:And here now we are back in the swing of the narrative. We're very close to the cross. We're only days away from the cross, but time is kind of going slowly here as every moment kind of counts, and we're going to swing back into the narrative and really see something of beauty surrounded by something that's not so beautiful Mary's worship. You know the story probably we'll see it today, but I was really trying to think of a way to illustrate, kind of what this is in a physical form. It reminded me a little bit of a geode, right, I meant to grab a geode from my kid's collection. But you know what it is? Right, it's just rocks. They're just rocks. They look like plain rocks on the outside and then you split them open and inside there's all these crystals and colors and bright things to look at. And that really is kind of what this is. We see Mary here, this act of worship, in chapter 14, verses 1 through 11. And it's surrounded by a bunch of ugly. Right, I mean, we can picture that in our minds, a bunch of ugly in that geode, not so spectacular on the outside, but when you get to the center of it, when you get to the middle of it, it's beautiful and sparkly. So we're going to look at this kind of as a whole. Right, we're going to take that geode and turn around and look at it as a whole, but then we're going to look at the ugly and get the ugly out of the way. We're going to look at the ugly of this story and try to end with the pretty stuff. Right, the beautiful stuff, mary's worship. So I just kind of want to put that out there so you know where we're going with this. Let's read verses 1 through 11. Not a whole lot to read, but 11 verses.
Speaker 1:After two days it was the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the chief priests and the scribes saw how they might take him, that's Jesus, by trickery and put him to death. But they said not during the feast, lest there be an uproar of the people. And being in Bethany, at the house of Simon the leper, as he, jesus, sat at the table, a woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard and she broke the flask and poured it out on his head. And there were some who were indignant among themselves and said just that, that's in there. Why was this fragrant oil wasted? For I have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor. And they criticized her sharply. But Jesus said let her alone, why do you trouble her? She has done a good work for me, for you have the poor with you always and whenever you wish you may do them good, but me you do not have. Always she has done what she could and she has come beforehand to anoint my body for burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her fulfillment here today, by the way, verse 10,.
Speaker 1:Then Judas Iscariot one of the 12, went to the chief priest to betray him to them, and when they heard it they were glad and promised to give him money. So he sought how he might conveniently betray him. That's Jesus. So here we read, kind of looking at it as a whole, back in verse one it's two days and it will be the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So we're creeping up on the Passover. Passover was a day, a day of feasting, and it's a day of remembrance. It's kind of their independence day. You know the deliverance from bondage is what it's celebrating.
Speaker 1:You remember the story there back in Exodus, as the people were in bondage to Egypt, moses is sent to Pharaoh with God's message let my people go. And Pharaoh is stubborn and resistant. And God sends plagues to well, you would think it'd be to soften Pharaoh's heart, but in so many ways it's to harden Pharaoh's heart and break his will. Sends plagues there in the book of Exodus. And the ultimate deliverance comes when God says now I'll get you. I'm sending death through the land, death to all, the firstborn, firstborn from Pharaoh's house, to the servant of Pharaoh, everyone. The firstborn will be taken in one night and you remember God to preserve his own people says but if you sacrifice a lamb and you should sacrifice a lamb and put the blood of the lamb on the door of your house, death will pass over. So all in one night, god delivers his people through the death of the firstborn and Pharaoh. He's so upset about this, for good reason, he pushes the people out, says just get out, I don't want to see you ever again. For today. And yet God preserves his people through that last and final plague of death. He preserves his people. And death. Now listen, death passes over the house where the blood of the lamb is on the door. Lamb is on the door and it's going to be a perfect picture of what Jesus would be for us the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that all of us under the power of sin, deserving death because of the blood of the lamb on our hearts and our lives. Death passes over and that's what Jesus is going to fulfill on the cross on that very day of Passover. But here we're told it was two days and it would be the Passover. It would be the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Speaker 1:Now, right from the Feast of Passover you go into a week of a feast called the Feast of Unleavened Bread and it is kind of like spring cleaning in a practical sense. You were to wipe down all your cabinets and all these things and find any bit of leaven, any bit of yeast. There was a lot of symbolism in this right, Because when they left Egypt they didn't have time to let their dough rise, so they ate unleavened bread for a time because of the quickness of how they were leaving. But the Bible shows leaven and yeast as a picture of sin in our lives. It spreads right, yeast spreads. It's kind of this thing that just absorbs and just eats up things and expands. It's a picture of sin in our lives. So this feast is kind of a cool picture too, because after God saves us, he begins to clean us up and pick the sin and the practical sanctification in our lives. Right, the great thing is that we're not the person we were a year ago. Hopefully. He takes sin and different things in our heart, he takes it out of our life and he purifies us. So that's what this feast of unleavened bread represents is this cleaning up that God does in our life and this purifying that God does. Well, we're coming up on that in real time here.
Speaker 1:And notice verse 1,. The chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take Jesus by trickery and put him to death, but not during the feast. They said so the plan here. We've already seen the chief priests, the scribes, the religious leaders, kind of all of them. They want to kill Jesus Out of envy. They don't want him around, they don't like what he's saying, they don't like his opposition to their leadership. And so they go. We've got to get rid of him More and more and now finally get rid of him.
Speaker 1:But notice in verse 2, their plan right, not during this feast. And it's really hypocritical, isn't it? It's really hypocritical when you look at this. They're like we want to kill him, but not during the feast, because that would just be kind of tacky. You know what I mean the people who really accepted, those that accepted Jesus. They might riot and rebel against this if we do it during the feast. So notice their plan We'll do it anytime, but not during the feast. And you look at it and you go that was their plan. And then you consider God sitting off to the side, perhaps in a sense saying you know what this is going to go down on the feast. Oh no, not during the feast, yes, on the feast. And notice, contrary to their plans it would happen. That way God's plan would prevail. And here we see God's sovereignty in our lives. We can make our plans, but God's plan ultimately prevails. And I think that's something good to file into our hearts, this comfort that no matter what ugly life brings us, god's plan prevails. God's plan is good in the end.
Speaker 1:Now notice here we see just kind of, in fact, in verse three, this is the pretty stuff in verse three, down to verse nine, well, not even so much that, but actually it's just verse three. Right, this is the pretty stuff. This is Mary's worship. In the midst of all this ugly, mary at the center of this offers beautiful worship. Now, here in our account, verse three, we see a few famous Bible characters.
Speaker 1:What is Simon the leper? He's named here Simon the leper. Now he's known as a leper, but we realize that he's probably not a leper anymore. Leprosy. Being a leper meant you had the skin disease that separated you from people, and it was ugly, right, you would get the skin disease and it was so contagious that they were by law forced to the outside of society. They couldn't be around their family anymore. They couldn't be around their family anymore. They couldn't be around their friends. They lived outside of the city and when they passed by, people threw rocks at them because they didn't want to catch what these people had. Well, simon, he was known as a leper. He had leprosy, but obviously because he's having a party at his house, he didn't have leprosy anymore. Jesus had obviously healed him and so Simon is throwing this party in honor of Jesus at his house and he still goes by Simon the leper. It's his testimony of where he was and where God took him. Pretty beautiful stuff.
Speaker 1:But here we see other residents of the city of Bethany Mary, martha, lazarus, a group of siblings. It seems they were all just living together, a group of three siblings, and we find they live in Bethany. John chapter 11 gives us another perspective of this anointing I think there's some debate, but the same anointing down the backside of the Mount of Olives in the tiny village of Bethany. You remember, I'm sorry, the account of this is in John 12. Chapter 11 of John is the famous story about these siblings. Now, remember, lazarus was sick we find in John chapter 11, and he died. You know, jesus waited to come to him and he died.
Speaker 1:Lazarus is dead for several days and Jesus comes to him. The sisters are distraught there at the funeral. They're distraught. Oh Lord, if you had been here, this wouldn't have happened. And Jesus comes and you remember the story. He has the stone rolled away from Lazarus's tomb and he calls out Lazarus, come forth. And Lazarus, after four days of being in the tomb, he stumbles out in his grave clothes, right, and everybody is in awe. The people are rejoicing. Who can imagine such a thing? The dead raised, the religious leaders are distraught, right? What are we going to do now? We've got to get rid of Lazarus. What a silly thing.
Speaker 1:And so God has worked this amazing thing in this group of siblings Mary, martha, lazarus and here we get the picture, by putting all the Gospels together, that this is in fact Mary who comes and worships Jesus. And picture it. She's so grateful for what Jesus has done for her, so grateful. And I just think we ought to picture Lazarus too, right, lazarus, he's been dead and risen again, and we go. Oh, he must have been so excited. I don't think that's where we picture him. I personally picture Lazarus on the outside going. I was there, I was there. I'm here. Why am I here? Why am I here? You know he's staring off into oblivion going. I got to get back, you know. But by God's grace for Mary and Martha he's back right and they're celebrating this.
Speaker 1:And Mary comes with this amazing act of worship. Now notice how it all goes down in verse three. She has an alabaster flask of very costly oil. Now we're going to find out later that that oil, that perfume, was worth 300 denarii. And you know the story there A denarii is a coin that was seen as a day's wage in the Roman Empire. A day's wage, so 300 denarii, six days a week. We're looking at about a year's wage In modern terms. What is that? Like 30 to 50,000, depending on where you're at. You know this is a massively expensive bottle of perfume. And she comes and she just dumps it on his head. She comes and she just dumps it on his head and John lets us know that there was so much of it that it ran onto his feet and she also poured it on his feet and that the house was filled with the scent of this very costly oil. And we'll look at that more in a second, but that's how it all goes down. Now, notice verse four.
Speaker 1:At this beautiful thing of worship, there are some who are indignant among themselves. When you're indignant, that's a big word. When you're indignant, the idea is that it's that thing that makes your lip curl, right, don't you hate that when you see something you don't like and just by instinct, you know, involuntarily, your lip kind of you know, maybe it's a food you don't like and your lip just kind of starts to curl and you go. You know, well, they saw this act of worship and there were some there that it just it turned their stomach, Right, and they say, notice. They say to themselves, why was this oil wasted? It was absolutely wasted.
Speaker 1:Now, all the disciples seem to have a little bit of part in this when you look at Matthew's gospel. But Judas seemed to be the driver of this. Right, he was the accountant, the one who kept the treasury, as John lets us know, who knew the street value of this stuff. You know what I mean. And they all just are in there going oh, what a waste. Oh, my goodness, as she breaks this vial open. It was opened up so that it could just be poured quickly over him and they go. What a waste. What a waste of 50, 40, I don't know a lot of money, you know.
Speaker 1:And notice, in verse five they criticized her sharply. King James says they murmured against her this just kind of instinctive displeasure this. And notice that ugly. We don't want to be that. We'll see that in a second. We don't want to be that. But in verse six I love it.
Speaker 1:But Jesus said let her alone. You can kind of picture it almost like a parent here. Right, boys, cut it out, knock it off. And Jesus stands up for her. What a man, right, I want to be, you know, I want to be a rude man, you know. But Jesus is just so tough here he stands up against the crowd and he says guys, quit it, knock it off. It reminds me of him in John, chapter 8, the woman caught in the act of adultery. You remember everybody was ready to kill her. Right, they drag her in front of Jesus and Jesus doesn't say anything at first. He just gets down in the ground and he starts drawing or writing and writing stuff in the dirt. We don't even know what it is, but whatever he wrote in the dirt, it was so powerful that he could say whoever's without sin throw the first stone and everybody just kind of backs up and creeps away and Jesus stands up for that lady it's so sweet, what a man, what a guy you know stands up.
Speaker 1:But here's the thing. This is good for us to take to heart because we all need a defender in our lives. Satan, he's known as the accuser of the brethren. That's what he does, right? He goes around just finding ways to accuse us. Oh, you saw that attitude. Oh, you saw that was not the truth, that was a lie. Wrong again. That was a lie, wrong again. And Satan accuses us. Our own conscience accuses us, the things that we do, our guilt accuses us and we can be just squished into the ground by our own guilt. And Jesus stands up for us. I think it's really good to see Jesus as that in our life. He stands up for us, he pulls us up when we're down. That's what he does. Take that to heart. Well, there's Jesus, who's our defender, who says leave her alone.
Speaker 1:Then there's Judas in verse 10. Judas, one of the 12, went to the chief priest to betray him to them. So Judas here. We've known it since the beginning. We've been told so many times when his name comes up. He was the one who would betray Jesus. He agrees to go sell Jesus out, to betray his friend, for 30 pieces of silver. We read Now 30 pieces of silver still sounds like a bit of something. Silver sounds neat. Right, that was weak Neat, but yet it's possibly only a month's wage. So because of this year's wage poured out on Jesus, judas goes. That's it. I'm through. I am through with you. And he agrees to go sell Jesus out for a twelfth of the value of that perfume and to sell him to the religious leaders. Now this would fulfill Zechariah, chapter 11, a prophecy that said that Jesus would be valued, the Messiah would be valued at 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave.
Speaker 1:And we could look at Judas' life and go. What in the world drives a person to betray his friend, to betray Jesus? Judas had been with Jesus for like three years in ministry, day and night with Jesus. Jesus called his disciples his friends, right Jesus. Jesus called his disciples his friends, right, judas it would seem like all the disciples was involved in ministry, going out and praying for people, and people got healed, we like to think, even under Judas' ministry. He saw it and he experienced it, but all in the end he sold Jesus out.
Speaker 1:Now John, in John there, chapter 12, he lets us know that Judas kept the treasury and often would steal money from it. That can happen to anybody, right? Anybody can get involved in that kind of embezzling or whatever you call it. It could happen to anybody. But not only did he do that, but you realize that something got into his heart. It was a love of money. I think as he saw this, he's like what a waste. We could have sold this and given it to me. I mean the poor, you know.
Speaker 1:And you go, judas, how did you get here? And we don't know exactly how he got there, but I think it was a little out of time. I think that's important to realize in our lives. It's a little bit out of time that things like this get into our hearts. And he's changed. He's controlled by a lesser thing and it's ugly.
Speaker 1:And we see that he goes to religious leaders and agrees to betray Jesus to them, something even uglier. Verse 11 maybe when they heard it they were glad, right? How can you be glad? They were so happy. Oh, the best day of my life. I'm so glad, and that's where their hearts are at. They promised to give him money so he saw how he might conveniently betray him.
Speaker 1:Now that's all the ugly, right? There's so much ugly in all this and we certainly don't want to be part of the ugly right those who just critique worship and stand on the side. We sure don't want to be like Judas who, even after so much experience with God, his heart is taken away by a silly thing like money. But notice this beautiful worship here. Just a couple things real quickly. Like this beautiful worship is first, precious. We haven't read that exact word there. Well, no, it's costly oil, it's precious oil. We already saw the value of that. But it did cost her. Now check it out.
Speaker 1:There's no way that, like in our day, she just went down to like Macy's or Belk's or something and picked this perfume up. You just don't do that. This was most definitely an investment of some kind, a family investment. Perhaps you didn't just pick it up from the corner store. It was an investment. Some people think that this was her dowry. This was what would be passed on for her to be married. Maybe we're not really sure, but it was precious, right, we get it. Even the bottle was precious, you know. It was built in such a way that it had, like this really thin neck so that when you poured it it didn't just all gush out, it kind of dripped out and you got just a drop at a time and she just breaks this precious thing and pours it out. Seems like she doesn't give a whole lot of thought to it. It's beautiful worship, though. It's responsive we'll see in a second.
Speaker 1:But it was also prophetic here Jesus says notice, verse eight she has come beforehand to anoint my body for burial. So Jesus ties it into this kind of embalming idea that you would do when somebody would die. And the ladies come later on, there after the cross, and they come to embalm Jesus. But using this kind of oil would be outrageous for embalming. But Jesus says what she's really talking about here, what this really points to, is what I'm going to do. I'm going to die, I'm going to be buried for three days, I'm going to rise again. But she's doing this prophetically. We don't exactly know what her motivation was, but this is where it took her to point to Jesus' burial. Now that's something that nobody else really understood. I'm pretty sure she didn't understand.
Speaker 1:But just in simple worship, responsive worship, she points to that it was a spiritual kind of offering and I think the biggest thing of all we can see that it was a spiritual kind of offering and I think the biggest thing of all we can see is it was a response. Right, if you're looking at Mary in her life, right, it seems shortly before this that Lazarus has died and been risen back to life by Jesus and in response to that amazing thing, you gave me my brother back. I just don't know what to say. She loved Jesus before that. Right, we see her sitting at Jesus' feet, martha working. God bless Martha working and serving Mary's, sitting at Jesus' feet, just taking in his words, always this picture of just sweet fellowship and worship. But then, when this trial comes into her life and Jesus is not just the teacher, he's like the resurrector, you know gets her through that situation, she looks and it's like worship, is just like. I don't know how long she looked at this and thought about doing this. As far as we know, she just popped into her head. She went into her room, got the you know, got the oil and just poured it on him and said you know what? Here's my whole life, here's everything and here's my future. Maybe here's the most precious thing that I own and I absolutely don't care if it's all yours, it's just all yours. And it really applies there to Romans 12, where Paul points out let's go there. I mean, we go there often at the end of a study, but it really is a great punchline for these things. Paul kind of gives us an after-the-fact picture of this kind of worship.
Speaker 1:Chapter 12, verse 1, a verse that we should probably get filed away in our hearts. Paul says this I beseech you, I beg you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. So, paul, here it really falls into the book of Romans. Chapters 1 through 11 are all about salvation, it's what God has done for us. And chapter 12, he stops and he goes. Look, in light of all this stuff that we've been talking about chapters 1 through 11, in light of all that God's done for you, offer your bodies a living sacrifice. And notice it says it's your reasonable service. Some translations I think good translations say this is like your reasonable act of worship, right Service, worship, all kind of the same. And Paul says because of what God's done for you give him your whole life. It just makes sense, it's reasonable and we really see that.
Speaker 1:You know, mary only knows the half of the salvation at this point, but she just goes Jesus, in light of all you've done for me, man, I give you everything. I'm holding nothing back. Here's my life and that's really worship. You know we sing songs and maybe you've had a great time driving in the car listening to some worship, music worshiping. But real essence of worship is God. Here's my life, here's all of it. Here's the stuff I understand, here's the stuff I don't understand. Here's what I want. Here's all the hurts.
Speaker 1:Take it all, god, it's all yours, you know, and just to say it's yours, and Mary doesn't have any problem doing that and she becomes this wonderful picture of just life, totally given over to God, a wonderful place to be, and we can look at the benefits of that being your life, hidden there with God, amazing benefits. But it just makes sense in that response and we see this beautiful worship as an example here. I certainly don't want to end on it, but when you take the ugly and the good, we want to be in the good side of things, the pretty side of things, the heart of worship, not the heart of judgment and being critical of others who are worshiping. That would be the disciples doing that, not like Judas, who had other things creep into his heart and what an ugly story his story became. But this act of just God, here's my life. It just makes sense in light of all you've done for me, so natural and so sweet, god.
Speaker 1:It's easy to talk about worship and then go into a song and think that somehow that's just what worship is, singing a little louder maybe, and yet, god, I know that's not it True, worship is our life and our week, our desires, all given to you. God, we actually need you. We need you to be doing that in our hearts. It's not just something we can muster up to be more worshipful or give you more. But, god, we pray that you'd help us to see for who you are, to see what you've done for us as so amazing and so wonderful. God, I pray you'd help us to see for who you are, to see what you've done for us as so amazing and so wonderful. God, I pray you'd work those good things into our hearts and make us worshipers of you. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen, thank you.