S1 E31: Anointing for Burial

If you would take out your copy of God's Word and join me in Mark chapter 14 this morning.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible with you, there are some in the pew back in front of you.

We're going to be on page 912 in those pew Bibles.

Mark chapter 14 this morning.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

We've gathered to worship today.

We are in a worship center attending a worship service.

And yet what we do today should simply be an outpouring or an overflow of what we've done all week long.

Worship is not a gathering.

Worship is not a service.

Worship is what we say God is worth to us.

It is proclaiming God's worthiness.

It is not a song we sing.

It is not a sermon we listen to.

It is not an event we attend.

Worship is a lifestyle.

It is recognizing God for who he is and proclaiming his worth in everything we do.

Romans chapter 12, Paul describes for us what worship is.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 12, verse 1, he says, In view of God's mercy, I implore you to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, which is holy and pleasing to God, for this is your reasonable act of worship.

Romans 12:1

The apostle has just been describing all that Christ has done for us in order to make us right with a holy God.

He's described God's grace, he's described God's mercy, and then he says the only reasonable response to what God has done for you is to give him your life.

When Jesus was talking to a Samaritan woman at a well in John chapter 4, he said to her, There is a time that is coming and has already come when those who are going to worship the Father must do so in spirit and in truth.

John 4 · chapter mention

He helps us to understand that as we are worshiping, we do so, not with outward expressions, but with an inward constitution.

To worship God in spirit is not to do a ritual.

It is to have a transformed life.

It is to have a transformed heart that demonstrates itself in a surrendered life.

To worship him in truth is to not worship him as we desire to worship him, but to worship him as he has revealed to us in his word how we should worship him.

To worship him in truth is to not worship him as the God we want him to be, but to worship him as the God he has revealed himself to be.

Or if you prefer, there's an Oreo sandwich with a double stuff right in the middle.

The point is that, like a diamond on a blanket of black velvet, what is in the middle should shine out towards us.

And in this text, Mark is going to point out to us the religious leaders who opposed Jesus, Judas who betrayed Jesus, and a woman who simply worshipped Jesus for what he was worth.

And our question this morning is: Am I worshiping Jesus for what he's worth in my life?

If you're willing and able, will you stand with me as we read from God's Word?

Mark chapter 14, just the first eleven verses this morning.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

Now the Passover and unleavened bread were two days away, and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to seize him by stealth and kill him.

For they were saying, Not during the festival, otherwise there might be a riot of the people.

While Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon the leper, and reclining at the table, there came a woman with an alabaster vial of very pure, costly perfume, or pure nard, and she broke the vial and poured it over his head.

But some were indignantly remarking to one another, Why has this perfume been wasted?

For this perfume might have been sold for over three hundred denarii in the money given to the poor, and they were scolding her.

But Jesus said, Let her alone.

Why do you bother her?

She has done a good deed to me.

For you always have the poor with you, and wherever you wish, you you can do good to them, but you do not always have me.

She has done what she could.

She has anointed my body beforehand for the burial.

Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.

Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went off to the chief priests in order to betray him to them.

They were glad when they heard this and promised to give him money, and he began to seek how to betray him at an opportune time.

Father, we come before you with your word open in our hands, seeking to hear from you today.

Not to hear from a teacher or a preacher, but to hear from our God who has written his word to us.

Father, help us to see the example that this woman set of how we might worship Jesus for all he's worth.

Amen.

Thank you.

As I was writing this message, the working title that I had in my mind was The Bad, the Ugly, and the Good.

I didn't stick with that title.

I changed the title, but that title helps us at least with the flow of the text.

We're going to see at the very beginning, verses one and two, the bad of those who oppose Jesus.

In verses 11 and 12, we're going to see the ugly of those who have betrayed Jesus.

In verses 3 through 10, we're going to see the good of those who seek to genuinely worship Jesus, to honor him with all that they are.

So let's start with the bad.

We'll then go to the ugly, and then we'll get to the good cream in the middle and talk about the good.

The bad, those who sought to oppose him in verses 1 and 2, Mark has been telling us about Jesus' final week of his life.

His final week of ministry in Jerusalem.

And now he has shifted the scene.

He has moved us from the temple to the Mount of Olives, where Jesus has been talking to his disciples about the second coming.

And now we shift the scene again to the town of Bethany, a little village outside of the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus would often go to rest and sleep.

He is now inside a home of a man by the name of Simon.

They are going to have a banquet for Jesus.

The scene has shifted, but the time frame has not.

This is still the Passion Week.

This is still the week where Jesus is going to die.

In fact, Mark tells us this is two days before the Passover.

That would have been on Wednesday.

We are in Wednesday of Jesus' final week.

Passover was probably the greatest festival in the nation of Israel's history.

It was the time where Jesus and God had commanded the nation of Israel to come to Jerusalem and remember how he had delivered them out of slavery in Egypt, how all the plagues had come, and then the final plague was the death of the firstborn, and how he had told them to take a lamb and sacrifice the lamb and take the blood and put it over the doorpost so when the death angel came over, he would recognize those in that home as being children of God and pass them over.

Every year they commemorated this.

And on Friday of this week, they would take lambs and sacrifice them and take the blood and spread it.

And it would be at that time that the Lamb of God Jesus Christ would lay down his life as the final Passover lamb.

It is on Wednesday of this week that he has drawn our attention.

The religious leaders of his day have not welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem.

They are not glad that he is there.

They are opposing Jesus.

They have not welcomed him.

They have not received him as the one who would come to help them.

They have rejected him.

In fact, they've already determined that they have to destroy him, but they don't want to jeopardize a riot.

They don't want to jeopardize their position by doing it publicly, so they want to figure out a private way in order to arrest Jesus and put him to the side.

It's amazing that these men, who were supposedly those who were the most religious of the day, who were seeking God's help, would reject the one who God had sent.

It's amazing to me that they could have seen the things that they saw and heard the things that they heard from Jesus and still choose to reject him.

They heard him teach with authority, they saw him heal.

They even saw him raise people back from the dead, and yet somehow in their minds, somehow in their hearts, they rejected all the evidence that God was giving them to say, This is my one, this is the Messiah.

They had all the evidence they needed, but the evidence wasn't the problem.

The problem was their own hardened hearts.

They had hardened their hearts to the revelation that God had given them.

They had hardened their hearts to the truth that God had given them.

They had seen it, but they didn't want to believe it.

And they rejected Jesus as a result.

They opposed him.

There are many still today who, even though they're given evidence, even though God reveals truth to them, even though they've heard God's word and seen God at work, they still harden their hearts.

They still reject the truth.

Now they wouldn't say, I'm in opposition to God, and yet there is no neutral ground with God.

You are either with him or you are against him.

You are either in his family or you are not in his family.

You are either his child or you are his enemy.

There are no Switzerlands here.

There is no middle ground.

Romans chapter 1 helps us to understand that though God has revealed himself to us, man suppresses that truth.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

And in suppressing that truth, they harden their hearts to God's revelation to them.

And when they harden their hearts to God's revelation and God's love and God's grace, then God gives them over to their own desires.

And they begin to oppose God.

They begin to seek the things of this world.

Romans chapter 8, verse 7 says that a mind that is governed by the flesh is hostile to God.

Romans 8:7

If you're still driven by the flesh, then you are at enmity with God.

You are going away from God.

James chapter 4, verse 4 says that friendship with the world is to be an enemy of God.

James 4:4

If you pursue the values and the things of this world, then you are not pursuing the things of God.

And Mark is just simply pointing out to us there are those who, even though God reveals his truth to them and draws them, they still will harden their hearts and they will oppose him.

And there are people around the world who are being in this category.

God is revealing himself to them.

And they're hardening their hearts.

Don't be in that category.

Don't be the one who God loves so much that he reveals his love for you, and then you reject it and you harden your heart to his truth and his grace.

Mark begins with the bad, and then it grows darker as he explains to us the ugly.

Not only those who oppose Jesus, but those who try to exploit Jesus.

Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went off to the chief priests in order to betray him to them.

Mark reminds us of a man named Judas.

Judas was a very common name in that time period.

Judah was the southern kingdom of Israel.

Many men were named Judah.

They were named Judas.

There were two disciples amongst the twelve with the same name, Judas.

In order to distinguish one from the other, Mark says, Let me make sure you understand which Judas I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the one who comes from the town about 20 miles south of Jerusalem.

His name is Judas of Iscariot.

Judas Iscariot, this is the one I want you to know.

Being from that area, he was the only non-Galilean amongst the twelve disciples.

That's not the sad part.

The sad part is this.

Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went out to betray Jesus.

This man, Judas, had been chosen by God.

This man Judas had been called by Jesus to follow him.

For three years, Judas had sat under Jesus' teaching.

For three years, he he walked with the Son of God.

For three years he had God incarnate pouring into him.

He saw him perform miracles.

He heard him teach.

He saw him calm storms.

He even saw him raise people back from the dead.

And Judas thought, man, I have arrived at the right time.

I've hitched my wagon to the right train.

This is the Messiah.

This is the one who is going to do all things.

He is going to establish the kingdom.

He is going to overthrow Rome.

He is going to make all things right.

He is going to set us up on thrones.

He is going to make us wealthy.

He is going to make us rich.

He is going to make us all that we dream to be.

And as long as Jesus was talking about kingdoms and thrones and power and glory, man, Judas was right there.

Man, this is my guy.

This is the ticket.

This is the way.

But when he started talking about sacrifice and service and crosses and crucifixion and death, Judas didn't want to have any part of it.

His expectation was that Jesus was going to establish a kingdom right there on earth and take over everything.

And as long as that was the plan, Judas was in.

But when Jesus started talking about sacrificing and suffering, Judas wanted out.

But before he left, he wanted to get what he could.

He wanted to get whatever he could.

Judas was worshiping the wrong thing.

He was not worshiping in spirit.

Worshiping in spirit isn't outward, it's inward.

It starts on the inward and demonstrates itself outward, not the other way around.

It starts with a conviction that Jesus is who he claimed to be and he's going to do what he claimed to do.

Therefore, he's worthy of my worship.

And yet he just he deceived all the other disciples.

None of them recognized him as the betrayer.

None of them recognized him as one who might.

In fact, he was the one who was given control over the money, the money box, the purse.

They gave him the money to watch over.

They trusted this guy.

But he wasn't worshiping Jesus in spirit.

He certainly wasn't worshiping Jesus in truth.

He was worshiping him because he thought he was one who he wanted him to be, not the one Jesus said he was going to be.

This is truly ugly.

It's bad to be opposed to him.

How ugly does it have to be to be this close to him?

And betray him.

To turn your back on him, to sell him for the price of a slave.

30 pieces of silver.

Mark is setting up for us, he's telling us a story, he's presenting the bad and the ugly so that we will focus on what happens in the middle.

So that we will see the good of this woman.

Not one who is opposing Jesus, not one who is betraying Jesus, but one who is simply seeking to honor him and show him what he is worth to her in her life.

We see this, of course, in this woman in verses 3 through 10.

Mark allows her to go unnamed.

He doesn't tell us her name.

Matthew does not tell us her name.

Luke does not tell us her name.

John in his gospel, he spills the beans and he says, You need to know this woman's name is Mary.

Perhaps the others didn't tell her name because it wasn't the right time when they wrote their gospels to reveal it.

Perhaps it was because they knew she wouldn't want her name revealed.

It wasn't about her to begin with, it was about her Savior.

But we know that this was Mary who was doing this.

And Mark even gives us a contrast between this, how Jesus felt about Mary and how Jesus felt about Judas.

Look at verse 9.

Jesus says, Truly I say, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of her in memory of her.

What she has done will be memorialized.

There will be people 2,000 years from now sitting in a sanctuary in Tampa, Florida, talking about what this woman did.

But look at verse 21.

This is what Jesus said about Judas, the one who would betray him, for the Son of Man is to go just as it is written of him.

But woe to the man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.

It would have been good for that man if he had not ever been born.

There is a contrast that Mark is pointing out to us.

He helps us to see it through this banquet that is being held at a man by the name of Simon's house.

Simon, the leper, he is called.

Now we know Simon could not have had leprosy when he held the banquet because nobody would have shown.

Up at the banquet, if Simon had body parts fallen off.

You don't go around lepers, you don't go near lepers, you don't eat with lepers, you don't go in their homes, you don't touch them.

So Simon has somehow been healed of his leprosy.

We believe that it was probably Jesus who healed him of his leprosy.

And so Simon is throwing a banquet, he's throwing a party to celebrate Jesus, to thank Jesus, to have time to spend with this man who utterly changed his life.

And they're seated around a table, not a table like we imagine, like we sit at, where you pull up a chair and sit, not like Leonardo da Vinci's depiction of the Last Supper, where they're all sitting on one side of the table on chairs leaning over.

That's not how they ate in this time.

Their tables were very low to the ground.

You would lean on one elbow up against the table using one hand to eat, and your feet would be kind of stuck out behind the table, and you would all kind of lean upon one another around the table.

It was a very relaxed atmosphere.

It was a time to just enjoy the fellowship and enjoy the meal, to just kind of take your time and eat it and fellowship in it.

And in the midst of this celebration, in the midst of this meal, this banquet, Mark describes a woman walking in.

Probably unusual for a woman to be there, quite honestly.

But she walks in and she takes an alabaster jar or an alabaster flask, and it had a long, narrow neck, and she broke that alabaster neck, and then she poured out its contents on Jesus' head.

This perfume of pure nard, this very expensive perfume just rolled down his head.

The other gospel writers tell us that it dripped all the way down to his feet, and she would take her hair and she would wipe off his feet with her hair.

The aroma of this fragrance coming out of that bottle just filled the room.

There's a sense of abandonment here.

There's a sense of something that is priceless that is being done here.

Mary is not just dropping little droplets of her perfume onto Jesus.

No, she is abandoning.

She is breaking.

Once it's broken, it cannot be resealed.

And she is pouring it out on Jesus.

Worship is not drops of convenience.

Worship is surrendered lifestyle.

Worship is us not just dropping a little bit about what we have back on Jesus.

It is us taking our lives, breaking them open, and pouring them out and saying, God, this is what you're worth to me.

You would have thought that the disciples that were in the room, having seen Jesus and knowing what Jesus had done, would have congratulated Mary.

Would have said, Well done, Mary, good show, good job.

He's worthy of that.

He's worthy of what you've just offered.

Mary, by the way, has a sister by the name of Martha.

They have a brother.

You remember brother's name?

Lazarus, who had been dead and Jesus had just raised back to life.

Martha and Mary knew the worth of Jesus.

He had utterly changed their lives, and she wanted everyone to know what Jesus meant to her.

Not a drop of her perfume.

The whole bottle.

And you would have thought the disciples would have said, yes.

But that's not what they say, is it?

One of them says, why would we waste such a valuable perfume in such a manner?

Why would you do such a thing?

Why would you break it?

We could have taken this, we could have sold it, we could have made 300 denarii, that's a year's wages, and then we could have gone and done good with it.

We could have fed the poor, and we could have helped the needy.

We could have done so many things with this.

Mark doesn't tell us who led that charge.

John does.

Guess who led the charge?

Judas led the charge.

Judas the one who held the purse strings.

Judas the one who held the money purse.

Judas the one who could skim from it from time to time says, Hey, I want more of that money in here so I can gain from it.

But the rest of the disciples agree with him.

And they begin to scold Mary.

They don't encourage Mary.

They scold her.

In fact, the language literally says they snorted at her, they were so mad.

Can you imagine going to an estate sale and finding a priceless heirloom or a beautiful piece of art and buying it for a couple dollars?

Because the people in the estate sale, the people at the garage sale, did not know the value of what they held.

And you would think, man, I walked away with a treasure today.

And the problem was not with what you bought, the problem was with the evaluation of those who held it.

That's what was happening in this room.

Jesus is a priceless heirloom that the disciples were undervaluing.

And their statement against Mary was more a statement against Jesus than it was against Mary.

What they were saying is, Jesus isn't worth what you just did for him.

They had faulty values.

Why did we waste that?

Could have been used on something else.

They miscalculated.

They were known for miscalculating.

This group was pretty thick-headed.

If I'd have been there, I'd have been right with them.

Multiple times this group has gone to Jesus and said things like, Hey, we saw a guy who was casting out demons in your name, so we tried to stop him, but we couldn't.

And Jesus said, Why were you trying to stop him?

He's doing good, let him do it.

He's doing it in my name.

Let him do it.

There were these families trying to bring their children to Jesus, and the disciples said, Jesus doesn't have time for your children.

Keep the children away, get the children away.

And what did Jesus say?

Hey, stop it.

Let the children come to me, for such is the kingdom of heaven, and unless you become like one of these children, you'll never inherit the kingdom of heaven.

James and John went to Jesus and said, Hey, you know that village that rejected you?

Can we call fire down on that village?

Let's just take them out right now.

Jesus said, Boys, I don't think that's the best plan.

They kept miscalculating, and here they were, one time, again, miscalculating the value.

That's too much for Jesus.

He's not worth that.

We see in this display of worship a contrast in priority.

Jesus is not saying, when he says, hey, you've always got the poor with you.

You don't need to take care of the poor.

That's not what he's saying.

What he's saying is, there's always time to take care of the poor.

They're always going to be here.

There's always going to be need.

But the priority right now is what she's recognized.

It's worship.

It's worship of me.

And when we begin to worship him the way he reveals himself, the way we worship him in spirit and we worship him in truth, we will begin to feel the things he feels and we will begin to care about the things he cares about.

And Jesus greatly cares about the poor.

He greatly cares about those who are hurting, but it doesn't start with helping them.

It starts with worshiping him and becoming more like him, so that out of our spirit and our truth, we will then help those.

It is a priority.

Jesus said, Leave this woman alone.

Why are you bothering her?

What she has done is good.

In fact, she's done what she can for me, because she's anointed my body for burial.

Now, the commentators that I read all almost in unity said Mary couldn't have known what she was doing, that Jesus just took this and looked back at it and said, Well, she doesn't know she's doing this, but she's actually anointing my body for burial.

I truly believe Mary knew exactly what she was doing.

Jesus had been telling his disciples for weeks, we are going to go to Jerusalem.

I'm going to be mistreated, I'm going to be arrested, I'm going to be crucified, and I'm going to be buried.

He told them over and over and over again.

And they doubted him.

In fact, they wanted to change his mind.

They wanted to do anything they could to prevent it.

One of them said, I'll never allow that to happen.

And you know what Jesus said to him?

Get behind me, Satan.

You don't have in mind the things of God, but the things of man.

But I think Mary, who watched Jesus raise her brother from the dead, Mary listened to Jesus, and Mary believed Jesus.

And Mary didn't know how all it was going to work.

But Mary said, Jesus says he's going to die here this week.

Jesus is going to die here this week.

And I can't stop that.

I can't prevent that.

But here's what I can do.

And it may not be much, but I can give him this.

And I can prepare him.

The disciples doubted.

Judas doubted.

And he ended up betraying.

But Mary's worship started with prioritizing Jesus.

It started with believing who Jesus was.

And then it demonstrated itself in this simple act of worship.

A simple yet extravagant act.

When Mary worshipped Jesus, she worshipped him with her very best.

She gave him her all.

She would have either used it on her wedding day, or she would have used it on her funeral day.

If her funeral came before her wedding, then they would use it to anoint her body.

If her wedding came before her funeral, they would have used it to anoint her for her wedding.

It was a priceless treasure, costing a year's wages.

And she took it and poured it out on Jesus.

She worshipped him publicly because she didn't care who saw her do it.

She worshipped him unashamedly because she didn't seek anybody's approval to do it.

She worshipped him extravagantly.

Why?

Why would Mary do such a thing?

Because in view of God's mercy, the only reasonable response is to not pour out droplets of thanksgiving to God, but to break open our lives and pour them out in his service.

So the bottom line with this the good, the bad, the ugly.

There is a contrast between the bad, those who seek to oppose.

There is a contrast with the ugly, those who seek to exploit, with the one who seeks to simply just worship Jesus.

One attitude says this.

Therefore, I want to worship him.

The other attitude says, I worship Jesus, therefore he'll do much for me.

One attitude says, Jesus, I've looked at what you've done, who you are, and my only reasonable response to that is to worship you, to offer you my all.

It is an attitude that sets aside pride.

It is an attitude that says, God, you are worthy.

The other attitude says, I'm here because I think I can get something from you, God.

I'm here because I think maybe I can avoid something.

Maybe I go to church so you won't be mad at me and bad things won't happen in my life.

Or I go to church so you'll make me healthy, rich, and wise.

Judas tried to get what he could out of Jesus.

All Mary did was try to give Jesus all she could.

The question this morning is: what attitude do we come to worship with?

To give God everything we can?

Or to try to get everything that we can.

Let's just make it practical and we'll conclude.

Would you describe your worship life as taking a jar of perfume and every now and then sprinkling out a drop here and there?

Or would you describe your worship life as taking that same jar, breaking it open, and pouring it out?

Are you still worshiping God with droplets of your schedule, with droplets of your comfort, with droplets of your obedience, with droplets of your witness, with droplets of your family, with droplets of your future, with droplets of your treasure?

God, you can have a little of this and a little of that, and a little bit more of this, and a little bit more of that.

Are you admiring Jesus?

Are you actually worshiping Him?

Worship is not measured by droplets.

It's measured by a life that is surrendered.

A life that says, God, you're worth more than anything.

Anything that I have in this world.

So let's take our lives, let's break them open, and let's pour them out before God, who's given us everything.