Jesus Anointed

Happy New Year, Church.

Reading from the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 14.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

It was now two days before the Passover, in the feast of unleavened bread, and the chief priest and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him.

For they said, Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.

There were some who said to themselves indignantly, Why was the ointment wasted like that?

For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.

And they scolded her.

But Jesus said, Leave her alone.

Why do you trouble her?

She has done a beautiful thing to me.

For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them.

But you will not always have me.

She has done what she could.

She has anointed my body beforehand for burial.

And truly I say to you, Whatever, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

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

And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money.

And he sought an opportunity to betray him.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

It's great to gather together with you on uh this new year, our first time together in 2025.

And uh we are moving into back into the gospel according to Mark, and we're actually going to finish Mark uh this year.

We're going to finish it in April.

Uh the typical pattern of preaching here at Redemption Church is that we move through an Old Testament book this time of year, for the first part of the year, and then we move through the New Testament.

Uh uh so far, we've moved through a gospel in the fall, um, but we're flipping that this year.

So we're going to have a little more time away from Exodus.

So um just remember the plagues.

That's where we left off.

So just remember the plagues happened.

Okay, so you're gonna have to remember that for several more months, uh like until September.

Um, but uh for now we're moving back into Mark because although I intended to move back into Exodus, I I thought, what would it look like if I laid out Mark over the first part of this year?

And uh what it what it looks like is we will finish the book of Mark with the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

And I thought, I can't pass that up.

There's not one you know, you don't have to be Charles Spurgeon.

You know, that's a good way to lay out a sermon series.

So that's what we're doing.

Um so as we move back into the book of Mark, we're going to be really in Holy Week throughout the whole first part of this year, uh, culminating with the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

I think it'll be a wonderful way to spend this first part of 2025 together.

So with that, as we move into our text, let's pray.

Holy Father, we thank you for your faithfulness over the past year.

And Lord, while we look forward to this new year and we don't know what's to come, we don't even know what the rest of our day holds.

Lord, we know that you have gone before us.

We know that you have promised your presence with us.

You said you will be with us always until the end of the age.

And so, although we know that there are many troubles coming down the line, many difficulties that we must face, and that we have good reason to be worried and concerned and fearful with all those things, we have better reason to have hope in you.

And we have full confidence that you'll be with us, that you will see us through.

And Lord, we pray that we would honor you with our lives as we look forward to this next year.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So we're moving back into Mark, and this section is a classic Mark sandwich, and this is kind of the way that he likes to tell stories in his gospel.

And that means he'll put three stories together, two similar stories that surround something that's that's different, and those contexts help inform the meaning of each of the stories.

And this is a typical way that Mark presents things.

So we're really looking at three stories this morning.

The first is the plotting against Jesus by the chief priests and the scribes.

And then Mark goes back in time and he tells us the story of Jesus being anointed by Mary at Bethany.

And then after that, we see the story of Judas going to the chief priests and the scribes in order to barter a deal in which he would receive payment to betray Jesus.

And so I think the reason that Mark sets up these stories is because there's an initial story of betrayal by the crowds and by the authorities.

And then there's this second story of this glorious picture of worship.

One of the most beautiful pictures of worship of Jesus throughout all of the Gospels.

And then finally, a story of not just attack from the outside, but betrayal from the inn, from within the 12 disciples, he is betrayed.

And I think the point of Mark surrounding this story of beautiful worship with these stories of attack and betrayal is just to show us the juxtaposition of the darkness and the light, of the wickedness that Jesus is surrounded by, and then the glory and wonder of right worship of him that he is bringing into the world, and how those interact with one another.

And so let's go ahead and for this first section, we'll look at the plot against Jesus and how it develops.

In Mark 14, 1 through 2, it says, It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

The Passover kicks off the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which goes on for another week, and so it's they're often referred to together.

And sometimes the Passover will be called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, sometimes the Feast of Unleavened Bread will just be referred to as the Passover.

But the Passover is one particular meal which kicks off the feast.

And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him.

For they said, Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.

So this is Tuesday of Holy Week, because it's two days before the feast of the Passover.

And this is right after Jesus had driven the money changers out of the temple and had cleansed the temple, showing that it had been turned into a house of thieves rather than a house of worship, which was which it was meant to be.

And then Jesus spends the rest of Monday, better part of Tuesday as well, getting basically harassed within the temple.

The chief priests send forward their guy to try and humiliate him before the crowds, the scribes send forward their guy to humiliate him before the crowds, the Pharisees send forward their guy to try and humiliate him before the crowds.

And at each occasion, the person who is meant to show themselves victorious over Jesus walks away with their tail between their legs and is humiliated by Jesus' teaching.

Because Jesus is proclaiming the truth.

And so after that, Jesus leaves the temple for the final time, and he describes to his disciples that the temple has reached such a state of corruption that it will be destroyed, and that this whole temple complex, the glory of what it was and what it stood for, will be eliminated.

Not one stone will stand upon another.

So this topic that the chief priests and the scribes and the Pharisees of this idea that we need to kill Jesus, this is not a new topic for them.

They have discussed this, we've seen it even all the way back in Mark chapter 3, that they are discussing, okay, we need to kill Jesus.

Mark 3 · chapter mention

There's something happening here, and the crowds are starting to follow him, and he needs to be destroyed.

But now this conversation has real energy in it.

It's not theoretical anymore because he's not over in Galilee who's gathering a crowd of people, of a bunch of fishermen, and what are they going to cast nets on us to death?

You know, it's no big deal.

Now he's in Jerusalem.

He's in our backyard.

And it's not just that he's gaining a following outside of our jurisdiction.

It's that we are losing authority right in the place that we have it.

And so there's real energy in this idea.

We need to kill Jesus.

There's no way out of this.

Matthew, in Matthew's gospel that relays this story, we see that the place that they meet together is in the palace of Caiaphas, who is the high priest at the time.

And I think it's just important to note that the meeting to kill Jesus, the plotting to kill Jesus, takes place in the palace.

You know, this is the room where it happens.

This is the uh uh we're in the inner ring.

We are the ones who make the decisions and how how exciting it would be just to be in that room.

You know, this is it, we've done our day's work in the worship of the temple and in and in preparation for the coming Passover.

Now, hey, do you want to come back to Caiaphas's palace with us after this?

We've got some uh uh something that we're gonna discuss.

I don't really want to talk about it here.

Can you imagine the seduction and the excitement of hearing something like that, of being brought back into that room?

It reminds me of Proverbs 23, verse 1, which says, When you sit to eat with the king, examine what is before you and put a knife to your throat.

Proverbs 23:1

Which is, you know, good advice.

It's very doesn't that sound like the Bible?

Sometimes the Bible sounds like what I think people think the Bible sounds like, and I like that.

Now you'll be invited to rooms like this, probably, and you'll have to consider what is happening in this place.

And you'll have to be able to survive the seduction of the meal that's before you, of the wonder of sitting within the palace, the opportunity for power and decision that's being placed before you.

Put a knife to your throat.

Consider that this meal can be a meal that leads to death.

But these men don't consider that.

They're seduced by the opportunity and they are covetous of their own position.

They understand that by the teaching of Jesus they are losing the palace.

But there's this problem.

In verse 2, it says, For they said, Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.

We know we need to kill Jesus, but we can't do it during the feast, because the crowds have gone after him.

Remember, it was it was just a couple of days ago that Jesus made a triumphal entry.

And why was it that these crowds were gathered around to follow Jesus?

Why did they, why were they so captured by this man?

Well, it was because he had just performed this incredible miracle, raising Lazarus from the dead.

And when the crowd saw that he had raised Lazarus from the dead, they're they're, you know, you're going into the temple this week, and what's everybody talking about?

You know, Jesus, he's over there, I think that Pharisee.

They're having some conversation right now, probably pleasant, you know, they might think.

There, uh he just raised Lazarus from the dead.

I'm like, Lazarus, who are you talking about?

Um, Lazarus, Lazarus, him, right there.

Remember how he was dead?

Well, you can tell just by looking at him that he's not anymore.

Now, there were the Pharisees, it tells us in John, were so threatened by this event and the amount of intrigue that this had fostered among the crowds that they actually had a plan to kill Lazarus as well, which I hope you can see the absurdity of these plans.

So what we're now what's interesting is that this boundary of we can't kill him because of the feast, it shows where they understand the seat of their power to be.

It's the affection of the crowds, it's the winning over and the appeasement of the crowds.

There's this strange dynamic that they have where they are, in one sense, tyrants over the crowds, and then in another sense, totally susceptible to them.

They are, in one sense, tyrannical, and in another sense uh almost slaves to the opinions of the crowds.

And because of that, they know we can't do this during the feast, not while everyone's gathered here.

It will cause too much of an uproar, and that will probably be something we can't handle.

We won't be able to politically navigate that sort of situation if we're the ones who are shown to be killing Jesus.

So they make this sort of commitment.

Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.

But Jesus is killed during the feast.

They aren't able to stick to their own plan.

And this is where I want us to start seeing something that we're going to see throughout this whole time together through the rest of Mark as we're moving through Holy Week, is that we're going to see constant inversions of what you would expect the story to be.

The story is full of these upside-down events that even work in ways that are the opposite of the way that things have worked throughout the whole rest of Scripture.

Here's the ordinary pattern of Scripture: a group of evil people commit to, by a certain time, killing the righteous person.

But then God moves in and it thwarts their plans and shows that God's plans are to preserve the righteous.

But here we see it, so consider David.

I will pin Saul with David.

Saul says, I will pin David to the wall.

And then God, through Jonathan, preserves David and he's able to flee.

Or remember the story in Esther when Haman, by the decree of the king, says, We will kill all of the Jews.

And it there's a timeline for that decree.

The way that they arrived at the timeline was just by the casting of dice.

And they arrive at this day, and on this day we will kill all of the Jews.

And then by the providence of God, it happens such that that becomes the day that the Jews are able to kill all of their enemies.

It's a wild turn.

But that's the expected turn of Scripture.

Remember Paul, when the same folks actually say, we will not eat until Paul is dead, and they make that pact.

But Paul's life is preserved by his nephew.

That's the ordinary pattern that we see in Scripture.

Now here we see the wicked men set a boundary.

We're not going to kill Jesus within this time.

But the providence of God says it will be during the feast.

Jesus will be killed during the feast.

And that's because the project of Jesus is one of turning the world upside down.

The plan and intention of Jesus is not to survive, it's to die.

The purpose of Christ in Holy Week is to march towards his death.

That will be his success.

So the whole pattern of Holy Week is these stacked up failures and injustices and all of the bad guys winning over and over again, and that's Christ's victory.

When you understand what Jesus is doing, it makes sense that the pattern must be this way.

Because since the fall, the world has been an upside-down world.

The world has not been oriented towards God, and our right understanding of the world has not been oriented towards a true relationship with God.

Instead, we have we have turned away from God and we have worshipped and served the creation rather than the creator.

And we live under the power of Satan.

And you can see this just in the shape of the story.

Like, what is it, what is it that Satan comes into the garden as in Genesis chapter 3?

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Snake.

Snake.

I always ask for that, and I know it's uncomfortable to do, and then I make fun of you when you do it.

And so there's no why, you know, I don't know why anyone would ever say anything in this church.

So he comes in as a serpent, he comes in as the serpent, and then what's the curse on the serpent?

What is he cursed to do?

Be on the ground.

Be on the ground.

Be on the ground.

And he and he and to eat the dust of the earth.

He's the most down thing.

He's the most bottom thing.

And that's what rules us.

But we've forgotten that.

And so we think in the corruption of our hearts that as we go further down, we're heading towards life.

It feels like going up to us, but it's not.

It's going towards death.

It feels like when we live as though God isn't real, when we live as though his commands are false, that there is actually life, there's freedom there.

When we're not burdened by the commands of the Lord, that feels like a weight being taken off, like we're heading towards life.

See, that's how upside down the world is.

But Christ is going down to the very bottom so that he can grab the world by the bottom and pull it out and flip it right side up.

The best image of this that I've heard is it's like an inside-out sock.

And to turn a sock right side out, you have to reach down to the very bottom of the sock, grab it by the toe, then you can pull it outright.

So we'll see this pattern in Jesus' life where it looks like forsakenness.

You know, throughout the rest of scriptures, when people had committed to kill by a certain point, the the per they were rescued by God.

Jesus, they are even committing to not do it right now, not during this holy week, and God says, during this holy week.

Not your plans, but mine.

Because the plans of God are to rescue the world.

The plans of God in Christ are that he would be the redeemer of all things.

To do that, he is going to go down to the absolute depths.

He's going to go down to die.

If you're following Christ, your life will often have this same shape.

Where all of a sudden you commit to following Christ and you'll see, man, this way that I used to think led to life, I now realize leads to death.

And now in following Christ, I'm going to be making these decisions that I never thought I would make that look like they would lead to death because I know that they actually lead to life.

You can consider it with your finances.

Giving uh 10% to the church, I need another tax in my life.

The thing is, when I give 10% of my money to the church, I have 10% less money.

In my bank account.

This looks like this looks like going to death.

We've got nothing left over at the end of the month anyway.

We're squeezed.

And so you make strange decisions like that.

Consider you're looking for a spouse.

You know, you're hoping to get married.

And you're thinking, okay, it's a dating market.

It's a market.

I should approach this with some economic shrewdness.

I would like to have as the I think the most possible opportunities to make this happen increases my odds of finding a person who would suffer marrying me.

And then you become a Christian and you start following Christ.

And you're reading and it says you shouldn't be equal unequally yoked.

Well, that probably just has to do with oxen, right?

And then you talk, and you're like, I don't have any of those.

And then you're realizing that, oh, this means that I can't marry a non-Christian.

That means I'm probably gonna have to like meet someone at church or go go on like Christian mingle.

But this is not uh the in all of a sudden you're walking towards it and you're talking to your friends and they're like, this is okay.

That's not the way I'd go about it.

This seems like a path towards death.

You know, they might not put it in such stark terms, but it seems like you're the the odds are not in your favor by this decision.

And so you're making all of a sudden you'd be making these decisions which are seem utterly unreasonable, and then you're like, but the this, I think actually, from what I see in Christ, this leads to life.

There is there is there is life in this descent.

How can there be life in the descent?

Well, there's resurrection on the other side.

I think God exists.

I think that in his providence, that his plans are greater than my plans.

And that I think that he really works in my life and in the lives of the people I work with, I live with in the world, and I think that he is in control of all things, and that if I follow him, although it's not to the best of my reason, I think that that's actually the more effective, more powerful way to be living.

Might seem utterly unreasonable, but it's going down.

You're going into the bottom of the sock.

Because that's the way to pull it out again.

Now, so this plan is set in place.

This plan, okay, not during the feast, but uh they know that they are committed to killing Jesus, and it will happen.

So on the on the other side of this intrigue, in the threat of Jesus, there is this glorious act of worship, one of the most beautiful acts of worship in the Gospels.

In Mark 14, 3, it says, And while he was at Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.

Now, this is, as I said earlier, nested within those two stories of betrayal.

It's this beautiful picture of worship.

And we'll see through as the story goes on how they're actually related, how this worship ignites further betrayal.

But this story isn't on Tuesday.

Uh, this story actually takes place four days before.

This would have been on Friday.

The Friday before Good Friday.

And this is while he is at uh Bethany in the house of Simon the leper.

Simon the leper would have been someone that Jesus healed, but you know how nicknames stick.

And also in the house, we know from the other gospels that record the same event, is Lazarus, who's probably still trying to figure out what day it is.

And Mary, his sister.

And while they're reclining at the table, a woman came.

We know that this is Mary, Lazarus' sister.

A woman, she comes in with the alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard.

This is very costly.

We we learned that this uh would have been about a year's wages.

So think of what a what it think of if you had uh a year's big emergency fund.

And when you went to check your bank account, you would do something like this.

I would do I would probably do something like that.

Whenever I was feeling down or scared of emergencies.

The comfort you could take in it, the the confidence you could have.

So she takes this.

Some commentators suggest that this could have been her dowry.

So it would have been necessary for her future marriage.

I don't I don't know.

Um that's a that's a lovely thought, uh, but it's it's costly no matter what.

It's extremely costly.

Probably uh uh certainly their most valuable possession, because this is an incredible, incredible value.

And while they're reclining at table, she takes the alabaster flask, and it's not like there's a screw-on lid.

You break it in order to uh release the perfume.

So she breaks the flask and she pours it over Jesus' head.

And we we know from the other gospels, because some emphasize the the that it's poured over his head, like Mark does here, but John shows us that it goes down to his feet as well while he's reclining.

So that's so it's not like he's don't picture standing like this.

You know, it's it's like something like this, you know, pouring across him while he's reclined at the table.

Then John shows us that she even takes her hair and uh uh rubs it into his feet with her hair.

The whole room fills with this aroma of the perfume.

Jesus would have smelled like this throughout the rest of Holy Week.

It would have been the aroma of Christ.

To some, it is the aroma from life to life.

To others, it is the aroma of death to death, and it splits the room in that same way.

Now, why does she perform this act of worship?

Well, it was the whole point of the dinner.

Her brother, who she was weeping over, is uh alive.

And it's because of Jesus.

And she uh must have believed him when he said that he is going towards his death, that he is going towards his burial, and so she anoints him for burial.

She enters into his story, which is incomprehensible at this point.

The Messiah, the king, the rescuer is going towards his death, but she doesn't reason her way out of it.

She enters into his story by faith and provides him with this show of worship, costly, beautiful worship of Jesus.

And it splits the room.

There were some who said to themselves indignantly, Why was the ointment wasted like that?

For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor, and they scolded her.

Mary Not all of it.

You didn't count the cost of this.

This is not this is too much.

And you haven't even considered what is this is a waste.

You this doesn't do anything.

It just smells a lot on him.

This is there, there's no this accomplishes nothing.

Think of what this this value, this money itself could have meant.

We could have, is he not the one?

Jesus wouldn't like this.

This lavish show of worship, he wouldn't want to see this.

He's the one who's taught us to live with the poor and to care for them.

And he'll teach us that the the it is it is in the eyes of the poor that we see him.

It is the when we serve the poor, it's like we're serving him.

He's the why wouldn't you have used it for that?

But John's gospel explains that it's not just everyone that's saying this.

There's a chief instigator to this line of reasoning, and it's Judas.

And he's the one who offers the line that could have been sold and the money given to the poor.

And John offers the comment, he didn't care about the poor.

He was the one who was in charge of the finances, for of the money bags, for the disciples.

And he wanted that money in there, not to give to the poor, but because he was a thief, because he wanted it for himself.

But it's important that Jesus brings this event into his story and shows us the line that Jesus uses, because it's like a trick that can only be pulled on the Christian from inside the Christian ethic.

Because Jesus is showing us, showing us Christianity has this particular vulnerability.

And the vulnerability is the ethic that Christ calls us to, can be weaponized against you to undermine the lordship of Christ.

So what's happening here is Judas is saying the ethic of caring for the poor, which has been taught to us by Christ, is more important than the lordship of Christ.

And he thinks that those two things can be divorced.

And so what he does is he takes this call for compassion and he weaponizes it.

This is weaponized compassion.

Consider the poor.

If you consider the poor, you wouldn't worship Jesus like this if you had any consideration for the poor.

Now, this takes place, I don't think anybody outside of the disciples would be able to do this at this point.

They wouldn't have the insight to know that this compassion that Jesus calls them to, we can exploit as a weakness against them to undermine the lordship of Christ.

But in our culture, we live in a culture which has been, in a sense, like it uh uh we often experience it as like it's been inoculated against Christianity.

It has this dose of Christianity that's just enough to build up antibodies against hearing the truth of it.

And that means that this approach to Christianity in our culture, this is like the shape of the culture war.

Which is which you're in, by the way.

I hope you guys make it back next week.

Survive the culture war.

Because here's the shape of here's it's a it's a exploiting the vulnerability of Christianity by weaponizing compassion against it.

So you can hear this in conversations of homosexuality and conversations of transgenderism.

You know, what would what would Jesus do?

He would certainly affirm people as people.

Well, but the but the lordship of Christ calls us to honor this truth in him.

And so can we, is it possible that we divorce the ethic of Christianity from his lordship?

Because if we do, aren't we denying the source of the ethic in the first place?

Can these possibly be pitted against each other?

They can't be.

The only possibility of the Christian ethic showing itself in the world in truth is if the lordship it is if our ethic flows from the lordship of Christ.

The lordship of Christ is more important than caring for the poor.

But the lordship of Christ implies we must care for the poor.

So those are just culture war issues, of course, but this tactic it happens all the time in just your relationships.

Like we, you know, we uh have you ever have you ever known a narcissist?

Ten years ago, none of us would have known how to answer that question.

Now we all diagnose each other all the time.

And you have, and and what happens is when you're in a conversation like that is and and you can feel it happening happening to you, all of a sudden they'll they'll say, the the way you spoke that thing to me made me feel this thing, and you were you you attacked me and you uh you orchestrated this whole thing to subvert me, and then you're sitting there and you're thinking, I I'm a Christian person.

I don't want to attack anybody.

I don't want to, I don't, I'm I don't want to make people feel like they're unloved by the Lord, or I don't want to make people feel uh all these things.

And so maybe if it does, if it does cause that effect, then I guess this thing I I thought I was speaking the truth in love.

That was my intention.

But I guess if I if it has this effect, then I must not be speaking the truth in love.

And Jesus, what I thought Jesus meant by this, he couldn't have possibly meant that.

And that's weaponized compassion.

It comes from Judas.

It comes from, you know, bad example.

He's a bad example.

Don't do what Judas does.

Now that's just it happening to you.

You do it too.

You do it too.

You can turn your relationships into hostage negotiations.

You can do this with your spouse.

Look, I know what I what I did was wrong, but the way and the timing that you shared that with me, when you know how my dad used to talk to me, is completely unthinkable.

Now, could it be true?

Could be.

But but do you feel the tactic?

Do you do you see the tactic?

I know you do because it's quiet in here.

And so no longer, we're no longer under the lordship of Christ.

We've just seen this ability to exploit compassion for our own selfish ends.

Because within Christianity, when we understand that that there is an inverted kingdom, we can be erased to the bottom in order to gain power.

Now, that's what happens when the ethic of Christianity is divorced from the lordship of Christianity.

This is within Christ's story.

The Lordship of Christ says, He says what is right and wrong.

He is the one who determines the truth, he is the one that holds the ethic, and we are called to convey those things with truth and love, not because there's some generic virtue of truth and love out there, but because it's because he is the truth, because God is love.

Why is it that we would desire to serve the poor?

It's because Jesus says, when you're serving the poor, you're serving me.

And so it's not just the it's not just the poor generically, as though that's something we all get.

It's because in the poor, in the needy, in the estranged, Jesus says, I make my dwelling with them.

And so you're not just honoring them, you're honoring me.

That's why you do it.

And so it is impossible to participate in the Christian ethic in a way that says, I'm gonna do Christ-like things, but not honor him in the fullness of what he's called me to honor him in.

That's impossible.

That's a completely different ethic.

And what it becomes, what you follow that down, that becomes pure pragmatism.

Whatever works best for me in the next moment, devoid of the truth.

That's what I will participate in.

And that's what it produces in Judas.

He becomes purely pragmatic because there is no truth, there is no reality we all share under God, there is no God who shows us the way through these things.

And so it's just what I can pull over, what I can get away with.

That's where it goes when we start playing those games outside of the Lordship of God.

And so Jesus rebukes them.

Jesus said, leave her alone.

The good news is if you worship Christ in this way and you experience the rebuke of the world, Jesus himself will defend you.

Leave her alone.

Why do you trouble her?

She has done a beautiful thing to me.

For always you have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them, but you will not always have me.

Jesus explains that this is his baptism for burial, that he is heading to death.

Leave her alone.

Why do you trouble her?

She has done this beautiful thing to me.

You know, in Revelation, when John is brought before the angel, do you remember what John does when he's brought before the angel?

I'm not gonna say anything.

John immediately begins worshiping the angel.

And the angel's like, whoa, pump your brakes.

Don't worship me.

Don't worship me.

That that your worship belongs to the Lord.

Or in Acts, when um uh Paul and I can't remember who he was with.

Um I haven't read that book yet, where Paul explains uh they start worshiping them as Zeus and Hermes and uh or Hermes, if you're you know.

And uh when they're worshiping, uh they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't worship us.

We're ordinary men, just like you.

You know, we see in scripture though the right thing to do if you're not God and somebody starts worshiping you is to say, stop it, stop worshiping me.

That's not that doesn't belong to me, it's not appropriate, that belongs to the Lord.

Our worship belongs to the Lord.

Jesus, when he is worshipped by her, says, You're doing the right thing.

I deserve your worship.

Your worship ought to be given to me.

There is not there is no cost too high where it's If you have given it to me in worship, it will ever be considered as a waste.

What she gets of who Jesus is, she matches with how she worships him.

And so she goes and finds the most valuable thing that she has and she lavishes him with it, pours it out in what looks like a waste to everyone looking on, but Jesus gets it.

He understands who he is.

He understands that the right ordering of the world, the world that is actually turned right side up, is the world that is completely oriented to the worship of God.

And that from that orientation would flow a beautiful ethic, which all tied itself up with right living towards the worship of God, so that our very lives would be acts of worship.

Our lives would be living sacrifices of worship to the Lord.

If we were oriented towards him in that way, and he sees here's a little slice, a little at a dinner party, a moment of the world being rightly ordered to the worship of the true God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And he shows them that.

He says, You will not always have me.

And in case you thought it was a waste, it says in 14 9, and truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

And I tell you today that this word has been fulfilled in your hearing.

I always wanted to be able to say that.

You know what, to their eyes, because remember, their ethic is just pragmatism.

To their eyes, it is a waste.

You know what, you know, let's take a utilitarian approach to this.

Three hundred denarii poured out on one man who's gonna be dead in a week, or distributed to families in need.

What I mean, you know, if we were doing um what's that type of full philanthropy where it's uh like uh I'm gonna go back on script.

What is what did somebody say it?

Effective altruism.

Effective altruism.

Blake this whole sermon I've just felt like Effective altruism.

Yeah, if we were to take that perspective, you know, which is which is like an absolute pragmatism to giving.

Not not a bad idea.

Uh outside the lordship of Christ doesn't make any sense.

It's senseless and horrible.

Okay.

Uh her story, which looked like a waste, it echoes down through the centuries into this moment, teaching us the right orientation towards the Lord.

I'd say that's a pretty good value for the perfume.

I'd say that that aroma of Christ still lingers that was poured on him that day.

Now, Jesus' rebuke, I think this is another part of the reason why the story is told this way, because think of what Jesus has said.

It was right to waste this on me, just as it was poured out on me, and that looks like a waste.

What was it doing?

It was anointing me for burial, which means I'm heading to death too.

And so you're Judas.

And we come back to, okay, so I guess hitching my wagon to this Messiah figure, which seemed like such a good idea a little bit ago, I he's telling us the end of this story, you guys.

This ends in death.

And we we see the way that he actually works.

It seems to be just kind of about him.

And he'll he's willing to waste anything if it's about him.

And if it's all about him, and it ends in death, we're gonna have to figure something else out.

I am.

I don't know if you guys have the courage to do it, but I live, you know where I live?

This is what this is something someone might call it.

I live in the real world.

And here in the real world, I know what actually matters.

And it's great that Jesus won all those arguments.

And it's great that the crowds were so intrigued by the things he said.

To be honest, it sort of sounded like an album I've heard before for the past three years.

And I don't have that much to show for it, to be frank.

Homeless still, following this guy around.

And I've heard all that stuff before.

You know what I know really matters?

If they kill you, you're dead.

And if you're dead, it's the end of the story.

And I can't take good teaching and spend it at King Supers, or the equivalent.

So I'm going to need to figure something else out.

Then Judas Iscariot, who is one of the twelve, and he'd just heard Jesus say, Was it right to do this to me?

You shouldn't have done that.

I'm headed towards death.

Then Judas, it's pure pragmatism.

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

And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money.

And he sought an opportunity to betray him.

They're in the palace.

They've what they've arrived at together is uh is that they they've recognized their own limit together.

Now, I used to think of this as like they didn't know where Jesus was hiding.

And that might have been part of it.

They didn't know where he'd he would be when.

But I don't think that's I don't think that's really what they get from Judas.

What they get from Judas is go back at Caiaphas, you're not gonna believe he's at the door.

It's one of the twelve.

If we had one of the twelve who was willing to speak against Jesus, who would be on our side, that might massage the crowds a little bit, don't you think?

And that plan, which was not during the feast, Judas shows up and they're glad, and it becomes now.

We're rolling at the next opportunity.

Now, Judas, of course, understands, you know, it like the Joker, if you're good at something, don't do it for free.

And so he asks them, How much would you give me?

And he's given 30 pieces of silver.

Now, a year's wages uh of perfume wasted in the alabaster jar.

And then for thirty pieces of silver, it's the cost of a slave if he was mauled by an ox.

And the owner of the ox must give thirty pieces of silver to the owner of the slave.

The cost of a dead slave is what Jesus is exchanged for.

Now, here's what we must see in all of this.

In Judas's Judas's pure pragmatism.

I hope you could see that it I hope you could see how sensible it is when we sort of thought through.

But why is it not sensible?

Because it's Jesus.

Because he has seen him bring Lazarus back from the dead.

He has seen him calm storms.

He has seen him touch people and heal them.

Thirty pieces of silver, he's seen him multiply loaves and fishes to feed five thousand, three thousand.

There's an unthinkable abundance in the man that he is with, but but because he's acting as though he doesn't exist, because he's acting as though it's just pure prag, a purely pragmatic approach to the world, and there is no God that the way we live must be nested in or must flow from in order to make sense.

Because he's thinking in those terms, he denies Jesus as God and betrays him from within.

Now isn't it weird that Judas was one of the twelve?

That he was handpicked by Jesus.

That's weird.

There's no pure spaces.

You can't create a place, you can't create a church.

You are not able to create enough purity of heart within your own heart so that you wouldn't betray Jesus.

Judas betrays him first.

You know what happens to the eleven others?

They all do the same thing.

That is the state of the hearts that people is go that people, that Jesus is going to the cross so that he might save.

Jesus is going to the very bottom.

That means to the very bottom of our own hearts, who shines out in the glory here.

We get these stories of betrayal.

But the reason that this story is with that the story of right worship is within the story of the betrayal is because you have to see the light of Christ that breaks through and transforms your imagination so that you can see I'm like Judas.

I'm like the weaponizer of compassion, I'm like the uh I'm like the betrayer, the thief, the that's what I'm like.

And so how could I how could I not end up just like another one of the disciples in this story that falls off at the end of the story?

And the answer is you would.

That is where you would be.

That is the nature of the story.

So where is the light that breaks through?

It's Jesus himself.

Because he goes to his burial.

Why is he going to that death?

Because he's going to your death, to take the death that you deserve, so that you might share in his resurrection by faith alone.

What could if the glory, if 300 denarii of glory is worth pouring out on Jesus, then how much could we possibly pour out to atone for ourselves?

You never could.

Jesus poured himself out.

And I think pragmatically, if you were like an angel and you were to step back and watch this whole thing happen, you would think, uh, God, the cross for the uh do you know how they think of you?

This is a very shrewd angel.

This is an incomprehensible angel.

So and I speak to you in earthly terms about this angel.

What a waste of the Son of God to be poured out and for what?

Betrayers.

And Jesus would say, it is no waste.

It is no waste for me to demonstrate my love to them for eternity.

It is no waste that they might be saved in me.

This is the wonder of Jesus going to the cross.

All betrayed him.

But like a light, he breaks through.

We know we're betrayers.

But he broke through for for you.

Christian, you can say he broke through for me.

So he doesn't treat me as a betrayer.

He shows me himself as Lord.

He rightly orients my heart towards him.

He gives me a new heart to be able to worship him in the way that I ought, to be able to live fearlessly because I know that he is there and he loves me.

And he has already showed me the depth of his love towards me because when I didn't deserve it, he poured himself out for me in what looked like a waste.

But it it if that was a waste, well, that waste meant I'm saved.

Now what now, if he's done that for you, then what might right worship in your life look like for him?

I think that's a good place to stop.

Um I preached too long, so no questions today.

But let's take communion together to remember this death.

This pouring out for us.

In um 1 Corinthians chapter 11, it says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So Jesus, on the night before he was betrayed, he took the bread and he broke it.

Whoa, free cut.

Like that.

And he said, This is my body which is broken for you.

And he took the cup and he said, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

In Christ, you are no longer under the law.

The goodness of God is no longer a weight that you can't bear.

But we are under his blood, which he poured out, although we were betrayers like Judas, that we might be saved forever in him, that his love might be shown in going to the cross.

So let us join him together at this meal.

Remember his death.

Remember that by it we are saved.

And let's honor him, taking the best that we have to offer and give it to the Lord.

Those things we covetously hold on to, we offer them freely to him because we see it is a joy to do, because we see how completely he poured himself out for us.

Holy Father, we praise you that you did not count the pouring out of the alabaster jar a waste because it was worship of you.

And we praise you that you did not count the pouring out of your own life a waste, even though all it saved was us.

But in that we see the great depth of your love and mercy towards us sinners.

How can we look down on anyone when we know the state of our own hearts?

How can we despair when we understand the depth of your love shown to us on the cross?

Lord, how can we not hope when we see that there is a glorious resurrection coming?

Help us and equip us to live by faith in you.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.