Scripture is Mark 14, verses 1-9. This is God’s Holy Word. It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, 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.
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 300 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, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.
So the grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God shall stand forever. And it will please the Lord to take His Word and by the power of His Spirit, transform it in our lives into service for Himself. Thanks be to God. Lord in heaven, now make Your Word clear. Make it plain. Make it useful and relevant. Make it, Lord, what we just need to hear this morning. and that make it, Lord, useful in our talking to other people and encouraging them. Will you ask this in Jesus’ name? Amen.
Well, Jesus was crucified just as the annual Passover celebration was about to begin. And Passover is one of the most, if not the most, instructive pictures of Jesus’ death because of the shed blood and because of how God regards that blood. When God saw the lamb’s blood on the doorposts of the Hebrew houses in Egypt in those ancient times, then He withheld His wrath from them but the wrath did fall upon the Egyptians. Then we move forward to the first century, the days of Jesus and the disciples. And as the Jews began to gather for the Passover celebration, their leaders plotted to shed the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And at this very time, another event the pouring of ointment over Jesus’ head takes place. So we’re going to look this morning at how these two matters are kind of juxtaposed for us. The Lord said that this pouring of the ointment was an advanced look at his coming burial, and by implication then, his death.
Obviously you don’t bury living people unless you’re some kind of crazy person. But Jesus was going to go to the cross. He was going to pay for the sins of his people. And then, as our creed says, he was buried. Third day he rose again, of course, from the dead. But the pouring of the ointment, the passage tells us, was an advanced look at his burial. Simon, the leper, had probably been healed by Jesus. In other words, he could have been called Simon the leper, but usually lepers didn’t get well. They died. But this man was alive, evidently vigorously alive. And so we have to conclude that he was healed by the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, as Jesus healed other lepers that we read about in scripture.
Leprosy, of course, was an emblem of sin. Whenever you see it throughout the Bible, it kind of prepares you to understand that sin will kill you. Sin will destroy you unless it can be dealt with by the only one who can do so, the Lord Himself. So leprosy was an emblem for sin, and it was pointing to the soon-to-be-shed blood of Christ as the cure for sin.
And finally, the woman’s devotion to and acceptance of Jesus’ coming death marks the path for repentant sinners. Scripture is full of things that show us the way. What should we do? How can we be delivered from our sins? And the healing from leprosy and other things like that tell us that if we look to the Lord, there is salvation in that respect.
Okay, we’re going to look at several things this morning. We’re going to look at something called stolen thunder. We’ll see what that means in a minute. Reclining at table, then indignation, and finally, instruction. Those are the four points this morning. Well, stolen thunder. I think we pretty much know what’s meant by that. You stole my thunder. You might ask, where does that, saying that idea come from?
Well, in the past centuries in England, when the theater was quite popular, people were always looking for ways to improve the surrounding atmosphere and things in the play. And one of the things, sometimes they needed a storm. And so they tried to make up ways to have it sound like thunder was going on outside of wherever the scene was. And some fellow decided if he took a piece of sheet metal and kind of twisted it and so forth, it gave off that vroom sound of thunder. And I suppose he thought very highly of himself coming up with this great idea. But some time later, he went to another play that somebody else was putting on. And lo and behold, they had taken that same idea of his, the twisting of the sheet metal to make thunder. And his remark was, they stole my thunder.
Well, the scribes and chief priests and others were jealous of Jesus because they thought He had stolen their thunder. They had, therefore, reasons for hating Lord Jesus. They were jealous of the adulation given to Jesus by those awed by His teaching and His miracles. They were embarrassed at their inability to argue successfully with Jesus. They thought they were the smartest group around, but he always got the best of them. They were angry because Jesus demonstrated that many of their traditions were inappropriate.
They said, well, you can only walk so far on the Sabbath day. They had other things you could just do this and that and weren’t in the Bible. They were never commanded by the Lord, but they were part of their traditions. And Jesus said, you don’t need to worry about those sorts of things.
They were upset because more than once he denounced them as wicked men. There’s one passage there where it says after Jesus had told a certain parable, Chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, and so forth, they were very upset because they knew he was talking about them. And he said things like, woe to you scribes and Pharisees. So that upset them.
And they were mad because Jesus had the temerity to associate with sinners, with tax collectors. And more than once, they asked the disciples, why does your master associate with these sinners? And of course, the Lord’s answer was, the people that don’t have an illness don’t need a physician, but the sick need a physician. I’m going to them, He said. Well, that gives you an idea why they felt that Jesus had stolen their thunder, because in all these ways that I’ve just mentioned, He came out ahead, came out looking good, and they came out looking bad.
So the scribes and those who were their associates in various ways had already begun to preach, I shouldn’t say preach, to search. They’d begun to search for safe ways by which to kill him. I’m talking about grocery stores now, safe ways. But they were looking for ways that they could get Jesus and not get in trouble with the crowds. And you see that in the early paragraph there. He said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar of the people. So they had these clandestine meetings.
You can picture them in your minds in some candle lit corner of some place or other trying to figure out how they were going to get Jesus, how they were actually going to kill him. They took note of the possible displeasure of the crowds because it was a situation where the crowds could easily be turned against them. Now, the truth was that they were able, with the devil’s help, I’m sure, to turn the crowds against Jesus. But at this point, they were very much in favor of Jesus were the crowds.
And so they were figuring out how they could get around that problem. They hoped to enlist the help of the Roman authorities. Well, if we can get them to arrest Jesus and get them to crucify him, kill him, then all the better for us. And so they were hoping that that would be the case. And as we will see, as we continue to study on, that’s actually how they proceeded. But if all else failed, they could arrange for what we might call a kangaroo court. That is, the outcome was already determined. They just needed to get some witnesses and statements and things, and then they could condemn Jesus.
And that also took place as well. So that, combined with getting the Romans to cooperate, did succeed. All these clandestine meetings that they had turned out to be very useful to them. They had some real brains there that could come up with these ideas. That’s how they felt about their stolen thunder. that they were going to get back at Jesus and get their thunder back by George. Stolen thunder. And that’s how our passage then opens as they are concerned about their positions and their places. Now, just as these chief priests and scribes and so forth were having their meetings, Jesus was having His meetings too.
And that’s where we come to reclining at table. Now I’ve always said that I didn’t understand how their digestive tracts were maintained lying down while they were trying to eat. But evidently it was possible for them. And there were two reasons for having meals where you reclined at the table. The first one was to make you eat slowly. That would certainly help your digestion. You weren’t going to gobble down your food if you had to carefully eat each bite so that you swallowed it just right and it went where it was supposed to go and so forth.
And then the other thing was that it was conducive to conversation. In the scriptures where you read that someone was laying in Jesus’ breast, it means that he was in the couch, if you will, right in front of him. so that when Jesus talked to him, he could hear clearly. Now, if he had to talk back to Jesus, that was a little harder. He had to look over his shoulder. But this was a way of eating in those days.
And as I say, it helped you to eat slowly, and it helped in the conversation that you had. So Jesus is having His meetings. And there’s no one to steal His thunder at this meeting, except there are a few that try. You say, how? Well, because their sentence is, what this woman is doing, you should be saying to her, stop it and so forth. So they were trying to steal a little thunder there themselves.
But I want to emphasize to you, this is not the Last Supper. Now there’s no reason to think that they pulled up chairs and sat down at the Last Supper, although da Vinci and the paintings are all nicely seated there with a table in front of them and all in chairs and so forth. But this is not the Last Supper that we’re reading about today.
It is what we would call a fellowship meal. It’s very interesting, just enjoying eating together. Now, Jesus is going to have something to say to them, of course, and especially when the woman comes in, but it is for fellowship. It’s just to be with them. later in connection to the Last Supper, Jesus says, and he says it with a kind of disappointment in his voice, he says, I’ll not eat of this food or drink the fruit of the vine again until I do so in the kingdom of God. He liked fellowship meals. He liked to be with his people. And one gets the impression that he often ate with his friends. Now, obviously, if he did this even once a week, you don’t have that written in scripture every single time it happens, but the impression you get is that frequently Jesus enjoyed a meal with his friends, sometimes just with his closer group, the twelve, and sometimes with many others there. This appears to be a kind of a party that’s taking place here. Just to read you a verse from Matthew here, just to tell you, show you that Jesus enjoyed eating.
This is a criticism of Jesus from those that wanted to steal His thunder, if you will. Matthew 11, 19, the Son of Man came eating and drinking. Now, if He didn’t do that regularly and often, why would they even have brought it up? Why would it have been a thing to lay it against Jesus?
He did indeed enjoy a fellowship meal often with those that he loved, with those that he wanted to be with. The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say, look at Him. See that? They must have watched Him in all these meals that He had. Look at Him, a glutton they said. Now what’s a glutton? A glutton is a person that eats too much. I don’t think that Jesus had a pot belly or anything like that, but from their point of view, he ate too much too often. Look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, they said, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.
Well, this all begins to come together, this stealing his thunder and being jealous and angry with him. And what we have here in these fellowship meals is a hint of the fellowship with Jesus that starts spiritually. But the day is coming in the new heavens and the new earth when we actually have some kind of fellowship meal with him.
Now, what will it be like? Do we really need to eat in heaven? Will our bodies require that? I don’t know any of those sorts of things. I can just tell you that the Bible says someday there’ll be something called the marriage supper of the Lamb. And Jesus says, I’m looking forward to eating and drinking again. He was referring to the fellowship meal, not the last supper, but the supper of many’s that would come. many of them that would come along in his life to be.
So it starts spiritually, but it ends in a tangible world to come. And so that when we gather in fellowship in the Lord, we really have a situation like heaven. Now we bring with it our sins and we look with jealousy on some people and we won’t talk to other people or we say somebody’s in my seat or whatever. Okay, we have that kind of problem. But the idea there is that when you sit and feast with Jesus, whether it’s spiritually around his word or whether it actually takes place in heaven, it’s a wonderful thing, a wonderful time together. That’s what Jesus wants us always to have where he’s concerned, to have a wonderful time together. In some way, and perhaps this is the work of the Holy Spirit, I think we can just interpolate that, if you will.
In some way, the woman has in mind the burial of Jesus. Jesus said, she’s doing this for my burial. Now, does that mean that she was totally ignorant of what she was doing? Or that this had crossed her mind, that she knew that Jesus had predicted his death, Many others said, no, no, we can’t let this happen. But she took it seriously that Jesus was going to die and be buried. And so Jesus said, she’s doing this in preparation for my burial. The death of Jesus, you see, is not an exaltation.
It is necessary for the salvation of his people. How are they going to be saved if he doesn’t die? If he doesn’t get buried, how will people be saved? If he can’t arise from the dead, how will we not understand what’s going to happen to us if we follow him?
So all this reclining at the table that’s going on here, it all has a purpose. It all has a meaning. And of course, the coming of the woman into the room at this point makes that clear. One of the things that always interests me is there were always observers. Some people were invited to have a place, a reclining place or a chair or whatever, but they were invited, but other people just looked through the windows or looked from the corners or they were just able to observe what was going on, which is what I think Jesus wanted to happen there, that they would see the fellowship and the joy and the blessing of being at a meal with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, we come thirdly to indignation. We find that there were some who were indignant that the ointment had been poured over Jesus’ head instead of being sold and the money given to the poor. Well, people often express indignation. We’re just full of indignation, are we not? That’s our hurt feelings. They do this, I do this, you do this to show moral superiority. Tusk, tusk, we said. This is a not good thing. We don’t like this, this is not right.
Now, of course, there are times when we have to say this is right and this is wrong, but a lot of the time, we just are indignant. Let me suggest that indignation is not a good thing to have in a fellowship meal. Indignation is not a good thing to have when you’re conversing with the Lord Jesus Christ. Indignation is not a good thing to have when you’re celebrating and rejoicing with Him. There are times for it, yes. But Jesus is not saying, let’s get everybody together and be indignant.
He wants joy and happiness, as we have said, and the disciples, some of them anyway, make this not a very happy occasion because this woman, and again, we’re going to use this term, this woman is stealing their thunder. She’s getting the attention and they are not.
So indignation then refers to righteous anger or what people think is righteous anger, especially when there are violations of God’s law. We can talk about greed, or we can talk about disrespect, or we can talk about stealing, or we can talk about many other things, but that’s kind of what feeds indignation.
When the woman anointed Jesus with a whole jar, an alabaster jar, the jar itself was expensive. An alabaster jar full of expensive ointment. and many were indignant. Now, let’s give some people credit here. Some genuinely felt that the valuable contents of the jar had been wasted and that the poor had been shortchanged.
Now, Jesus has an answer for that. I think first of all, he would say, you know, I’m thankful that you’re concerned. And then he’ll go on to say, you’ll have many opportunities to help the poor. But right now, something else is more important. Remember when Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet, and this is in Bethany also on another occasion, she’s listening to Jesus teach and Martha comes in and says, Mary, I think Jesus kind of then spoke up to Martha and he said, Martha, Martha, you’re too concerned about all these worldly things. Mary’s chosen the best part, the best thing for her. So there are reasons to be genuinely concerned when things are wasted and the poor, as we said, are shortchanged.
But Jesus says that’s not the case now. So any of you that have a right attitude about this, you are concerned. I understand, but let me explain it to you a little better. But then He’s speaking to those who are hypocrites like Judas Iscariot because he’s the chief one evidently who said, oh no, you can’t do this. Get this woman. in some situation where she can be criticized.
Some like Judas Iscariot spoke hypocritically, angry that they couldn’t profit from a sale. And when this is told to us in another gospel, we’re told that Judas was really a thief. that he wanted the profits for himself and he could envision you know how you see in cartoons sometimes the coin with wings is flying away that he’s not going to get the profits that he hoped to get at this point.
Now let me give you an example of good indignation and that’s the Lord Jesus himself. Jesus was indignant that none but the woman showed any expression of sorrow and love for him. There were more people in this room than just the ones that criticized or even the ones that had some concern. Jesus says, none of you are really With this woman and what she’s feeling, what the Spirit of God has revealed to her, you just kind of think of her as an eccentric or someone who’s come in to disrupt the gaiety of this time together that we have in fellowship. And Jesus says, I’ll be indignant now. I’ll be indignant that you can’t see that she’s on the right track and you’ve even yet to leave the station. And He gives this woman a strong approval, strong approval of what she is doing. Now notice the contrast. Notice the contrast.
These are even Jesus’ disciples are giving disapproval. Strong disapproval. And Jesus says, no, I strongly approve of what she is doing. because she expresses a willingness to accept my death. How many of those disciples were willing to accept that Jesus was going to die? And how is this woman contrasted? She accepts it. Doesn’t mean she liked it. In fact, I think she was sorrowful for it.
But she accepts that Jesus must die and she prepares this anointing, if you will, for his burial. So he gives strong approval and he says, you should be willing to mourn and to weep and to be sorrowful for what has to take place for sinners to be delivered. It’s possible, you see, both to help the poor and society and at the same time to honor the Lord with our lives and our fortunes. Oh, that’s so expensive. The woman is saying in effect, well, it cost me a fortune or it cost my family a fortune, but I’m going to give it all to the Lord. I’m going to express that He should receive this for Himself.
Jesus bestowed on her a very unique honor. It’s not said of anybody else in Scripture quite in this way. He says, I say to you, wherever the Gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her. Isn’t that quite an honor? Did He ever say that to anybody else in exactly that way? A unique honor, namely making her to be remembered always. The Lord most likely will not have each of us to be remembered individually like she was, but collectively, we can be remembered as the people of the Lord, as the people who stood faithful to Him, who stood against sin and hypocrisy, who turned from self-righteousness and self-importance and said, all glory be to God. And while we may not be in a position to do what she did, we can be in a position to say, I wanna join all of that great multitude of people who’s giving glory and praise to Him. in the first place. The first thing, he gets the glory.
Old Elijah went to a widow in the north country there above Galilee and he was hungry. There was a famine in the land. And the poor woman said, well, I’ve just got a little bit to prepare here, a little bit of oil, a little bit of flour. We’re going to give it to my son and myself, and so we can die. And basically, she was saying, sorry, I can’t really help you. But what did Elijah? He said, bake my cake first. Why? Because God was working through Elijah.
And because the Lord wanted his place, his honor, to be foremost, you see. And this woman, she has this expensive jar, and it could be sold for the poor. There were those who were concerned about that, but she says, let’s give God the glory first. Let’s give God the praise and honor first. And again, maybe as individuals, we can’t quite do what she did, but as a group, as God’s people, we can praise and glorify God and support what he’s doing.
Well, one last thing before we close, and that is the instruction, the instruction here. And now this can’t always work, but just as a kind of a general idea, watching bad behavior can promote good behavior. In other words, be sure you don’t do that. And so here’s some instruction. First of all, do not criticize others. who are doing what they can, that’s why he said to this woman, she’s doing what she can or she did what she could, do not criticize others who are doing what they can to love their Lord and serve Him.
What does Jesus say? Leave her alone, leave her alone. Why? Because what she’s doing is the right thing to do. Secondly, and I think this is a nice thing to think about, figure out what Christ thinks is beautiful. How does Jesus talk about her? She did a beautiful thing. What’s beautiful? What the Lord says is beautiful. We have our ideas. A beautiful person, a beautiful landscape, a beautiful this or that or the other thing. Alright, from a human point of view, maybe so, but what does Jesus say is beautiful? Jesus says it’s beautiful to see a person give up sacrificially, to accept the criticism of others, but to do it for God.
To do it for His glory and honor. Figure out what Christ thinks is beautiful. and work hard to make it happen. Thirdly, proclaim the gospel in such a way that you’re identified with it. Jesus said all over the world, people will hear this story, and they will think about glorifying God. Yes, they will think of her and give praise that the Lord raised up such a person, but the whole idea is, what is she doing that’s so beautiful? And the Lord says, you be a part of that.
Be identified with that. And if you do, and if that draws people to Christ, they’ll come and thank you. And just as we’re recognizing this woman in heaven, I wonder how many of us will have people come up to us and say, thank you. I was headed to hell. I was headed in the wrong way. But in observing what you were doing, that turned me to the Lord.
Proclaim the gospel in such a way that you’re identified with Him, with Him. Proclaim or help to proclaim the gospel. You may not be able to go to China or Bolivia or someplace far away, but you can support those who are going and who are working. It takes the whole church doing lots of different things to get the gospel out. And I think that’s one of the things that Jesus is saying here is that this woman was a part of the great whole of gospel outreach, of evangelization.
Then recognize that Jesus is with you and will not be separated from you. Now, he tells them that physically he’s going to be separated from them. He won’t have me around all the time. But then what’s going to happen right after this? The Holy Spirit is going to come. And when the Holy Spirit comes into the church and into individuals like you and me, then the Lord is with us. The Lord’s never really going to be separated from his people who have the Holy Spirit.
And finally, don’t neglect the poor. With all of this having been said, Jesus never says, and don’t help the poor. He says, yeah, you can do that. You can do that every day. The poor will be with you always. There will always be people who need your help. Don’t fail to help them. because God has put you in a certain place and given you certain resources and intended that after you’ve glorified God, you also help the poor or help anybody in need, give as the Lord would command you to do it.
Well, that’s where we have to stop this morning. But I hope you see that what started out here is just grumpiness on the part of the scribes and the chief priests turns into a lesson that all of us can take seriously. Let us be, yes, be indignant about sin, but remember that we’re sinners, and let us only commit ourselves to helping people to be free from sin and to have everlasting life, and be sure we have that ourselves. Dear Lord in heaven, thank you for the lesson of the morning. We pray that we would appreciate it, remember it, study on it, think about it, share it with others. In Jesus’ name.