Jesus therefore said, Suffer her to have kept this for the day of my preparation for burial;
At a supper in Bethany, six days before the Passover, Mary pours a pound of expensive ointment over Jesus, and the room turns hostile. His short reply silences the critics and tells everyone present what her act meant.
The critics called the ointment a waste. Jesus rejects their reading and gives His own, then covers Mary with three words. The writers quoted below follow older translations, which read "Let her alone" and "Against the day of my burying she has kept this."
But the blessed Master saw it differently, and put His own gracious meaning on it. What they called a "waste" He recognized as heartfelt worship... It was as though He gave her credit for expecting His burial and preparing for it. It was as though this had been her leading thought, while His kingdom and glory filled the minds of the disciples. But the way to that glory runs through death. She was right, and they were wrong; and so He gently shields her from their cruel criticism. He will not let her suffer under their slander.
One writer finds a rule for all worship in those three words.
In saying, "Let her alone," Jesus silenced the hostile criticism. We may well write those three words on our memories. True worship lies between the soul of the believer and the Lord, and no other may interfere.
The Lord's word is that Mary had held the ointment back. One writer weighs what else she could have done with it.
It was the most precious thing in the house, and she had prized it and kept it. She loved her brother. When death laid him low, she might have poured it on him and kept his body from decay for a while. But she did not. She had kept it for the supreme hour of her life, and that hour had come. She did not pour it on herself either. She lost sight of herself in the presence of the One who had wept with her in her sorrow.
Commentators differ on where the ointment came from. One note reads the Greek word behind "kept" as pointing back to the funeral of Lazarus:
John 12:7. — The word tērēsē seems to mean that Mary had reserved it from the ointment used for Lazarus's funeral.
The others at that table were thinking of a kingdom. Mary's ointment fits a grave.
The Lord expressed His appreciation of her act, as done in communion with His own mind. "Against the day of my burying she has kept this." As far as we are told, Mary alone had entered into the truth of the Lord's rejection and death. And it was her communion with Him in His rejection that qualified her to be a worshipper. She shared, in her measure, in God's delight in the One who was about to be crucified.
Did Mary understand everything her act declared?
Mary probably had little clear grasp of the death and resurrection of Christ. But her spiritual instincts, moved by affection, lead her to do the right act at the right moment. And the Lord, as someone has said, "gives a voice of intelligence to her act."
One writer goes further: the Lord arranged the timing itself.
Now, she had had it a long time. She might have spent it on the Lord Jesus earlier, and we are sure she was willing to. But the Lord arranged that she should keep it for that fitting moment, when it became the soothing expression of thoughtful love. How graciously ordered from on high!
What is worship worth, set beside human need?
Judas regarded this as waste. In his view, serving the needs of people would have been a better use of the money (the idea of philanthropy). But the Lord defends Mary... Spending energy or resources in worship is no waste. Worship is the most worthy cause ever. It is the highest form of service because it is directed to God.
- Kept — Mary held back her most precious possession. She spent it on neither herself nor her brother.
- Timed — She acted at the one hour that fitted, and the writers trace that timing to God's ordering, not just to her insight.
- Read — She may not have understood everything; the Lord gave her act its voice by tying it to His burial.
- Shielded — Against the charge of waste, He answers, "Leave her alone," and steps between her and every critic.
- Ranked — Worship is never waste. It is the highest service, because it is directed to God.
for ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always.
Mary has just poured costly perfume over Jesus, and Judas has objected that the money belonged to the poor. Jesus' reply sets the poor and Himself side by side.
Jesus is not opening a discussion about poverty. He is answering the man who priced the gift — a man with no real care for the poor.
Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples who was about to hand Him over, says, "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to poor people?" He never thought of Jesus! … Judas calmly works out the lowest selling price of the perfume. He falsely puts poor people forward, though he had no real care for them. He would have liked that sum added to his unlawful gains.
The first half of the sentence is not a shrug. God had promised Israel blessing, but the promise carried a condition — and one writer shows when the poor will finally be gone.
God's blessing in this way, however, depended on Israel obeying the Lord with care and keeping all His commandments. So this was a conditional promise. Israel failed to keep the conditions, and poverty was not abolished, so the Lord Jesus told His disciples, "For the poor you always have with you" (John 12:8). This will change only after the Lord's judgment, when He establishes Israel in the future blessings of the thousand-year kingdom.
The Lord does not set giving to the poor against loving Him. He leaves that door open — which is what makes the criticism of Mary hollow.
Judas thought of himself; his fellow disciples were full of philanthropy. It could have gone to the poor. Yes, there are a good many people who think more of philanthropy than of Christ; but Mary thought more of Christ than of philanthropy. But is not philanthropy a good thing? No doubt it is, for the Lord says, "For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good to them. But you will not always have me."
The moment could not wait. He was going into death, and Mary alone sensed it.
She could have had many chances to sell the ointment for the poor, or to pour it on Christ before this. But, says the Lord, "She has kept this" for this supreme moment… The Lord is not forgetful of the poor. He says the poor are always with us. But with touching tenderness He adds, "You do not always have me." He knows that He is soon to leave, and Mary's spiritual instincts tell her that the shadow of death is closing round her Lord.
That moment will never come again. But one writer says the loss can still be ours. Some ways of loving Christ exist only while He is rejected.
When the glory has come, "His servants shall serve Him," perfectly then, as surely as we shall "see His face." Love will find new ways to express itself to its object in the glory. But suppose He came tonight to take us into it. If we have missed our chance here, He would never call us to go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. He would never ask again, "Do this in remembrance of me," leading our hearts to announce His death… All this and much more is over for ever, and the opportunity is past if we miss it now. "You do not always have me."
Judas's argument still lives. Good works can buy the world's approval and dodge the one thing that costs something.
Go along with the ordinary profession of His name. Use the security that infinite sovereign grace has given you from the judgment to come, and settle down at ease in the world that has rejected Him. Do good to people, as with the ointment sold for so much and given to the poor. These things will gain the Christian the favour and esteem of the world, and the reproach of Christ will be unknown. But His touching words remind us of the incalculable loss: "You do not always have me."
He is no longer here to be anointed. But one writer finds that the poor and Christ are not rivals after all.
This verse no doubt refers to the Lord Himself. But other passages show that His people are seen as Himself. Linked with them, it becomes a principle of great value to us about giving. In giving to the least of the saints, I am giving to Christ Himself, and He was the real poor man, still poor as displayed in His saints.
- Always — the poor remain because Israel did not keep God's condition for blessing. The change waits for a future kingdom.
- Not always — Christ's time here had a deadline. Mary alone read it, and she kept her ointment for the one moment it could be given.
- Now — the deadline reaches us too. Bearing His reproach and remembering His death are chances glory will not give.
- Beware — charity can be a costume. The man who priced the ointment wore it, and wanted the money himself.
- Both — He never set the poor against Himself. Give to the least of His own, and you give to Christ Himself.