What is the significance of Jesus being anointed (John 12:1-8)?

But the blessed Master viewed it otherwise, and placed upon it his own gracious interpretation. What they called a “waste” He recognized as heartfelt worship. What they considered as so much loss to “the poor,” in that He saw an apprehension on her part of His coming death—an appreciation of His sufferings—which marked her as being in possession of the truth in a way unknown to them. “Against the day of My burying has she kept this,” were His words; just as though He gave her credit for anticipating and preparing for His burial; just as though it had been the leading thought in her mind, whilst His kingdom and glory had occupied those of the disciples. But the glory is reached through death. She was right, and they were wrong; and, therefore, He gently screens her from their cruel censures. He will not allow her to suffer under their aspersion. He spreads His sheltering wing around her, and firmly says, “Let her alone.” If none can value her devotedness, He can, and does; and that is enough for Mary. Her Master’s smile suffices. The sense of giving Him pleasure compensates for the misunderstanding of man. Blessed experience!

John 12:7-8. The Lord protects His sheep from the thief who comes to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. If, in love, the Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, He will not permit His sheep to be touched. The Lord's word is, "Let her alone". Mary probably had little clear appreciation 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 it has been said, "gives a voice of intelligence to her act".

She might indeed have had many an opportunity to sell the ointment for the benefit of the poor, or ere this to pour it upon Christ. But, says the Lord, "She (has) kept this" for this supreme moment. The Lord lets every one know that the ointment was kept for the day of His preparation for burial. It was an expression of love for Christ which becomes a witness to the fact that the One Who had just raised a man from the dead was Himself going into death. The Lord, indeed, is not unmindful of the poor, for, He says, the poor are always with us: but, with touching tenderness, He adds, "Me ye have not always". He is conscious of His approaching departure, and the spiritual instincts of Mary tell her that the shadow of death is closing round her Lord. Lazarus was a witness to the resurrection power of Christ, but Mary's act witnessed that the One Who had the power of resurrection life was going into death. As so often, devoted love gives divine intelligence. Thus she seemed to be the only one that entered into the mind of the Lord, and realised that death was before Him.

Whether Mary had apprehended the fact of the Lord's rejection and of His approaching death is not revealed; but it is clear from these words that He was more entirely the object of her heart at this moment than of any one of His disciples, and consequently that she understood more fully what was passing around Him. The following remarks, if duly weighed, will, we judge, interpret for the reader the significance of Mary's act: "Mary had tasted the word of the Lord: that word, full of love and light, had penetrated her heart. Jesus had given her back her beloved brother. She saw the hatred of the Jews rise against Him whom she loved, and who had introduced into her heart the feeling of divine love; in proportion as the hatred rose, her affection for the Saviour rose too, and gave it courage to show itself. It was the instinct of affection, which felt that death was casting its shadow over Him who was the life, as Jesus felt it also - the only case in which Jesus found sympathy on earth. The Lord gives to Mary's act, instinctive fruit of affection and of devotedness, a voice that came from His divine intelligence: what she had done she had done for His burial." It was thus the Lord's own estimate of the value of her act - an act, however, which could only have proceeded from one who was in communion with His own mind and heart in His then circumstances an act therefore expressive of absorbing affection and devotedness. The difference between the accounts in Matthew and in this gospel - the ointment in the former being poured on His head, and in the latter on His feet - is explained by the respective characteristics of the presentation of Christ in these gospels. In Matthew He is seen as the Messiah, and hence, as God's anointed One, the ointment is put upon the head; in John, where He is presented as the Word, and as the eternal Son, His feet are anointed - significant of worship - the worship due to Him from all His redeemed. All the details of the scene are full of blessed instruction for the Lord's people; and the more they ponder upon them, the more they will admire the Lord's unspeakable grace.

The gratefulness of her act to the heart of Christ is shown in two ways. The house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Its precious fragrance spread throughout (we speak of its typical import) all the habitation of God. Secondly, the Lord expressed His appreciation of her act, as done in communion with His own mind. "Against the day of my burying hath she kept this." Mary alone, as far as revealed, had entered into the truth of the Lord's rejection and death; and, in truth, 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.

Mary, who before had been at His feet as a learner (Luke 10:39), and but recently had wept at His feet as a mourner (John 11:32), is now found at His feet as a worshipper. She anoints His feet with the very costly ointment and wipes His feet with her hair. Her act proclaims that in her estimation nothing that she possesses is good enough for Christ. She expends upon Him the costly ointment, and puts at His disposal that which is the glory of a woman — her hair. She was not at that moment thinking of the poor or the blessing of others; she was wholly engrossed with Christ. This, indeed, is worship: but, even so, the one that is absorbed with Christ will bring blessing to others; so we read, "The house was filled with the odour of the ointment".

John 12:4-6. Alas! amidst the fragrance of love there lurks the guile of the traitor. Jesus is the Light, and in His presence all are manifested in their true colours. That which was the expression of the love of a devoted saint becomes the occasion of exposing the lust of a heartless sinner. While Mary is delighted to expend that which is "very costly" on the One Who is of infinite worth, Judas is coolly calculating the price of the ointment — three hundred pence was the yearly wage of a working man, a sum which would provide for the necessities of a poor man's household for a year — regretting only that, under the profession of giving to the poor, he has not been able to add this sum to his unlawful gains. This man, who cares neither for Jesus nor the poor, is governed by the love of money to obtain which he is ready to steal from the bag and betray Christ.

Let us turn now and look at Mary "at his feet," on another occasion, for which those we have considered prepared her. In John 12 we find her there again; but how different from the two former or previous occasions. He was the contributor in these, she in this! She expresses Him as she had learned and known Him. It was a peculiar moment; death seems to have been in all their thoughts; the chief priests, in the hatred of their hearts, would seek to put to death the man who, alive among men, was the living exponent of Him who is the resurrection and the life. The Lord Jesus Himself thinks of death, that death by which He was about to glorify God and put away sin; and never did it come more forcibly before Him than when a picture of the kingdom presents itself. Israel for the time owning Him, and the Greeks wanting to see Him: then it was that those blessed words dropped fatness from His lips, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." But there was one beside whose thoughts were filled with death at that moment, and so we read, "then took Mary," etc. The action here recorded and commended of the Holy Ghost, was the fruit of acquaintance with the heart of Christ. She made His heart and His desires her study, not her own. This is the great secret of true and approved devotedness. Many are rendering Christ service, which is all very well in itself, but dates its origin no further back than their own wishes and desires. Mary's thoughts were formed by communion with Himself, and found their fitting expression at this moment, and how much they met the desires of His heart, these words tell, "She hath wrought a good work on me." (Mark 14:6.) There was but One who commanded Mary's affections at this moment, and there was but One who understood her; misapprehended and blamed for what was but waste in their eyes, Jesus vindicates her. O! how blessed to hear Him say, "Why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me."

So those sisters received their beloved brother alive from the dead, and their perplexity and sorrow were turned into wonder and joy. But that was not the end of the story, there was a most blessed sequel, given to us in the following chapter. That family of three made Him a supper. There were others admitted to it, but they made it for Him. And there He sat at their table—the Resurrection and the Life, the Master of death, and mightier than the grave, their Lord, and yet their Friend and their Guest. He sat there as one of themselves, so gracious was He, He found His joy in their company, such was His love. And Lazarus sat with Him, saying nothing as far as is recorded, silent in the joy of communion. And Martha served not now with question and scolding, no longer excited and cumbered, but with a quiet grace that blended well with that feast. “Then took Mary a pound of ointment—very costly.” It was the most precious thing in the house, and she had prized it and kept it. She loved her brother and she might have poured it upon him when death laid him low, and so have preserved his body from corruption 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, self was eclipsed and forgotten in His presence who had wept with her in her sorrow. Upon His feet and upon Him alone it was poured out, her heart’s tribute to Him, her soul’s adoration of Him who was more to her than sister and brother and self. With a spiritual intuition that none shared with her she realised what lay ahead of Him, and He knew what was in her innermost heart when He said, “Against the day of My burying has she kept this.”

If now we turn to the gospel of John (John 12), we shall meet with another instance of being at the feet of Jesus. The same Mary who sat at His feet and heard His word, took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. The one who had sat at His feet, heard His word, and received those divine communications which revealed Himself to her soul, is here seen as a worshipper. When the King sitteth at His table, says the bride, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. It as ever so, and it was so with Mary. It was, in fact, the disclosure of Christ to her soul, and her divinely-given apprehension of who and what He was that made her a worshipper. She too was absorbed with the One whose beauty and perfections had dawned upon her, and her heart overflowed with adoration. She therefore brought her costliest treasure, and poured it out at His feet.

These considerations prepare us for the statement that the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. This was a matter of fact, but underlying the fact is the teaching that nothing is so fragrant to the heart of God, or to the hearts of the saints, when in communion with Him, as an act of absorbing devotedness to Christ. Its odour steals abroad, like the dawning light of the morning, until it reaches all that are in the house, the habitation of God by the Spirit. Who, indeed, has not felt it in some feeble measure, when gathered with the saints around the Lord? Some note of praise has been struck by an adoring soul, which, like grateful incense ascending up to the Father, has filled, at the same time, every heart in the assembly with its blessed fragrance. For all time therefore it is true that, when a "Mary" anoints the feet of her Lord with her costly ointment, the house is filled with the odour of the ointment.

"And the house was filled with the odour of the ointment." God smells a sweet smell when we make much of His dear Son; when we pour out on Him our adoration, praises and thanksgiving as we remember Him together. Men, and even Christians like the disciples (carried away by the "good words and fair speeches" of a Judas), call this waste, waste of time, etc, getting together for a whole hour or more and spending it all in making much of God's Son, but doing nothing for man. But though service, too, is all right in its place, as in Martha, and will not be neglected if we are in communion with the Lord, yet the highest thing of all is to make much of, to adore, God's dear Son, giving praise, thanksgiving and adoration to Him.