EPISODE 12 John Chapter 12 ”Broken and Spilled Out” for Share The Word

Hi, and welcome to Share the Word, the best way to learn your way through the New Testament one chapter at a time. We know there are a lot of devotionals and encouraging thoughts for the day from the Bible available online, but our goal is a little more to honestly and systematically present the whole story of the New Testament. So let's listen in to today's lesson and go a little deeper. Broken and spilled out, John chapter 12. I remember a series of commercials on television designed to make husbands feel, well, like the scum of the earth, frankly. I see them every year, sometimes around Christmas and sometimes around Valentine's Day.

One in the series I remember begins as this elegant-looking man, presumably it's with his wife, enter a darkened movie theater, and they are the only ones in there. They take seats right in the middle of the theater, and just as they sit, the lights go down and the projector starts running. On the big screen are all these romantic images, and it's video of them actually, starting at their wedding, their honeymoon, the birth of their first child. You realize this man has taken a bunch of time and put together this beautiful montage of their lives together, and then paid the theater owner to present it to her as a movie in a private screening. She watches with her head ever so snugly resting against his shoulder, with tears welling up in her eyes, as her heart is warmed by these romantic, nostalgic images playing out on the screen. Then as the images fade, just at the perfect moment.

He pulls out this little black velvet box, and she looks into his eyes breathlessly, wonderingly. He opens it to reveal a big, sparkly diamond, a perfect stone reflecting back at her from the light of the movie theater of their lives. And the voiceover says, Tell her you'd marry her all over again because a diamond is forever. By the way, it's pointless to try and explain to your girlfriend or to your wife at this point that it's just a commercial. It's useless to try to explain that you don't have ten grand for a big ring like that at the moment. Doesn't matter.

At that moment, you feel like the scum of the earth because, unlike the guy in the commercial, you've just never made her feel that special. What's the most costly present you've ever given someone that you love? That annoying commercial came to my mind, actually, when I reread John chapter 12. The account we read there must have made a huge impression on all the disciples who witnessed it because not only did John record this, but also Matthew relates it in his gospel, as does Mark, who is recording Peter's memories. No one of them who was there ever forgot about this experience. For quite some time, we learned from the end of John chapter 11, Jesus had been avoiding the area near Jerusalem where his enemies on the high council had great influence.

They had already decided to kill Jesus if they had the opportunity, and since his time had not yet come, as John keeps telling us, that's an expression that John uses to tell us that Jesus was on a time schedule from his heavenly Father. He had an appointment ahead of him with the cross. He knew that, but he was staying out of the reach of his enemies because the time for that had not yet quite come. But then, as John opens chapter 12, we learn that six days before his last Passover, which means six days before his crucifixion, Jesus suddenly turns back up in the little village of Bethany, which is just two miles from Jerusalem.

I think it's because Jesus was, in fact, very aware that his time was now fast approaching, and he wanted to spend some of that precious time, all that was remaining of it, with special close people to him, like those who lived in Bethany, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, who we just met in chapter 11. That chapter ended by John telling us that it was the spectacular raising of Lazarus from the dead, the report of that reaching the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, whether they believed it or not, that caused the high council members in the city to officially determine Jesus has to go. They feared that if they let his growing fame as a miracle worker go on, his popularity would only increase with the people. Their messianic expectations of him would only intensify, and that would threaten them and their place as rulers in Israel. Jesus loved those people, remember, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

They were very close personal friends and devoted followers. Jesus, John, and the others arrived at their home on Friday evening for this visit. On Saturday evening, as the Sabbath was ended, their hosts planned a special dinner party given in Jesus' honor. How much appreciation they must have had for him and what he had done for their family. They wanted to show him. Martha had been busy all day preparing and was the best hostess ever.

Lazarus was reclining with Jesus and the other men as the dinner party began. If you can visualize this, how such dinners would have been conducted then was that those who were dining together would have been seated in a U-shaped arrangement. Place the letter U in the home's largest room, or perhaps out in the courtyard if it was a warm evening. Seated is really not the right word. They ate at such social dinner parties, reclining comfortably against cushions on the floor around a low table. So imagine these guys, Jesus, the twelve, Lazarus, perhaps some other friends, lying sort of on their sides, leaning on one elbow, their legs are back away from the low table.

Jesus, as the guest of honor, would have been at the center of that U, with probably Lazarus next to him. The other guests, all extending around the outside of the U. The area in the middle was open so that one or more servants could come and have easy access to the table. Martha, in this case, or possibly Mary as well. So try and picture that. I wonder what was for dinner.

I'm sure it was the best they had, and these were well-to-do people. I wonder what they talked about as they ate together that night. Perhaps they relived the incredible events of the afternoon weeks before when Jesus had called Lazarus out of the tomb. I'm sure that came up. What's it feel like to be dead, Lazarus? What's it feel like to be alive again, Lazarus?

Perhaps as Martha and Mary filled their cups and kept their food bowls replenished, the conversation turned more dark toward the dangerous climate in Jerusalem and what this one and that one had heard about the mood and plans of the high council members. Wouldn't you have liked to have been a fly on the wall on that occasion as Jesus, in a very relaxed atmosphere, interacted with closest friends and followers at this intimate dinner party, just days before he knew he would face the cross? No one particularly noticed, as they were engaged in conversation during that dinner, no one noticed as Mary approached Jesus from behind. Knelt down until they heard a distinct crack. And then they saw Mary pouring something on Jesus, starting at his head, spilling it out over his back, continuing on down to his legs, even to his feet.

And she emptied out the last contents of a fine alabaster flask of which she had broken the neck. She used her hair to wipe the excess from his feet. By the way, that's something no respectable woman would have ever done in mixed company. But she knelt at Jesus' feet, wiping the excess liquid from them with her hair. When John wrote about this, maybe as much as 60 years later, he could still smell the sweet aroma that filled the room that night. He says, The whole house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

What was happening here? Anointing another person with oil or with some kind of perfumed oil, that was an act of honor and celebration in that culture. Maybe you've heard the terminology in the Bible, the oil of gladness. What Mary did here went way beyond that. The gospel accounts, and John was almost certainly an eyewitness of this, say she broke open a flask of a very rare, very expensive perfume called spikenard. It was produced from an exotic plant thousands of miles away, only found in northern India.

These aromatic oils, like frankincense, myrrh, and others to name some, were highly prized in the Jewish culture. The cost of the best of them could be exorbitant because they came from far away and were very hard to get your hands on. The actual cost of producing them was undoubtedly also marked up a hundred times, a thousand times. But their ingredients were closely guarded secrets by the merchants who brought them to Israel. A drop or two could be burned at once in a lamp, in the oil in a lamp, or on special occasions used as incense, or could be used purely as a dab on the body here or there, or at sometimes a small amount anointing the dead. We know from between the lines that Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were a well-to-do family.

They were benefactors of Jesus. But get this. This bottle that Mary broke open that night was filled, John remembers, with about twelve fluid ounces of spikenard. Those in attendance at this dinner estimated the cost approximately 300 denarii. A denarii, in that culture, was a day's wage for an average worker. You can do the math.

The monetary value of this one bottle of rare and precious perfumed oil would have been worth about a year's wages for an average worker. What does that mean in our terms today, in my culture? That means she poured out on Jesus that night 40 to 50 thousand dollars worth of ointment. That's what Judas said. Judas was the treasurer of the disciple group, and he handled their money. Crazy, he thought.

Once it sank in what Mary had done, Judas, John notes, the one who would betray him, was the first one to react. He actually rebuked Mary. Why? Judas wanted to know. Why couldn't this perfume have been sold and the money given to the poor? John realized, writing years after the fact, it was not because Judas cared anything about the poor, but because he carried the money bag for the group and regularly helped himself to it.

That's why this upset him. Apparently, many of the others in the room were also taken aback, though, and felt that Mary had done a ridiculously extravagant and foolish and wasteful thing. But don't count Jesus among them. Jesus spoke up in Mary's defense. He said to Judas and to anybody else who might have been thinking that way, Leave her alone. You'll always have the poor with you, but you won't always have me.

Mary has saved this perfume in preparation for my burial. What a strange thing to say for a living man. I am not sure if Mary anticipated that at all, or if Jesus meant that she had unwittingly anointed him in view of his burial coming up shortly. If it was on no one else's mind, I'm sure death was on Jesus' mind that night because he knew his hour was fast approaching. So he accepted her anointing that night in that light. Here's how I read Mary.

She was a person who was just totally devoted to Jesus. She believed his claims. She was overwhelmed to realize that she and her family have a close personal relationship with him. And then on top of that, to think of what he had done for her brother Lazarus. When they held this dinner in his honor that night and she looked on from the shadows as he sat there next to her brother, sat sharing dinner and conversation with them just friend to friend, she was overwhelmed with gratitude, I think. It didn't make any particular sense what she did next.

It was not practical. It was probably not thought out or planned. It was spontaneous. It was just a way to say how she felt, something to do to put into action the way she felt. What could she do to show Jesus how much she valued him? What could she do to show how much she appreciated what he had done for her and her family?

Who knows why she had this bottle of very rare perfume or what she was keeping it for or intending to use it for. But at that moment, she couldn't think of a better use. She was so overwhelmed with gratitude and devotion, she didn't care what it cost. The idea popped into her head, and she just did it. Judas may not have appreciated it. He voiced his objections, and those in the room, Matthew records this, remember Jesus saying, Leave her alone.

She's done a beautiful thing. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done tonight will be told in memory of her. I'm telling you this story today, actually, in keeping with that, in memory of Mary of Bethany and the extraordinary act of worship she did that evening. I hate to spoil the mood, but let's contrast what Mary did now with what Judas did and said that night. Apparently, what happened that evening in Bethany at that dinner was just a last straw for him. His motivation from the beginning in following Jesus must have been what he expected personally to get out of it.

He expected Jesus would become Israel's king after seeing the miracles and the crowd's reaction to him early in the ministry years. But when Jesus ruled out, basically said, That's not what's going to happen, Judas realized he was not going to be the secretary of the treasury in the coming kingdom. So now, increasingly, as Jesus is talking about his own death and doing absolutely nothing to advance a political agenda, he's not doing what the Messiah should do, Judas got angry and frustrated inside, bitter inside. The leaders in Jerusalem hate him, and when stuff like this happens and so foolishly this money is wasted, all that money wasted, Judas could have used some of that. The Gospel of Matthew says it was just on the heels of that rebuke from Jesus that night. Then Judas went out to the high priest and said, What are you willing to give me if I can hand over Jesus to you?

Judas had been into following Jesus, thinking, What's in this for me? This is about me and what Jesus can do for me. Mary was into following Jesus because she knew who he was, believed in him, and realized that he deserved her full devotion. She was thinking, What can I possibly do to show how much he means to me? To, in some way, any way, show how much I appreciate him. Can you see why Jesus loved Mary and her sister and her brother so much?

These people were totally devoted to him. They understood and deeply appreciated what he had done for them. In a return, it would not be a drip and drop kind of response from them. Mary broke off the neck of that bottle, that priceless perfume, and she spilled it all out. When I go back in my imagination and place myself in that room that night, I can't help but wonder how I would have reacted when I realized what Mary had done. Would I have thought it was crazy?

Or would I have thought, Man, I wish I had something that valuable to pour out to Jesus. I'm afraid we, and by we I mean me, we think we give Jesus a lot of ourselves, a lot of what we have, when we are really giving him mere drips and drops too much of the time. We think, How much do I really have to give of myself to be okay? How much of my time? How much of my money? How much of the things that are precious to me?

We carefully measure it out, carefully being sure we don't overdo it, making sure we don't look too extreme. We, and again I mean me. Don't get it as clearly as Mary got it. We don't see with her kind of eyes who Jesus was and what he was willing to sacrifice for us, how selfless he was. His sacrifice was priceless. Nothing we could ever offer up in return could be extravagant in comparison to what he has done, could it?

The next morning, Sunday, his hair and garment still filled with the odor of that rare perfume, Jesus left Bethany for Jerusalem. Halfway there, he mounted a donkey's colt and rode the last mile into the city amid cries of Hosanna with palm leaves strewn along his pathway by the pilgrims arriving for Passover. But inside the city walls at that very time, the conspiring priests and Sanhedrin members were waiting for him like spiders for their prey. In only four more days, the Messiah, the priceless Son of God, would be broken and spilled out for all of us. This is a simple message about devotion today. The Scripture says elsewhere, And Jesus died for all of us, that those who live, that is, those of us who are the beneficiaries of his sacrifice, who've been saved from death and hell because of it, should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on our behalf.

I asked at the beginning, what's the costliest thing you have ever given to someone you love? If you've believed into Jesus and received what he has done for you, what does that mean to you? What is your response to that? What is your level of devotion because of that? Do you respond in meagerness, a drip here, a drop here, measuring it out, or is your whole life one of genuine worship? Broken open and being poured out for Him.

This is the question this beautiful story begs we ask of ourselves, and of ourselves, I mean me. If you're enjoying these commentaries on the Gospel of John, please help us share the Word by passing along the podcast to your friends and family. There's no better way to learn the content of the New Testament than chapter by chapter. For more information, visit us at sharetheword.org. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.