me out of respect for God's Word and turn to John chapter 12. John chapter 12. We're still taking a break from 1 Corinthians 13 because we're still trying to understand it. And it's also the time of the year that we are naturally thinking about the historical events which are at the foundation of our faith. and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This particular text puts us about one week out from the Passover and of course Jesus' betrayal and crucifixion. John chapter 12 beginning with verse 1. We'll read through verse 11. Jesus therefore six days before the Passover came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they made him a supper there. Martha was serving, but Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him. And Mary took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples who was intending to betray him, said, Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor people? Now he said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief. And as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it. And therefore Jesus said, let her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me. The large crowd of the Jews then learned that he was there, and they came, not for Jesus' sake only, but they might also see Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead. But the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death also because on account of him, many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus. Let's ask God's help to understand. Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners. Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise. that among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely be fixed where true joys are found, in Jesus Christ, who is our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. You may be seated. This past week, surfing along the internet, jumping from Many of the news sites I like to peruse and read articles on. I came across a particular article that caught my attention, that got me thinking in connection with our passage here, and the time of year, and so forth. The name of the article, or rather the article was entitled, Sin Is Not the Problem with the World, Theology Is. Sin is not the problem with the world, theology is the problem. And of course the title signals where the author is going. And it's full of the typical kinds of themes and narratives that you're going to find in a series of foolish articles that are routinely published at this time of the year where experts and spiritual gurus are interviewed and they're asked questions about Jesus and the historicity of the Christ and the Christian movement and all of these things. Usually they're full of almost all myth and very little fact. And this article, likewise, was full of a lot that was completely useless except for one particular phrase that got me to thinking. And got me to thinking about how to connect it to this passage. As sort of a window into it. In their attempt to redefine sin, they said, sin is about who we are becoming. Now, in an unintended sense, there's a connection there between what they were arguing in our passage, not because they were right in how they redefined sin, But in a sense, there was some truth in this concept of this thought. Sin is about who we are becoming. Because as you come to this passage, and you see the sin that Judas is about to indulge in, you see that sin was a window into who he was to become. And that is not a disciple of Jesus, but a betrayer of Christ. And the betrayal of Judas is rooted in this particular incident here where Mary, in faith, anoints Jesus Christ for His burial. And because of his anger, because he was overcome with indignance towards her and towards what he thought was extravagance, he went out into the night and met with by the religious authorities to betray Christ. I want to compare here and contrast these two different disciples and their approach to Jesus and to His impending death and burial. We're going to notice how the passage amplifies and blows up this picture of Mary as the true disciple who would follow Jesus Christ and place her trust and her faith in the cross and resurrection of Jesus. But before we get into the actions which really form the backbone of the narrative, I want us to dig into the backdrop. And the backdrop of the passage is death. Death hangs over this passage like a cloud. You see, the text is bracketed in death. If you just look back to the end of chapter 11, for instance, verse 57, you'll see one of the outer frames of death. The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, that is Christ, he was to report it, so that they might seize him. And of course, the reason why they're intending to seize Christ is because they have made a prior determination to kill him, and you can see that in chapter 11 verse 53 where it says from that day on they plan together to kill him. That's the Sanhedrin, that's the religious people, those are the Jewish leaders. And so on this one outer frame you have the bracket of death and on the other outer frame of our passage in verses 9 through 11 you see death as well. You see in verse 10 the chief priest planned to put Lazarus to death because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus. So there's death surrounding the passage and we need to ask the question, well why? Why is there death surrounding the passage? Why are the chief priests and Pharisees angling at killing Jesus and why are the chief priests and Pharisees and religious leaders angling to kill Lazarus. And the answer is because Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Now, we don't have time to go back and recount the entire miracle in John chapter 11. I'll just give you the Cliff Notes version. But you can read it for yourself. And the story is fairly simple and straightforward. Jesus was ministering somewhere in the Jordan area. This is probably somewhere about three months out from Jesus' actual crucifixion. He was ministering out there, and he received a report from friends or family members of Mary and Martha, who were sisters to Lazarus. The report basically said that Lazarus was sick unto death. And they pleaded that Jesus would come and heal Lazarus before he died. Jesus, hearing the news, decided that he would stay several more days ministering instead of going and performing this miracle. And the reason why he did that was so that Lazarus would be unmistakably dead. He did that so Lazarus would be unmistakably dead, so that when he went to actually raise Lazarus from the dead, it would be a vast, unmistakable, public display of the glory and the power of God. So what happens here is Jesus, when he is done ministering, comes back to Bethany, where they live, and He encounters both Mary and Martha, and of course, Mary runs out to greet Jesus and to weep and to lament about the passing of Lazarus. And he says, please take me to the tomb. And of course, you know, the rest of the story, it's the shortest verse in the Bible. Jesus looks into the tomb and he wept. But then you see the miracle in verse 43 and 44. When he said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. Now notice verse 44. The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. And Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. Now look at verse 45, therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary saw what he had told them and they believed in him. You see that was the issue. the death of Lazarus had spread throughout the community. Apparently, Mary and Martha and Lazarus were very well-connected people in the city of Bethany. It seems also from the rest of the narrative that they were well-connected with many in Jerusalem, and so many in Jerusalem were there at that time to comfort and console Mary and Martha at the passing of Lazarus. And of course, he'd been dead for four days. It was unmistakable And yet Jesus comes and He calls him out of death into life. And the news of that is spread like wildfire. There were all kinds of witnesses there to see this particular miracle. But as you can imagine, it just began to spread. And people throughout the whole region had heard of this documented, reliable, factual miracle of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. And of course, the obvious happened that people began to follow Christ in great numbers. So much so, that the religious authorities decided to meet in order to stop this tsunami which was spreading across the hillsides of Palestine. a tsunami of faith and discipleship and a following of Jesus. And so they plot to kill Christ. But now as you move into the rest of our passage, which is at least probably about three months later, Jesus is in town now in Bethany for Passover. It's six days before the Passover because there continues to be not just a trickle but an overflow of people now who are seeking to follow after Jesus Christ because every time they saw Lazarus alive and breathing and speaking and fellowshipping, they couldn't help, they couldn't resist the impulse to follow Christ that now we see at the end of our passage, there's Lazarus there who is the target of the sinister plans of the religious establishment as well. So we have death bracketing the narrative, but we have death sort of preparing the way for the narrative. Now, if you have, let's say, some sort of a study guide or tool which would sort of chart the text as they flow in the gospel and compare all the gospel accounts together, you would see that just prior to Jesus coming into Bethany, for the Passover, Jesus had been instructing His disciples in His impending death. It's actually recorded for us in Luke chapter 18, and you don't have to turn there, but it's probably within the time frame of one to two, three, maybe a week before, before Jesus actually arrives for Passover, that He took His disciples aside. He said, behold, we're going to Jerusalem. and all things which are written to the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished, He will be handed over to the Gentiles, and He will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after that, after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise again. So here they are. They've been with Jesus. He has taught them, these disciples, that He's about to die. They know they're going up to Passover. They know where they are going for Passover. That there are hostile people who want to seize Jesus, arrest Him and kill Him. And now, as they come into this room and they're joining this feast at Simon the leper's house, Now, this aromatic cloud just sort of spreads across the room, and what they're supposed to do is start connecting the dots. You see, they're supposed to smell in that fragrance death. They know the authorities are after Jesus, they know the Passover is coming, they know Jesus has explicitly instructed them that the reason why they're going to Jerusalem is for Him to die, And now they have this extravagant act being performed, which was about a preparation for burial. We have death in the air. Death is the backdrop. And what's fascinating now is only two disciples respond to that. That brings us into our passage. All that was just backdrop. Now we come into the backbone of the narrative, which is the disciples being set in contrast. Where are they? Well, they are, as I already said, at the house of Simon the leper. You can get some of the details that sort of fill in some things in this passage if you went to Mark's gospel, chapter 14, or if you go to Matthew's gospel, chapter 26. Both of those chapters will give a couple of more details about what is going on here, but it is certainly at Simon the leper's house. We know that they're there for a feast. We know that it's six days before Passover. If we count backwards, we know Passover was on a Friday. So if we count backwards, this is probably, this feast is probably taking place as the Sabbath has just ended. Remember, the Jews reckon days from the evening, not the morning. So this is Saturday evening at the end of Sabbath. They're having a gathering. It's in honor of Christ. It's six days out before his betrayal and crucifixion. And at least all the disciples are there, all the twelve. We can also see from John chapter 12, besides that, there was Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. But from verse 2 forward, what you really just see is these two disciples being set in contrast, Mary and Judas. Mary acts and Judas speaks. Let's look at what Mary does. At some point during the meal, and because this was an extravagant banquet, as near as we can tell from the details of our text, instead of sitting at a table like we would do for dinner, they would recline with the table in the center of the room. And so they would be reclining, their hands and face towards the table, and their feet extended outwards away. That helps us understand how it could be that Mary does what she does. At some point, she jumps up within the feast and she takes this very expensive bottle of perfume. Now, verse 3 does the best job, I think you can in English, to explain just how costly this was. It says, very costly perfume. Very costly. And we get an insight into just how costly it was because Judas complains that it could have been sold for 300 denarii. Well, 300 denarii is approximately a little over a year's worth of wages. Just think about that. I read a statistic recently that said that, I'm not sure whether to believe this, that the average household income for Orange County residents is about $69,000 a year. Imagine this, a very extravagant, very expensive bottle of perfume and somehow she must have scraped together her entire life savings to go out and buy this. And she takes this very expensive perfume with this long neck on it, she cracks that open, and all of a sudden the fumes begin to fill the room. And she takes that perfume, which is called Nard, which means it comes from an exotic plant in India. She has really done her homework. She has really gone the extra mile here in order to prepare Jesus for burial. She buys this stuff, she brings it back to the house, she waits for the proper time at the banquet, and she comes to Jesus Christ, and she begins to pour it out on Him. And the text tells us, she wiped His feet with her hair. Now, this is not a typical action. At this particular period in history, particularly in Palestine, it would have been expected that if you came to the home of someone, because everybody in the culture virtually wore sandals, and if you came to the home of somebody for a banquet or to socialize, that they would set out a bowl of water and a towel, and you would clean your own feet. And occasionally, if they were very wealthy, and the person who came was very wealthy or important dignitary, then probably one of the household slaves would do it. But you see, common, ordinary citizens, average people just didn't go cleaning other people's feet. And so as she comes to Jesus and begins to wash his feet, she is basically assigning herself a position of servanthood. She says, I'm your slave. That's essentially what she's saying by the action. But then she breaks a cultural taboo here. As the text tells us, she wiped his feet with her hair. In Jewish culture at this time women never were seen in public or even in private in their homes with their head uncovered. Especially not before people who are not part of the family. And so she takes off her headdress and her hair is let down and she wipes his feet with her hair. completely breaking cultural standards and practices, identifying herself as a servant of Christ and somebody who is willing to engage in even socially unacceptable behavior to show her devotion and her gratitude to Christ. And you know, that's not the only time we find Mary engaging in socially sort of unacceptable behavior. Luke chapter 10, we're not going to turn there, but we find this other episode we get a little bit more insight into these sisters Mary and Martha and of course Jesus is at their house and they're having a conversation and many people are there and of course you remember Martha is busy cooking and cleaning and scrubbing and dusting and always doing something at a frenetic pace and where do you find Mary? but at the feet of Jesus, where all the men were, learning theology. Completely socially unacceptable to do that. And yet she doesn't even care, and when Martha comes and complains to Jesus, Jesus says, leave her alone! She's chosen the better thing to do. So, from all impressions, she was quite a remarkable woman. She is not a typical woman or a typical disciple. She shines in comparison to the rest of the disciples. You find in the Gospels, really. And now she comes at this moment, days out from the death of her Lord, to express her faith. And she anoints Him for burial. Now our text doesn't make it as clear, verse 7 says Jesus responding to a Judas protest that he's to leave Mary alone. so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. Scholars really are puzzled and baffled over the language there, and I am too, so I'm not going to speculate on what exactly is meant. There's some differences in the texts that we have in Greek. But clearly in Mark chapter 14 verse 8, Jesus says, he interprets the action saying, she is preparing me for burial. She's contextualized all of this stuff. She's contextualized the fact that the authorities are hostile and intending to kill Christ. She's contextualized the teaching of Jesus that he's on his way to Jerusalem to be delivered over to the authorities, to be arrested, to be seized, to be mocked, and then killed. She understands the situation. She sees that it's six days out from Passover. So in an act of faith now, responding to Jesus, responding to His teaching, what is she doing? Her theology is driving her to publicly profess her faith in Christ. And in His death as the means of her salvation, she's publicly, unashamedly identifying herself as a disciple and somebody who trusts in Jesus Christ. It's a conscious expression of faith in His death. And then you have the other side of the contrast. Now you have Judas Iscariot. We said Mary is acting and Judas now is speaking. Look at verse 4. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, who was intending to betray him, said, Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor people? Now, as I said, the disciples, the 12 disciples, are all in the room. And if you read the other accounts, what you find is even the rest of the disciples were bothered by this. The rest of the disciples were complaining about the extravagance of the act. Mindlessly so. But Judas now decides to be the spokesman and the representative of the disciples and he begins to criticize what she is doing. And you can see what was really at the root of his complaint as he fixes upon the amount. He said this could have been sold for 300 denarii. Giving us a window into his heart. This wasn't a protest. based upon social justice. He wasn't concerned with the poor. He was a thief. He was greedy. He was covetous. And here we have, in this contrast now, basically the two choices of all people as they contemplate the message of the death of Christ. Because you see, behind the protest is an entire system of theology. Judas isn't concerned about social justice. Judas is greedy. Judas is covetous. Judas would rather serve money than God. As we read in our passage from the law this morning in Matthew chapter 6. And so in these contrasting actions here, you have the proper response to the message of Christ's death. And the proper response to the message of Christ's death is to attach yourself to Christ. It's to humble yourself before Christ. It's to identify yourself with Christ. It's to put your faith and your trust in Jesus Christ. It's to love Christ. The other option, is a rejection. There are other choices to make, and this is the thing that we all need to be impressed with, especially as we come into the season where we contemplate the death of Christ, where the world is listening to the preaching of the gospel, where the world hears the church teaching about the death of Christ, and all in terms of what it means about salvation, eternal life, and so forth. And the message which we have to unmistakably make to the world is there aren't a series of options, there's only two. And there's only two for all who listened to the message this morning. There's either a conscious identification with Jesus Christ, or there's the root of Judas, which is to pursue the riches of this age. There isn't anything else. You either trust in Jesus Christ as the substitute, Whether you trust in Jesus Christ as the atonement for your sins or you trust in what money can buy to keep you satisfied and happy and to numb your senses until you die. That's it. The world would have us pretend that there's lots of options. The world would have us pretend that you can sit on the fence. The world would have us pretend that we can admire Jesus and we can isolate some of the attributes and think about them and stand sort of in awe of him as if he's an extraordinary kind of a guy. And maybe as we think about that, we can cultivate the divine spark within us. But the world would say there's all kinds of options. You don't have to settle for discipleship. But the proclamation of this passage is you have to make the decision. Either you follow Christ and you embrace Him unto salvation, or you follow Judas, not only into betrayal, but to greed and covetousness and the pursuit of the things which this world has to offer. And there are real evidences of the decision. There are real evidences of the decision. And one that is a profound and important warning to us this morning is how we use money. How do we think of money? What do we want from money? What do we expect money to provide? The security of money. You see, how we treat it, how we think about money, how we use money is a window into the soul. It's not just this passage. You remember Jesus in numerous parables talks about money, but one where the seed is being sowed, the parable of the sower. And you remember that there was that seed that fell upon the ground where all of a sudden the grass sprung up and it seemed full of vitality and life. And yet, in just a short time, Jesus tells us that the seed which fell down there on that particular ground, which caused that sort of immediate, fantastic, joyful response to the gospel, eventually just withered and died. And the disciples, taking Jesus aside, asked, why? Why? Why did the seed and the plant wither and die when it looked like it was so full of joyful life and hope in the gospel. Why? And Jesus gives us the answer. Say, that a love for riches and the cares of this world choked out the Word. A profound warning. How do we treat money? How do we think of money? And the more we put our confidence and our hope in the things that money has to offer and provide, the more we become desensitized to the message of sin and to the message of Christ and to the message of the cross and the hope of the gospel. And so, as we hear about the contrasting examples and we see what Judas has done with his choice, we have a warning. We have a warning to beware of riches and the hope and the comfort and the satisfaction that it promises. I have one last thing that I want to say this morning as we depart from our passage. I have one last thought I want us to go away with and that is history. I want us to go away thinking about history this morning. I referenced sort of where I wanted to go with this in the introduction and the article which I said is so typical of what we're going to see in the next couple of weeks. But it happens every year. Time Magazine or Newsweek, it doesn't matter. You plug in whatever source or whatever particular online news site you want to think about. But just watch. There will be articles with experts being interviewed who are asked questions about who they call the Christ. And the experts will tell you, the people who have more PhDs than you can imagine, will tell you that the really smart people have figured it all out. And what the really smart people figured out is that these stories that we have in the gospel were constructed by faith communities who have embellished the facts and somewhere in the midst of these stories are small kernels of truth. And that's it. Mostly what we know of Jesus, we're told, is shrouded in mystery and contradictory explanations. And they say this smugly, undermining the faith of those who would believe. Giving the clear impression that you can spend a lot of time reading your Bible, and it may be inspirational to you, but at the end of the day, it's just Fairy tales. It's not fact. But I want us to walk away this morning being impressed with history and facts. Because as we look at our passage here, we have documentation. Chapter 12, verse 1. Six days before the Passover. You say, that could be any Passover. But when you look into the history, you realize it couldn't have been just any Passover. In the time frame of Jesus' public ministry, on any acceptable window of time, there were only two different occasions when Passover would have been on Friday. Only two. A.D. 30 and A.D. 33. but we can narrow it down even more than that because if you go back to John chapter 2 and to verse 20 after Jesus has just cleansed the temple there were some skeptical Jews standing aside and criticizing and commenting because Jesus promised that tear down this temple in three days we'll raise it up and the response of the cynical Jews was Herod's been building this temple for 46 years and you think you're going to raise it up in three days? Well that was the first Passover of Jesus' public ministry. And if you go look at historical documents, Herod the Great began the construction in 19 BC. If you add 46 years to that, the date you come up with is 27 AD. Now do you know when Jesus was put to death? A.D. 30. This passage right here, saying 6 days before Passover, is 6 days before the Passover. Nisan 14, A.D. 30. Does that sound like a kernel of truth? Just a tiny little fact like, oh when Jesus died. You see, we could go through this. This states the miracle here of Lazarus and this whole community of people which is abuzz over the miraculous power of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. By even conservative estimates, there were literally hundreds, probably numbering now into thousands of people who were aware of this Jesus Christ, who were aware of His miraculous powers, who were aware of the plot of the religious authorities to kill Him. Oh see, all of this provides a public framework. Broad, public, documented, reliable framework for understanding and placing and contextualizing. A kernel of the message? No, I think it's the foundation of the message. The death and the resurrection of Christ. You see, the experts are going to tell you that it's all just a bunch of stuff that's shrouded in mystery. And you're going to hear that. And it's going to sound impressive sometimes. And it's going to make you wonder, are we just another religion? Are we a people who have just another savior? Are we professing just a different way to get to eternal life? And the answer is this, Christianity is the only religion which places the foundational events which frame all of the significance of its teachings right upon the plane of human history in public sight and date it on a calendar and say it happened on A.D. 30. You see, at the foundation of the gospel proclamation is fact. And when you hear the deniers and the skeptics and the PhDs tell you that all you have is a faith that is built upon inspired myths, community inspired myths, faith community inspired myths. You can respond, not in wavering, but in confidence that we know that Jesus is historical. We know that these things happen, that our faith is founded on fact. And therefore, we can rejoice and hope, knowing that our Savior was crucified for us, that He was buried, and that He rose from the dead. And because all of that happened, we have confidence in the rest of the Gospel proclamation that He's coming again. And that's our faith, and we rejoice in it this morning. Let's pray.