Lord, we come before you now. We thank you. First of all, that you love us so much. That you would have your word written down that we might read it and hear it and study it. Lord, help us to be hearers, but not only hearers of your word, but doers of your word. Please bless this reading of your word and its application to our hearts so that we might know you. And love you. and serve You. We ask this, Lord, in Jesus' name, Amen. Will you please stand as we read together God's Holy Word? The section we're going to mainly focus on this morning is going to be verses 3-9, but I'm going to read all the way through because this whole section does fit together, but we're going to focus on the anointing of Jesus at Bethany. 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, that is, Jesus, 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 out over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, why was this 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. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Amen. Please be seated. If you were to read through the Gospel of Mark, you would find out that what we have here is really, we're coming to a culmination of a conflict that's been ongoing throughout the Gospel of Mark, and indeed we see it in all the Gospels, between the high priests, the scribes, the leaders of the elders, the leaders of the people, and Jesus. There is this growing conflict, and Mark is bringing us now in chapter 14 to see that, that this conflict has not gone away, it is not abated. it has intensified. And so part of what we see as we get into the gospel of Mark as you come towards the end is this intensification of the Jewish leaders. desire to get rid of Jesus. As a blasphemer and a troublemaker, they want to be rid of Him. And so they are seeking to find that. Now the interesting thing as we come to this is that right smack dab in the middle of this section, Mark lays out for us the reason why Judas, at least at the end of the day, says, that's it. That breaks the camel's back. That's the last straw. this event of this woman walking in and dumping this bottle. Literally, the text, I don't know that English can ever really do it. We'd have to spend almost multiple verses to try and get it out, so I'm going to try and tell you. Basically, this woman comes in and just douses Jesus. He is soaking wet with this ointment. She pours it on his head, but it runs, I mean, it saturates him. And the Greek basically gives us this idea that he was completely saturated. So you can imagine what that room would have smelled like. A bunch of men, and all of a sudden, this perfume. I mean, this beautiful, costly perfume poured out all over Jesus. So you can imagine how Judas thinks and looks and says, this guy just didn't get it. And so he basically goes to the other side. and gives the Jewish leaders what they've been looking for, a way to quiet and privately deal with Jesus. But in the middle of all this, what we need to be careful of is this, that we don't miss what Jesus observes. Jesus says what this woman did was a beautiful thing. It strikes him so powerfully, you see what he says, wherever the gospel is preached, this woman will be remembered. Now I think when our Lord and Savior says that somebody's act is worth remembering, besides directly related to himself, we ought to take notice of that and we ought to ask why. Why is this such a profound event? What did this woman do that was so significant, so amazing. The other thing I wanted you to note is that if you ever read, you'll find that, and if you've read through the Gospels, you'll see that Luke has an event like this, but it happens much earlier in the life of Jesus. And John actually says that a little bit earlier in the week, if you will, that Mary The sister of Martha and the sister of Lazarus had walked in and broken a bottle of perfume over Jesus as well. I'm persuaded, because I believe the Scripture to be true and I don't think the Gospel writers were confused, that there may in fact have been three different episodes where Jesus was doused with expensive costly perfume. And if that is the case, if there's actually three different times that this happens, and two of them in close proximity together, John's, and this anonymous woman here in Mark, you can imagine the amazement that these disciples have not yet got it. That the people around Jesus have not gotten it yet. They really don't understand who's reclining at the table with them. They're missing the point. So that's what I want us to do is begin to unpack this, begin to look at this, begin to see that what we really see here is a clear understanding that Jesus is going to bring to us about where we are in redemptive history when we read the Gospels. That there is a significance here which is transforming of life and the world we live in. And we need to take note of that. The main theme I want us to see this morning as we consider this is true worship is a rash, extravagant, beautiful expression of love. Now, you may say, wait a minute, Dennis. Worship is not rash. Well, it is in comparison to the way most of us tend to maybe approach worship, and it is in comparison to certainly how the world may view someone who is desirous to love Jesus well. It seems rash. It seems extravagant. It seems a little bit over the top. So let us begin to look at this. The first thing I want us to consider is the beautiful thing. What in fact does happen here? It's interesting because they're all reclining around this table, and for those of you that don't know, the typical way to eat was there'd be a table that was rather low-lying. You'd have a couch. The couch is pulled out like this. Your feet would be back away from the food, and you'd be sitting on one elbow and using your other hand to eat. So they were reclining at the table eating. And the thing I want you to notice is that this man is referred to as Simon the leper. Now part of the reason why that's important is that Simon was a very common name. I mean, you've got Simon Peter. I mean, there are so many Simons running around Judea and Galilee. that there needs to be some kind of designation of exactly which Simon was this. And he's known as Simon the leper. Which tells us something about this man, doesn't it? He's no longer a leper because he's reclining at the table not saying, unclean, unclean. So he was a leper, but presently is not. How did he stop being a leper? It's very possible that he is a leper that has been healed by Jesus. Now that needs to stand out in your mind as we watch what happens in this house. Here's a man who potentially was healed by Jesus, Simon the leper. And so he's holding this banquet, this eating time with Jesus after Jesus has ridden into Jerusalem. It's about two days before he and the disciples will celebrate the Passover. And so we see that this idea is going on here that they're reclining, they're eating, and as they're reclining at the table, sure in the midst of conversation, important things, because when men have conversations, it's always important things, right? So they're discussing important things, and this woman intrudes on their party. I want you to think about what happens here. She's not invited. Nowhere does it say, and the woman whom they had invited comes in. No, this woman just walks in to their meal, these men, and she takes this big alabaster jar and she smacks it open and jumps it on Jesus's head. Now, I don't know how many of you live in a home where you have access to a lady's perfume. But if you ever want to try this, and with her permission, squirt a whole bunch of that out really fast. Just make sure it's not the most expensive stuff she has. But squirt it out a whole lot and just imagine what that would be like. I mean, just all this aroma. Or if you've ever walked through one of the department stores through the perfume area and there have been a lot of people, especially during Christmas time where they're constantly spraying things all around, you just have this huge aroma of smell. And most of it in general smells pretty good. So you should imagine what this would have been like if this room, probably not that big, was just engulfed And here's Jesus sitting there. I mean, this is Jesus, right? I mean, this is Jesus, the Savior of the world. This is God's Son, and you just walked in and hosed Him down with expensive nard. See, I want you to get the contrast that's going on here. This woman walks in. We're sitting here having a nice meal. She smacks open this huge alabaster jar, dumps it all over Jesus, What in the world is this woman doing? Do you get the picture? Do you see what's happening? So this woman dumps out this jar. And one of the things I want you to note, because some people will say, well, the reason why she breaks it open is because that's the only way to get it open. That's the only way you could have opened it. Well, here's the question. I think Gundry is right when he asked this question. They had to have gotten the stuff into the jar some way. How did they get it into the jar? There must have been an opening that they allowed it to put in. So I think, really, what we need to see is, she didn't have to break the jar open. That's almost a rash act of just whoosh, whoosh. Rather than taking the ointment off, which probably if you've ever seen a really expensive bottle of perfume, lots of times they'll have a jar thing and you can literally take it out and it'll have a little bit on the tip and you kind of put it on both sides. The lady will put it on both sides here and maybe dab her wrist and rub it together. That's most likely what this jar was like. And she broke it open. and spilled it out all over Jesus. All over Him. So what I want us to see then is the reality of this woman's extravagance, her almost rash behavior in doing what she did. Another thing I want you to note is that probably most people believe that something like this, an expensive bottle of nard, because of its expense and because of its use in this way, most likely this is something that had been passed down in the family. This was almost like an inheritance. And she was supposed to hang on to this for bad times. So in some sense, what we see this woman doing is not only being rash and extravagant, but she also basically takes her investments, her portfolio, and she dumps it out all over Jesus. Do you get the picture of what's going on here? She takes everything that in this life would give her surety and security and says, it's worth dumping all over and all out on Jesus. Are you getting the picture of what this woman does? The chief priests, the scribes, and the elders want to kill this man And this woman walks in and dumps out her life savings all over the top of this man. See the contrast. You see what's happening here. She displays a willingness to let the love of Jesus be the driving force of her worship. She comes in and worships him. Her main focus here is Jesus and her desire to honor Him. She is not concerned about who's there. She is not concerned about being excessive. She wants to show Jesus how much she loves Him. And that's exactly what she does. This woman also needs to be seen as an act of her awareness of Jesus' love for her. She does not do this because she's trying to gain something from Jesus. Rather, what we see here is that most likely Jesus had done something, healed this woman, helped this woman. She had seen what He had done for others. And she was filled with love for Christ. And so she comes. And she pours out this costly bottle. This is not an act to gain Jesus' love or approval, but rather giving out to Jesus from what she had already received from Him, and that is His love. And we'll see in a few moments that He does, in fact, love her. The second thing I want us to look at then is the rebuke of the beautiful thing. The text now tells us that some were there who became indignant towards what this woman had done. Matthew's Gospel of this account tells us, in fact, that it was even some of the disciples became indignant. Now that Greek word which is translated indignant means to snort. It's like a bull. What's that woman doing? It's really what they would have done. Snorted. What a waste. Do you know how much a bottle like that would have cost? That's a man's earnings for a year. And he just dumped it out. And besides that, don't you know what time of year it is? It's the special time of year when we especially remember the poor. That's part of the significance here. When these men bring up this act at Passover especially, people took note of Deuteronomy 15 which said you were supposed to give with a generous heart. Isn't it ironic though that these men are mad at her because she gave extravagantly to Jesus who was poor. Jesus didn't even own anything. He didn't even have a pillow. He laid his head down on a rock or in some home that someone else owned. He had nothing. And the very heart of Deuteronomy 15 was to love the poor out of a generous heart. And one of the main statements in Deuteronomy 15, if you go to that section and read it, was that the poor you will always have with you. They will always be in the land. And you can do good to them any time you want. And the real thing I want you to notice is, and I don't want to drive this too hard, but I do want us to at least notice this a little bit, is that isn't it oftentimes when someone does something like what this woman did, they just love Jesus. They're just excited to know Him and His forgiveness that people always want to bring up, yeah, but what about? And the poor. One of my favorite questions to ask those people is, well, how much time do you spend caring for the poor? And oftentimes the answer is, not much. See, I think the spirit in some ways that we see here is the fact that the real spirit of Deuteronomy 15 is a generous, giving, caring, extravagant heart. And this woman displays it. And these men don't. And we've seen this throughout the Gospels, haven't we? Jesus doesn't have time to be bothered by those kids. Get those kids back. Jesus is important. He's got important business. Of such is these, these little children. These are what the children of God are like. You must come as little children. Look at all these men giving all these great sums, but here's this woman who gives two mites and she gave more than all the rest. Jesus, your economics is really screwed up. You don't understand economics at all. How can a woman who gives two mites, two mites won't do anything for the temple? Do you know how much it costs for that oil to burn and for these bricks to be maintained and for The bread to be put? I mean, two mites? Don't you get it? Do you see? Maybe we even can hear somewhere in the background, Martha, Martha, you are worried about so many things, but only one thing is needful. Mary has made the better choice. See, in some ways what we see these men really doing is saying to this woman, this anonymous woman, you are wasting money on Jesus and you could have given it to the poor. Now, what I don't want to say or suggest to you at all, and please do not hear me, is that we shouldn't care for the poor. Rather, what I'm really saying is, if we understand what's happening in this passage, we will want to care for the poor. We will get what Jesus says when He says, when you give to the least of these, My brothers, you've given it to Me. See, you can't get that passage if you don't get this woman. If you don't really understand her and what she's really doing. You will miss the whole point. You will do a bunch of stuff, but will miss the whole point of doing it. And then we see Judas. Judas just says, you know what? Jesus doesn't get it. He doesn't understand how power works. He doesn't understand how money works. And he keeps driving away the people. And now we could have had this woman, if he just stuck his hands up and grabbed the nard before she broke it open, I mean, we could have had a serious take. And of course, that'd have been nice for Judas since we're told in other parts of the gospel, he tended to pilfer a little bit, you know, a little bit for the 11 and a little bit for me, a little bit for the 11 and a little bit for me. Jesus doesn't care about it anyway. We see here that Judas finally just says he doesn't see it, he doesn't get it. And so he goes, we see in those last verses, to give these men an opportunity to take Jesus without the crowd seeing it. What these men express is a position held by many inside and outside of the church, which is that costly loving of Jesus is just not practical. It's not practical. The last thing that I want to look at here is the praise of the beautiful thing. And I want us to notice what Jesus does. Jesus defends her and praises her. Look at what He says there in verse 6. But Jesus said, leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. A beautiful thing to me. And see, therein lies the significance. It might be impractical if it had been anybody else but Jesus. But in light of who it was, it was a very practical thing. Her action was totally directed to Jesus and He tells them so. Jesus gets right at the heart of what must motivate all who would do true acts of caring kindness. They must do it out of love for Him. Really loving Him. Jesus also defends by His statement the ability of this woman to appraise the situation correctly. As I've already said, the poor would always be there. She could always go and do something with the poor. Jesus would not always be there. And see, what had Jesus been telling His disciples? And He'd even used it to defend them. Remember when the Pharisees got after them about washing their hands and about, you know, fasting and doing all those kind of things? And Jesus says, you know, there'll come a day when My disciples will fast, but while the bridegroom is here, you don't fast. And see, this dear woman, I don't know how much she really understood, but she understood enough that Jesus was a man and he was here for a specific time. She also understood that he was more than a man and that whatever she had, it was worth dumping out on him. It was worth giving to him. As I said before, we should not take this to be a condemning of caring for the poor. Rather, it is an example of caring for the one who was poor for us. This woman may not have understood or appreciated fully where she was in redemptive history, but Jesus did. And that's why his statements now begin to unfold. Look at what he says. 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. I've been telling you all along, I'm going to the cross. I'm going to die. And on the third day, I will rise again. You will not always have Me here." Now whether this woman really understood all that or not is not important. Jesus says, what this woman does is anoint Me for burial. He gets where He is and He takes this example of extravagant love for himself and says, do you see what your attitude and actions ought to be towards me? You have me for a brief time. And you're worried about waste rather than worrying about soaking up and saturating yourself with me. See, what we're really seeing here is they really don't understand who they are sitting in the presence of. Well, you're God. Well, then what should that look like? See, don't you understand the Old Testament when it says bring a lamb, a bull, a goat without spot or blemish? Why? The best of the flock. Why? Because God's worthy of the best. That's not a waste. That's not being overly extravagant. In fact, if we really get it, don't we think, if I only had two bottles to dump all over Jesus? Jesus' response here in the face of the dereliction of the cross and the horror of death in the grave is striking. Think about this. He knows Gethsemane is coming. He knows the hour of dereliction awaits. He knows the grave and death will be His. He knows it's coming. And yet He praises this woman's act and her appraisal. And in doing so, what He tells us is also He gives us, even right before He heads the cross, I want you to see that He gives a taste of hope. Wherever the gospel about me is told, this woman will be remembered. I want you to think about how striking this is. Realize where we are. Jesus is two days from the Passover meal, three days from the cross, and He's already saying in His language, men, it's going to be bad, but there's hope. There is a resurrection and there is an ascension coming and Jesus knows it. And He knows that not only are all these events around Him going to take place, but that because of that, His gospel is going to be told. It's not just the fact of what is going to happen with Him. It's the reality that He says wherever this good news is told, which means it's not going to stop here. Do you see the message of hope here in the middle of this place where we are seeing Christ head to the cross? Where most of the unsaved world sits and says, Jesus' ministry ended at Calvary. Jesus says, no, it did not. It really just began. And in some small way, this woman gets it. When the men I've spent three years teaching don't, she gets it. She understands. I'm worth a year's wages dumped out all over my head. I'm worth it. In conclusion then, I want to say a few things to us. To be people that have no regrets. And I want you to listen to me. To be people who have no regrets as a church. There needs to be nothing that stands in the way of our love for Jesus. And see, I'm not talking about a nice, sterile, Presbyterian love. I'm talking about a misty-eyed, overwhelmed, thank you, Jesus, whatever I have is yours kind of love. And I say that jokingly because if you read in the earlier movements of the Reformed churches, you will know that because of their great awareness of the love of God, missions and mercy abounded. You didn't have to tell people to go out and help people. You didn't have to tell people to go out and tell people about Jesus. They loved Him so they did. They really valued their salvation more than they valued their reputation, more than they valued their portfolios. They loved Jesus. And see, there's a real sense in which we really don't understand sometimes what it really means to love Jesus extravagantly. We really want to create a practical Jesus. And this is why at times we often live with regret. If we want to be a church that says, I have no regrets, I get to the end of my life, no regrets. We need to be people who deeply and desperately love Jesus. Extravagantly and rashly love Jesus. I didn't say stupidly. I didn't say ignorantly. I said we should love Him extravagantly and to the world and maybe even to other people in our midst, it should seem like we're being a bit rash. And if we kind of get that, men and women, we will see amazing things happen. I don't know that the world will think they're amazing. I don't know that any other church in this city will think it's amazing. But if we really get this, We can see amazing things and we can pray that we all across this Tucson Valley would love Christ like this. Because I think that as we do, God uses those things greatly to accomplish His purposes. So that's the first thing I want us to think. The other thing I want us to notice is this. That that has to come out of a deep awareness of how extravagantly and costly Jesus' love is for us. So you will never love Jesus until you really understand how much He loves you. You never get it. You never really love Him until you really do say, that man was broken in spirit and his blood and guts poured out, spilled out, broken and spilled out all over me. See, we don't really understand love until we really get that. Jesus loves us so much that He forsook the riches of heaven and the perfect fellowship with His Father and became a man, a poor man, a despised man, a rejected man. so that we might know the love of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit. So, how do you view this woman's act? Is she excessive? Is she irresponsible? Is she foolish? Do you find her, or even more importantly, Jesus' acts rash and impractical? Do you find Jesus' appraisal and value of this particular situation a bit excessive? A bit over the top? Are we so concerned about doing the right thing that we lose sight of the One for whom we ought to be doing it? We're so concerned about are we doing the right thing that we miss the right One? How, men and women, are we worshiping Jesus? That's fundamentally what we need to see out of this passage. Is it? Is the heart of our worship a beautiful thing? May God make it so in our midst. Amen.