Scripture: John 12:1-8
In the late-’90s, Lisa and I owned a home in Tucker, Georgia. And it was one of those new neighborhoods with starter homes and a street full of mostly young couples and new families. And we all knew each other and had frequent block parties and dinner parties at one another’s houses. Including a fondue party that Lisa and I hosted at our own house. Several neighbors were there.
And it just so happened that we had two cats—littermates—Smokey and Shelby. Both gray, one a regular short hair, and the other had longer, fuzzier hair. Smokey got his name because he kind of looked, well… smoky.
Now, it turned out to be a very appropriate name… because what if I told you that—as we often do when throwing dinner parties—Lisa and I lit candles…. you know, for ambience… Do you see where this is going? Smokey accidentally brushed his tail over the flame of one of these candles.
And his tail caught fire! And Smokey did not “stop, drop, and roll” the way Dick Van Dyke taught us kids to do in those public service announcements back in the ’70s. Instead, he took off, sprinting up the stairs, as if he knew that by doing so the wind would extinguish the flame.
If he did know that, mission accomplished. The fire went out, and he was perfectly okay…
Except… there was suddenly a terrible odor that filled the entire house… a smell that I vaguely recognized from having two older sisters who often used curling irons. It was the smell of burnt hair. And as I say, it wafted through the entire house. It was—to put it mildly—an unappetizing odor. Thanks a lot, Smokey!
Of course it might have been worth it for the laugh that we all had at the poor cat’s expense, but still… Truly an offensive odor.
Speaking of which, the aroma emanating from this large flask of expensive perfume in today’s scripture was also offensive to at least some people at the dinner party in John chapter 12—although for very different reasons, which we will get into.
And in today’s sermon I want to make three points: Number One: Mary the Model. Number Two: Counting the Cost. And Number Three: Signpost to Suffering.
But first, Number One, Mary the Model…
Let’s set the scene… This dinner party is being given to honor Jesus, out of gratitude, because he had recently performed an astonishing miracle of raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. As verse 2 tells us, “Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table.”
This isn’t the first time we meet Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary. In fact we met them in the previous chapter, in John chapter 11. Remember: Martha and Mary were initially disappointed that Jesus arrived so late to visit their sick brother. If he had been there earlier, they each told Jesus, he could healed Lazarus from his fatal illness. But now Lazarus was dead; it was too late, as far as they were concerned. In spite of their doubts, of course, Jesus did heal Lazarus by raising him from the dead! So, again, it’s understandable that people from Lazarus’s hometown of Bethany would be happy to throw a dinner party in Jesus’ honor.
But we’re also familiar with Mary and Martha from another famous event in the gospels, this one found in Luke chapter 10: Mary and Martha are entertaining Jesus and his disciples. Martha is in the kitchen cooking; and she’s very annoyed that her sister, Mary, isn’t by her side, helping. Instead, she’s at Jesus’ feet, alongside the other, male disciples, listening to Jesus teach and preach the Word. “Jesus, tell my sister to get in here and help me!” 1
And we see Martha performing a very similar role in today’s scripture. She was “serving” Jesus, likely by helping to cook the meal. But we have every reason to believe that Martha has grown as a disciple of Jesus since that episode in Luke 10. Because in John 12, she clearly doesn’t mind that her sister, Mary, isn’t helping her in the kitchen. This time there’s no record of her “speaking her mind” to Jesus, which she surely would have!
No… Martha is using her gifts for hospitality to “serve” Jesus… And to say the least, so is Mary! She’s also serving Jesus!
By the way, I noticed something about Mary, for the first time, from the three different gospel stories involving her. Which I think is kind of cool. Maybe you will too… In Luke 10, what do we see Mary doing? Sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to him teach and preach God’s Word. In John 11, what’s she doing? Chapter 11, verse 32: “Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” What is she doing? She’s falling at his feet and what…? Praying! Literally: she’s talking to Jesus, in this case complaining to him about something that has disappointed her and troubled her. Prayers of anger, disappointment, and complaint are, as I’ve said before, perfectly good prayers.
And in today’s scripture, Mary is doing what? Anointing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. Which is one powerful way of doing what? Worshiping! The root of the word “worship” is “worth-ship.” We “worship” someone or something when we show them what they’re worth to us. When we Christians worship, we are showing the Lord what he’s worth to us. And that is what Mary is doing here, in an extravagant way, as we’ll see in a moment.
But Mary of Bethany could hardly be portrayed by the gospel writers in a more favorable light. Mary of Bethany is an ideal disciple: listening to God’s Word, praying, worshiping, and serving Jesus. She is the very model of discipleship!
And what else do we see Mary shown doing? She’s fulfilling the number one task of being a disciple! Jesus gives us the disciple’s job description in Mark 3:14 and 15: “And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.” Being sent out by God to proclaim the gospel to others and to heal people are of course part of the disciple’s task. But what’s the first thing? “So that they might be with him.” To be with Jesus is a disciple’s number one job. Mary is constantly doing that!
What else is she doing?
She’s bearing witness to others… Bravely doing so, in fact. Surely the most powerful way we witness to others is when—without even trying, without even planning on doing so—we show others what Jesus is worth to us!
It blows my mind sometimes when I hear Christian parents say that they don’t know how to witness. You don’t know how to witness? Are you kidding? You are the most important evangelists around! I mean, only God can judge how well you’re doing at evangelism, but you’re doing it… whether you like it or not! You play the most important role in showing your children who Jesus is and what he means to you!
In my own case, growing up, my parents showed me that they liked Jesus okay, but they really liked—or even loved—the Atlanta Falcons more… at least during football season. When there was a home game, they inevitably missed church on those Sundays. If you could go back in time and ask them, they would deny it, of course… but their actions often showed their three kids that they loved sports and other worldly treasures far more than Jesus! But good news: I also saw each of them, years later, as they approached their own deaths, experience a change of heart—in my dad’s case, at least, maybe a full-blown conversion. But they each began to show people that, actually, Jesus now meant much more to them than the worldly treasures they spent so much of their lives pursuing and accumulating and at least trying to enjoy. Better late than never, I guess.
So if you’re a parent, let me ask you: do your children see you treasuring Christ above all else? Do they see evidence of your “trusting in the Lord and leaning not on your own understanding”? Do they see dependence on Christ and submission to Christ? Do they see you giving of yourself, giving your gifts, giving your treasure, giving your money to Christ and for Christ’s sake?
The most effective witness to the world, I believe, happens when people notice the difference that Christ makes in our lives.
Speaking of which, in one early letter from the second century A.D., a writer named Mathetes is trying to describe this strange new Christian religion to a powerful Roman leader named Diognetus, who was a pagan. The writer says these Christians are indistinguishable from us in so many ways: they dress like us, they talk like us, they eat the same food as we do, they pay taxes like us, they obey laws like us… in so many ways their behavior is the same. Except… And here I’m quoting directly from the letter: “They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring.”
Because, you see, whereas we have a widespread problem related to abortion in this country, in the Roman world if you had an unwanted baby, especially a baby girl, it was perfectly legal and acceptable to leave that baby at the city’s garbage dump to die of exposure, or to be taken into slavery. These Christians didn’t do that. The writer continues: “They have a common table, but not a common bed”—meaning, they share their food with one another, but they don’t sleep around. He writes: “They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all.” 2
Notice: these early Christians, which Mathetes is describing… they weren’t consciously doing anything to impress these pagans by the way they lived; they weren’t following any deliberate plan for evangelism or witnessing…They are just unselfconsciously living their lives… showing the world hearts and minds transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ… and an unbelieving world took notice!
What about us? Are we different because we’re Christians? Are people noticing the difference that Jesus makes in our lives?
Mary breaking open this flask of perfume and witnessing so powerfully reminds me of something Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2, verses 15 and 16: “Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume.” 3
In today’s scripture, Mary’s “Christ-like fragrance” was a dreadful smell of death and doom to at least dinner guest.
Let’s talk about why in Point Number Two: Counting the Cost…
This flask of perfume that Mary breaks open and pours out, according to Judas Iscariot, was worth three hundred denarii. To say the least, this is not Aqua Velva… or Brut by Fabergé… or Old Spice… or English Leather. All of which I love and use, by the way. And it’s not one of the drugstore knockoff brands of perfume or cologne. This is more expensive than any fragrance that you or I have likely ever used! It’s nard, which is made from a plant harvested only in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal and India. This perfume is incredibly rare in ancient Palestine, as you can imagine!
And it was worth a literal fortune! One denarius, after all, was a day’s wage for the average laborer. Three hundred denarii, therefore, would be about a years’ worth of wages—probably around $40,000… A crazy amount of money! For a poor or working-class woman like Mary, this flask of perfume was the most precious, the most expensive thing that she owned… It was likely a family heirloom passed from mother to daughter, perhaps for generations… It could have been a future dowry that Mary would give to a potential husband. Yet by breaking it open and using it on Jesus’ feet, of all things, she could be jeopardizing her marital prospects.
So this broken flask could represent sacrificing her retirement savings, her 401(k), her nest egg, her future children’s inheritance, her future security and comfort…
In a way, she’s practically doing what the Rich Young Ruler was unable to do. Jesus told the man to sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor, and then he’ll have eternal life. And the man couldn’t do it; but Mary clearly can! Because she’s giving Jesus nearly everything of value that she has—at least from a worldly point of view!
And we’re not just talking about treasure that money can buy. Mary is also letting her hair down… which was considered scandalous in the ancient world. In his commentary on this passage, New Testament scholar Tom Wright says that “that’s roughly the equivalent, at a modern polite dinner party, of a woman hitching up a long skirt to the top of her thighs… [Dinner guests might have thought,] Had she no shame?” 4
Mary’s hair is considered her most intimate possession, the most conspicuous symbol of her beauty. A woman’s hair was—and is—a valuable treasure. Gosh, remember a few years ago, during the Academy Awards, when actor Will Smith walked up on stage and slapped the comedian Chris Rock right across the face for joking about Smith’s wife’s hair—or lack thereof? That whole ugly spectacle reminds us that a woman’s hair is not something—then or now—to be taken lightly, or casually… And it’s especially not something—then or now—to be used to clean someone’s grimy feet that had walked around in sandals all day.
With all this in mind, can’t we at least sympathize with Judas a little? It’s true he was a greedy thief, but just from a worldly point of view, he’s not entirely wrong. From a strictly worldly point of view, Mary’s actions are incredibly wasteful.
And yet… there’s a lesson for us here, too…
Anyone who has seriously tried to commit themselves to daily prayer and Bible reading, for example, can hear a voice like the voice of Judas, who whispers something like this into our ear: “Your time is too precious to spend doing this. You’re wasting this incredibly valuable resource! You don’t have time! You have too many other, more important things to do… than to sit here and… pray? or study the Bible? Are you kidding? Those activities aren’t going to pay the bills! Get up! Get to work! There are so many other things you could be doing that are more rewarding.”
That “Judas voice” in our own heads—or from other people—is telling us that if we submit every part of our lives to our Lord Jesus Christ, we are wasting our time—we are wasting our lives!
But make no mistake: “Every part of our lives” is not only what Christ deserves from his disciples; it’s what he demands from them. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” 5
It’s unlikely that Christians in the U.S.A. will ever be asked to die for Jesus as a martyrs. Yet these words of Jesus still apply to us: Because we all must die to ourselves—die to our pride, die to our various idols,die to our fears, die to our own selfish and self-centered desires—in order to find eternal life in Christ. This “dying to self” is not an option for any Christian.
Mary is showing us that she’s done it! Have we? Are we in the process of doing it?
Let me tell you now about a man named Ole Anthony, who died in 2021 at age 82. He was the pastor of a church of about 50 members who lived together in community in a slum in East Dallas. His obituary in the New York Times said that he was a lapsed Lutheran before having what he called his “Road to Damascus” moment on January 17, 1972—after a British missionary talked to him about self-denial—“death to self”— as the only way to God. “I was an atheist one day and a sold-out believer the next,” he said in a 2013 interview. 6 He immediately gave up a highly lucrative career as a hard-nosed political consultant. He started a church—which was a combination soup kitchen, homeless shelter, halfway house, rehab center, and monastery.
Oddly enough, his church even kept a few private investigators on the payroll, too.
You see, another part of the church’s ministry was to investigate and expose greedy and corrupt televangelism ministries, many of which, back in the ’80s, were based out of Dallas. In fact, Anthony’s ministry was responsible for bringing down the $80 million empire of Robert Tilton, among others. Of course, at least a couple have crawled back out of the slime… But they’re not what they once were.
But the televangelism thing was only a small part of Ole Anthony’s ministry… He was mostly all about Jesus!
I first heard of Anthony when the New Yorker magazine profiled him back in 2004… and I love this quote: “I own nothing, I have nothing, and I make fifty-five dollars a week. I’m sixty-six years old, and I have no privacy and no retirement plan. I am a blithering idiot by my own definition… The mystery is, this place satisfies every desire of my heart.” 7
“I’m a blithering idiot by own definition… The mystery is, this place satisfies every desire of my heart.”
All of us want to find something or someone to “satisfy every desire of our hearts.” But would we be willing to become “blithering idiots by our own worldly definitions of the term” in order to do it?
That’s what Jesus demands… What’s more idiotic, in worldly terms, than doing what Mary is doing in today’s scripture? What’s more idiotic, in worldly terms, than willingly “taking up our cross”—which is an instrument of torture and agonizing death?
As the old hymn says, “Were the whole realm of nature mine,/ That were a present far too small./ Love so amazing, so divine,/ Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
Mary understood this truth.
Do we?
That’s Point Number Two, Counting the Cost… Point Number Three: Signpost to Suffering…
Verse 1: “Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.” One good rule of Bible reading, as I’ve said before, is to pay attention to words like “therefore.” What’s the “therefore” there for? The author of this gospel, John, is saying that something that he’s just finished saying is connected what he’s about to say.
And what has he just finished saying? In the previous chapter, Jesus went to Bethany in order to raise Lazarus from the dead. And Jesus went there with his eyes wide open: He understood how dangerous it was for him to be so close to Jerusalem—less than a couple miles away, within easy walking distance.
With that in mind, at the very end of the John chapter 11, in the very last verse before today’s scripture begins, we are told, “Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.” 8 And then, in the very next verse, in verse 1, “Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.”
Does that “therefore” make more sense now? “Therefore” means that Jesus came back here in order that these religious authorities would arrest him… Because the Father has revealed to Jesus that this will be the last week of his life before his death and resurrection.
Now think about this: Literally no one at that dinner party wanted or expected or compelled Mary to give her most precious possession as a gift to Jesus. What she gave, she gave freely. And Jesus even says that Mary’s gift, in verses 7 and 8, is an anointing of his body for his burial. Perhaps no one other than Mary herself understood this statement.
But Mary’s gift and her actions here are a signpost to Christ’s suffering. Because Mary’s completely free gift anticipates the completely free gift that Jesus himself would give to the world in just six days’ time…
And he’s offering you that gift… [Invitation]
- Paraphrase of Luke 10:40
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“The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus,” Early Christian Writings, earlychristianwritings.com. Accessed 10 June 2017. - 2 Corinthians 2:15-16 NLT
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N.T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part 2, 20th Anniversary Ed. (Louisville: WJK, 2023), 35. - Matthew 6:24-25
Clay Risen, “Ole Anthony, Scourge of Televangelists, Dies at 82,” nytimes.com, 27 April 2021. Accessed 12 November 2021.-
Burkhard Bilger, “God Doesn’t Need Ole Anthony,” New Yorker, 28 November 2004. - John 11:57 ESV