November 15, 2012
Just as Jesus foretold, we still remember the wholehearted devotion that Mary of Bethany demonstrated in her anointing of Jesus’ feet. As with the disciples, though, her adoration of Jesus also confronts our own apathy. The disciples viewed her use of expensive perfume as wasteful, religious fanaticism—yet she had done a beautiful thing. Although Jesus was going to die, Alistair Begg reminds us that her action serves as a perpetual memorial to a truly worshipful response to Christ.
3bAnd while he was at cBethany in the house of Simon the leper,1 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 over his head. 4There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? 5For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii2 and dgiven to the poor.” And they escolded her. 6But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7For fyou always have the poor with you, and whenever gyou want, you can do good for them. But hyou will not always have me. 8iShe has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand jfor burial. 9And truly, I say to you, wherever kthe gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told lin memory of her.”
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