Mary’s Alabaster Jar
John 12:1-8
Good Morning Everyone /Glad that you joined us this morning. Welcome online friends
Would you turn to John 12 and as you are doing that would you bow your head for prayer as we ask the Lord for His presence and guidance into His Word?
Prayer-
John 12:1-8 Read from Bible
So let me set this up for us -
Jesus is arriving in the town of Bethany the week before His Triumphant entry in Jerusalem.
He is going to a home of Simon the leaper, where Mary, Martha and Lazarus are preparing for a banquet.
These 3 are siblings- 2 sisters and a brother.
You remember Lazarus- Jesus had recently raised him from the dead- don’t be too quick to race over that- it was a big thing! That does not happen everyday.
People are watching a man they saw dead now walking around.
People will be at the banquet just to see the man that Jesus has raised from the dead.
You remember Martha- she is always the one serving- she was serving while her brother Lazarus was dead in the tomb and you remember she got mad at her sisterMary for not helping her serve. Servers serve and she wanted her sister Mary to serve.
Mary was the one who seems to be always at Jesus feet- she was at his feet when Martha had a breakdown and Jesus had to remind Martha that it was okay for Mary to be at the feet of Jesus.
They were at this dinner in honor of Jesus- Lazarus is at the table as a special guest.
Ever plan a party?
There is always something that is forgotten.
There is always something that goes wrong.
Something always happens that you don’t expect.
Like I tell couples as they prepare to be married.
Do not plan to have a perfect wedding because something will go wrong-
The flower girl will have a fit and not want to come down the aisle.
Someone will stumble / some may even faint.
Someone show up late or drop something at a critical time when it is quiet.
One time for me while doing a wedding, the groom to be was passing me the secrete rings I dropped one. I fumbled the handoff. He calmly bent down and handed them to me and we moved on.
I have had only one Bridezilla in my years of ministry.
Why won’t it be perfect? Because you have to figure Murphy’s law-
“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” Did you know that the original Murphy’s law was “If there are two or more ways to do something, an one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it”
How dare Mary show Jesus the guest of honor some love and honor for raising her brother from the dead! Somebody is going to meltdown!
(3) “Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
You have to pause a minute there - that is not normal- that is not normal in many ways-
Mary poured a pint of expensive perfume on Jesus feet- John records a pint of pure nard-
What is nard, exactly? It is a perfume, an essential oil if you will, that is made from the roots of the spikenard plant.
Amazon sells replicas of it for about 30.00.
Matthew and Mark record the event and don’t use Mary’s name but say a women with an alabaster jar.
Matthew and Mark tell us cost of the perfume. They say it is a year’s wages. 300 Denari.
Remember the boss who owned a vineyard and wanted to pay people to help him and he brought people in for (1) Denari a day and so many got upset that he would dare pay them the same as some who only worked awhile. This perfume was worth 300 times that much.
It was in an Alabaster jar which had great value-
Was it something that passed down to her?
Was it something that she had saved for?
Was it something that she worked for?
Was it a great sentimental gift from someone she loved very much?
We are not told that- I believe because the Lord wants to show us that we must be willing to pour out and give the Lord our best with a willing and grateful heart.
Matthew and Mark record Mary’s act of devotion and Luke 7 records a similar event with another women falling down at Jesus feet to wash them and using her hair to wipe his feet. Don’t rush by this act of devotion and love for Jesus.
Remember that to wash feet was the lowest job a servant could have. You would draw the short stick if you were to wash guest feet as they came into someone’s home.
For Mary to purposefully get down to his feet and pour an expensive perfume on Jesus and wipe it with her hair was such an act of love and worship.
She broke the jar open and the smell of perfume filled the house.
Ever been around someone who has too much perfume on! It goes from that’s nice to that’s overpowering really quick.
What can we learn with this humble act of love?
Mary Gave Jesus her best not a leftover
Mary had some choices-
She could have used the perfume entirely for herself which is what most people do with the alabaster boxes of their hearts and lives.
She could have poured it out on a loved one or loves ones other than Jesus.
She could have distributed it between herself, others and maybe Jesus.
Forth what she did was devote it all to Jesus as her Lord.
Mary had motives for her love
Reverence
Gratitude
Faith
Love
Four traits to illustrate her consecration to Jesus
Lip service was not enough- she had to give
Cheap was not good enough, it had to cost her dearly.
A part was not enough, she had to give it all.
Unbroken not enough- she had to be poured out. She had to fall at his feet and worship. She had to be like the lowest of slaves and linger with Jesus.
How does that play out in our lives today? We have a choice everyday.
What is your alabaster in your life and are you willing to break it open for Jesus?
Mary was humble and not embarrassed to show her love for Jesus.
James 4:10-
“Humble yourself before the Lord, and He will lift you up.”
KJV- “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord.”
Mary humbled yourself- she lowered herself to be a servant at the feet of Jesus-
To be humble is to show
A lower estimate of oneself to another- You do not think yourself better than someone else. We say it with our mouths but are we living it in our lives?
We would never say we are better than someone else but do we act like we are better than some others?
Mary in this case was bowing to the authority and person of Jesus Christ. She did not say- I know Jesus…let someone else lower than I am put the perfume on His feet. NO! I will put the perfume on and I will be glad and humbled that I even get an opportunity to show Jesus how I feel about Him.
Illustration more for today on someone not showing humility
You are on a baseball team and your team loses to a team that you feel was not as good as you and even though they just beat you fair and square –you will not acknowledge them as winners. You snub them in the greeting line at the end of the game. You are not humble. You have failed in that moment of being a person of humility.
Mary was at the feet of Jesus humble and grateful and did not expect to be praised and she did not expect it to be done by someone else because she was too good to do such a thing as perfume his feet and wash it with her hair.
Mary was recognized by Jesus for what she did
(7) “Leave her alone, Jesus replied, it was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
Mary was foreshadowing humble Jesus-
Jesus was soon going to be at the feet of the disciples and telling them that He must wash their feet.
They will fight him over it and He tells them that unless he is allowed to wash their feet they could have no part with him-
Servant Jesus by example. Pointing his disciples to be humble and not to forget their place and the fact that if humble servant/king Jesus could do it so should we with gratitude and love.
We should not do it for this reason but I assure you that Jesus sees our heart and what we do with it.
Leave her alone, she gets it. Her actions would be recorded in God’s Word for others forever!
She is doing this in honor of me- with a humble heart and a servant’s heart.
“You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
What is He saying?
You will always come up with excuses of why you have not worshipped me
There will always be other places you could spend your money
There will always be people coming against you and putting you down for being my servant-
We see it played out in the last point of the text this morning-
People don’t always understand or have the right motive
Back up to verse (4)
“But one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages. He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.”
IT IS NEVER A WASTE TO GIVE JESUS YOUR BEST
Mary believed who Jesus was and Judas would betray him- He wanted that for the poor so that he could get his hands on it for his own gain, we see that in the world today and see many that scream for the poor and find out that they are the ones profiting and it is not getting to the intended people. Jesus is saying that there will always be poor and Mary has done the right thing in His eyes.
Judas was indignant- he was angry that Mary would waste that perfume and not sell it so the poor could have the money but all the while his motive was not right and not only did he not worship Jesus but was willing to take from the poor for himself.
How much did Judas have invested in that alabaster box filled with perfume? Nothing!
It was not his- he did not own it. He did not save for it. He did not get it as a gift to decide if he wanted to give it away. It was someone else telling her she was wrong for wanting to give the Lord her best. Someone she had invested in and something she was willing to lose.
Mary was pointing people to Jesus! She was not filled with jealousy, content, or bad motives, she wanted to give Jesus her best! Judas scolded her for doing the right thing
Mary learned to trust the great I Am, not just for the things in the past but to trust in who He is right now, the resurrection and the life. Not just for the future but for her present situation and reality.
Close
Eastern cultured people pay more attention to posture than we do in the West…In their courts certain positions must be taken up by commoners. Oriental monarchs are approached in positions which indicate the greatness of the king and the submissiveness of the petitioner.
You bow so far for other commoners when you show respect.
Deeper if it is an honored guest.
All the way to prostrating yourself on the ground to royalty.
So, in their worship, Eastern postures are significant of the humility which should be felt in the Presence of God.
Most of us think very little, indeed, of outward postures.
Perhaps we do not even think enough of them in devotion.
This is why we should bow our heads in prayer and get on our knees in prayer in worship because we aren’t just in the presence of a king, but in the presence of the King of all kings, in the presence of God Himself, the creator and sustainer of the universe.
When we have this posture of the soul, we are saying to God, “You are the sovereign King, You are above all rulers and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only now but also in the age to come. You are our God and Savior, the One whom we trust above all else.”
Mary's outward posture revealed the posture of her heart toward the Lord, one of reverence, dependence, humility, obedience, and devotion. Her posture tells us something about her relationship with the Savior.
prayer
