“A Fragrant Offering”
John 12: 1 – 11
Introduction: Our Sense of Smell
1. Smells from a kitchen fill the house and people want to taste what is making the odor: homemade bread, a good homemade stew or soup, or even bacon frying in a pan and coffee brewing.
2. Our sense of taste is greatly influenced by our sense of smell.
3. Many of our earliest memories of childhood are triggered by smells.
Background and Context
1. Our story has connections with the tradition of OT sacrifices. Lev. 1:9, 13, 17; 2:2 are passages that provide some examples of sacrifices that are described as having a “pleasing odor to the Lord.” True worship is like a pleasing fragrance wafting up to the heavens.
2. Our story takes place in the Gospel of John just after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the miracle that precipitated the plot to kill him. More than that, it takes place in Bethany at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus six days before the Passover festival.
3. Our story also has many connections with the Jesus’ hour:
a. Mary’s act anticipates Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet.
b. Mary’s act elicits Jesus’ comment about his burial – his death.
c. Mary’s act provokes Judas’ response of disdain and lets us know that he will be the one to betray Jesus when Jesus’ hour arrives.
d. Death surrounds and permeates this story: Jesus’ raising of a dead Lazarus, being anointed for his own burial, the anticipation of Jesus’ own death through mention of Judas’ betrayal. By returning to Bethany six days before – during the very week of Passover – Jesus is willingly moving toward the cross. Death is all over the place here.
Mary – A Fully Devoted Disciple
1. Mary’s Act as One of Discipleship
a. Mary’s act here anticipates Jesus’ teaching on discipleship. Mary’s wiping of Jesus’ feet uses the same verb that appears when Jesus washes his disciples’ feet; thus we are pointed toward Jesus’ foot washing at the farewell meal. What Jesus does for his disciples and then asks his disciples to do for one another Mary does here for Jesus. Mary fulfills Jesus’ love commandment before he even teaches it to his disciples. She also embraces Jesus’ departure at this hour before he has taught his disciples its true meaning. In the story of the raising of Lazarus, she comes when Jesus calls her (11:28, 29) showing that she is one of his own who know his voice (10:4); and when she anoints him she shows what it means to be one of his own. Mary “gives boldly of herself in love to Jesus at his hour, just as Jesus will give boldly of himself at his hour.”
b. Mary also illustrates the cost of discipleship. She used a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard – it would have cost a year’s wages for an average labourer. She serves Jesus at great cost to herself. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book called The Cost of Discipleship to illustrate the point that following Jesus is a costly enterprise: “It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”
c. Mary gives a picture of the fullness of the life of discipleship. “If in the raising of Lazarus, Jesus is fully revealed, then in Mary’s anointing of Jesus, faithful discipleship is fully revealed.” “Discipleship is defined by acts of love and one’s response to Jesus.” And it is a woman who is the first to embody the love that is commanded of all Jesus’ disciples. “Her act shows forth the love that will be the hallmark of discipleship.”
d. Mary was, as Jesus’ disciple, an imitator of God. In Ephesians 5:2 Paul tells us to “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” The word fragrant here is the same one used of the perfume’s odor. Both literally and figuratively Mary gave a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
2. Mary’s Act as One of Worship
a. Anointing Jesus’ feet is an act of worship, one in which Mary gives of herself extravagantly. She gives all she has in worship. Not only was the perfume expensive, but there was a lot of it! A flask of perfume normally would hold an ounce – Mary uses 12 ounces! She goes out of her way to worship Jesus.
b. Worship includes more than singing songs and saying prayers on Sunday morning; it includes more than our own private devotions; the fullness of worship includes service to others. Christ did this – he gave himself as a fragrant offering and sacrifice – and he did so for us. For devout Jews worship and service were virtually the same thing: serving others, giving oneself up to love others, is the same as worshipping God.
c. In Philippians 4:18 Paul talks about having received gifts from the Christians in Philippi. The gifts were meant to meet his needs. Paul calls their gift-giving “a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.” Their act of meeting Paul’s needs through their gifts was an act of worship to God and became “a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.” Again, there is that word: fragrant, one pleasing and acceptable to God.
3. Mary’s Act as One of Witness
a. What happened when Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with all of this expensive perfume? “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” Others were caught up by the fragrance, the odor and smell, of what Mary had done. It was a beautiful and pleasant odor, just as those offerings in Leviticus were “a pleasing odor to the Lord.”
b. Listen to these great words, again from Paul the apostle, from 2 Corinthians 2: 14 – 16: “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.”
c. Through her act of discipleship and worship, her act of devotion and self-giving, of sacrifice and service, Mary was also a witness. She became “the aroma of Christ.” Mary spread throughout this house “the fragrance that comes from knowing him.” Others were exposed to her love for Jesus through her actions in service to Jesus.
4. Mary’s Act as One that Eliminates the Stench of Death
When Jesus and Mary went to Lazarus’s tomb in the previous chapter, and Jesus tells them to open the tomb, Mary objects because of the stench that will be present. Lazarus had been dead four days and the smell would not be a pleasant one. Jesus, of course, reminds her that she is about to see God’s glory – that is, the gift of life. We know, too, that in the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus there would have been that atmosphere of death – that lingering odor of mortality that is created when someone dies. Through Mary’s actions here in our story today “the stench of death that once lingered over this household has been replaced by the fragrance of love and devotion.”
In a home where there is faith – a loving devotedness to Jesus – there will be a wonderful fragrance, even if someone has recently died. Resurrection life, new life, eternal life offer a more powerful smell than any death. The stench of death does not, and cannot, intrude where the gift of Jesus’ life has been accepted.
Following Mary’s Example
1. Are we fully devoted disciples like Mary? Here are some questions that we can think about which may help whether we are:
a. Are we willing to accept the great personal cost of being Jesus’ disciples? Are we willing to give our lives to God?
b. Are we imitators of God, allowing our worship in church to bear fruit in loving and self-giving service to others within and outside the church?
c. Are we the “aroma of Christ” to those around us? Do we “spread the fragrance that comes from knowing him”? Do people around us catch a whiff of Jesus from us and how we live?
All of these things work together: costly discipleship, fully devoted worship and service, and being witnesses, the “fragrance that comes from knowing him.” We have to accept the great personal cost of discipleship to be “the aroma of Christ.” There is no becoming like Christ without cost to ourselves. To spread the fragrance that comes from knowing him, we have to give ourselves completely to him. We ourselves become those sacrifices that give a “pleasing odor to the Lord.” It begins with true worship of our Lord; and it continues when we realize that worship continues each day as we live lives of love. Discipleship is defined by our acts of love that are our response to Jesus. This is a huge challenge for all of us, but we always need to remember that this something that Jesus does through us, just as Scripture says: “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.”
