My church is doing a series on unsung heroes in the Bible which has been a really great series. It is eye opening to see the stories of these heroes who some may only have a few verses about in the entire Bible, and yet, God felt their acts of faith were significant enough to share with the world for all eternity in His Word.
Yesterday the pastor shared about the woman with the alabaster flask. This story is unusual as it highlights an unnamed woman(she is named in one of the Gospels) who came before Jesus and broke an alabaster jar filled with an expensive perfume and anointed Jesus with it. I hadn’t thought much about this story until yesterday but I was intrigued and looked at it in more depth when I got home from church. Like every story in the Bible, this one carried a beautiful lesson.
Mary, we find out in John, is the woman who poured out her fragrant sacrifice upon the Lord. Even though she is named in the fourth Gospel, there is something intriguing about this woman remaining unnamed in the other Gospels. It seems like a random act that had no connection or bearing to the overall story of Jesus. Just a random woman who was moved to break her alabaster jar of sweet perfume at his feet. When we read the account in John, we discover that this woman is no stranger to Jesus. We find out that it is Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, the man Jesus had called forth from the grave. Jesus had often visited their home and this group of siblings had become some of Jesus’s closest friends and were probably considered to be like family to him. He was so over wrought with grief when Lazarus died that he wept. Mary sat at her Savior’s feet on many occasions and chose to sit with him and be near him instead of helping her sister with the household preparations. She had a lasting and close relationship with Jesus and this act was far from random. It was a genuine outpouring of her heart and soul to the man who had been her teacher, healer, and friend.
Something else you should know about the oil she poured out at his feet and over his head. It was pure spikenard oil. I’ve always known that was a very expensive oil/perfume because the passages all say it would have cost a year’s wages to purchase a jar of that oil. I never really thought about the significance of this oil until yesterday though. In my researchy mind, I was compelled to look it up and discovered that spikenard was considered to be the purest and best oil one could purchase or own back then. To use it or have it meant that you were giving your best to someone. It is mentioned in Song of Solomon as the fragrance that emanates from the bride to her king and implies that despite all other fragrances in the room, only his bride’s would matter to groom. It also shows their passion for each other and that they want only the best to define their love. This oil was also supposed to be very fragrant and would cling to the skin and hair and last for a long time. Mary poured the entire jar over Jesus, dousing him in a fragrant perfume that would have stayed with him when he was taken and beaten and crucified a few days later. She was preparing his body for the burial to come without even knowing it, but she acted on the impulse God placed on her heart to anoint His Son. It makes me wonder with the lyrics from the song, “He’s Alive” when it talks about the room being filled with a strange and sweet perfume when Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples if the strange and sweet perfume was what had clung to his skin from Mary’s anointing.
Many that watched this impulsive display cut her down and discounted her sacrifice because it was so expensive. As I mentioned, the cost of this jar of perfume would have cost a year’s wages back then. I wondered how Mary could have afforded such an expensive perfume and I read somewhere that it likely would have been her dowry, the money set aside to provide a good marriage for her. Perhaps it was a sacred family heirloom that had been passed down generation to generation. Either way, if she truly took that money that would have secured a good match for her or it was a treasured heirloom, that shows even more the great sacrifice she poured out at her Master’s feet that day. Those in the room with them complained to Jesus that the perfume could have been sold to feed many poor and called her anointing a waste. What Jesus says to them is so beautiful. He tells them to “leave her alone. She has done a beautiful thing to me.” Jesus got what she did and He praised her for it. She had poured out the best of what she had and annointed him with the purest and sweetest fragrance of her humblest praise. In doing so, she acknowledged who He was to her and to the world. Her pouring out of her broken self touched Jesus in such a significant way that He told those who condemned her that “wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”(Mark 14:9,ESV) And it is. Her story of sacrifice has been told in the Gospels since Jesus proclaimed that legacy over her.
This story is truly a beautiful picture of what it should look like to pour ourselves out before our Lord and Savior and what His presence in our lives should mean to us. We are called to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (Romans 12:1, ESV) and a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work (2 Timothy 2:21, ESV). How are you living your life? Are you afraid to show your love for God our King or are you unabashedly showing the world who you have chosen to serve and love? Are you living your life set apart and holy, ready to be used for the good work of God our Master or living a life encapsulated in the clutches and deceits of this world? Are you pouring out your body as a living sacrifice of sweet perfume at the feet of your Savior or allowing the world to tell you that’s wrong and should be used for other things?
Bring your alabaster jar before the Master and pour yourself out before him, broken and humbled and ready to be used by him. Let your sacrifices of praise be a sweet anointing on our Savior’s head and may the world smell the sweet fragrance of His presence in your life.
Ashley Beach-Author and Storyteller 