The precious Ointment

The visit of a woman to the home of Simon where Jesus was present at Bethany, recorded in the gospel of Mathew 26:6-13 was one of the significant events before the crucifixion of Jesus. 

This woman came with a costly perfume and poured it upon Jesus publicly. She seems to have been an ordinarily placed woman who would have saved for long to procure this perfume as an investment to use at the time of a need. This ointment, which was her saving, a valuable asset of security for her future was poured out on Jesus. It was an act of utmost devotion expressed to someone who had become her Messiah. She parted with her wealth and used it to symbolise her self emptying to God. An inner journey which freed her from being dependent on her material security to devotion to God, because God became her a new treasure in her life! When we are on a Godward journey, we would feel freed from our attachments and dependence on what have been hitherto our crutch or focus of attention. God is a draws all who seek Him in. loving embrace.

For the disciples of Jesus who witnessed this, there was a question, 'why this waste' (v8)! This was a  mystery to them! A costly perfumes to express love and devotion. When a woman was overcome by her devotion to God, the precious possession of great worth, hitherto most significant in her life, lost its status. When she experienced abundance of God's love and healing in her life, she was moved to  reciprocate in kind.  God became her possession displacing a box of perfume. It is this transformation that took place in her life, which the disciples had failed to appreciates aa a reason for the generous offering of a precious ointment to Jesus. The disciples were occupied with the material worth of the ointment, and could not go beyond it. The disciples ought to have been rejoicing over this woman finding in God, a treasure worth living for!  This is the blind spot that even disciples of Jesus can have, which obliterates the perception of the mysterious acts of God in the lives of others. They are so used to religious routines and ritualistic practices of the faith journey, that they loose sight of the way the Spirit of God moves sometimes in the lives of those who are distant from God.

The words of Jesus, "For when she poured this perfume upon My body, she did it to prepare me for burial' (v.12). This was indeed a concealed from the disciples because they denied what Jesus had told them earlier that the 'son of man must suffer and die.. and rise again..' What this woman did was more than just an act of devotion to God. It was a God inspired movement in her life to publicly anoint Jesus to prepare Him for His burial, and for others to behold the way they ought to live their discipleship journey by self giving. She had internalised the mystery of the crucifixion and the burial of Jesus. Through this act of worship, the significance of which was unknown to her then, this woman became a blessing and benediction to Jesus while He was preparing for Gethsemne and Golgotha. The disciples were distant to Jesus and His mission even at this stage, where as this woman contributed to affirm the inner readiness that Jesus needed to go to the cross. It was a way of God ordaining a woman to minister to Jesus, when the disciples would not be His intimate companions during the forthcoming event of agony on the cross. When Jesus was riding on a colt to enter Jerusalem, Pharisees wanted Jesus to rebuke the disciples from singing 'hosanna' to Him, to which Jesus replied, "I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out" (Luk:19.40). God's way is using the least in the sight of people to be of significance in the sight of God. So this ordinary woman and her act of devotion gets proclaimed wherever the gospel is preached (v13) since then.

This 'anointing' of Jesus took place at the home of 'Simon, the leper' (v.6). This was two days prior to passover (Luk:26.2) and ' The chief priests and elders of the people were gathered together in the court of the high priest, named Caiaphas and they plotted together to seize Jesus by stealth and kill him'(v.3-4). This was the final week in the earthly sojourn of Jesus. Jesus was in the home of a person probably healed of Leprosy, an outcast by jewish tradition and practice. For Jews, normally a woman cannot be in a visible role in public. And yet in Jesus choosing to be at the home of Simon and receiving the gift of 'anointing for His burial' from a woman, Jesus placed before us a new optic about the gospel way of living and relating! Jesus brought a new way for the followers of Jesus: 'There is neither jew nor greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus' (Gal:3.28).

The events before the crucifixion have a profound impact in the unfolding of the mysteries of God and His ways for humankind.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)