Sermon Tone Analysis

I want to invite your attention today to the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of John.

We want to look at Mary's costly sacrifice, a message that is one of the most familiar and equally ignored lessons of all the New Testament, one that there are more asterisks and exceptions put by in our lives than any other requirement of Scripture, one that in the Western culture in which we live, we will use in every application except the obvious application that is given…that of a costly sacrifice.

"Six days before the Passover," John puts it, Jesus arrives in Bethany, less than two miles from Jerusalem.

Since we were last with Jesus, He had, in John, raised Lazarus from the dead, but then had left, and He has gone back into the region of Galilee.

He has come down the eastern side of the Jordan River, ministered in Perea, crossed over the Jordan into Jericho.

His face was set toward Jerusalem.

His intentions from Galilee and the journey across was His own death, His own costly sacrifice, His own life for your life, for my life, for the lives of those He encountered all along the way.

He sets His face toward Jerusalem, ascends the 3,500 feet it takes in that 17-mile journey from Jericho to Jerusalem, stopping off at Bethany at the home of Simon the leper, perhaps one whom He had cured of leprosy in previous times.

But now arriving in Bethany, He is invited into this home, and they're going to throw a dinner for Him.

They're going to have a meal for Him.

It's at the conclusion of Sabbath, and He is enjoying that end of Sabbath meal there with all the friends who are gathered.

Martha is there in the home.

She is doing what Martha does.

She is being the hostess.

She is serving.

Mary is there as well.

Mary is going to do what Mary does.

She is going to worship.

She is going to be at the feet of Jesus.

Lazarus is there.

Lazarus is going to do what he hadn't done in a while.

He was going to breathe!

He appears to almost be an honored guest as well as Jesus, sitting there with Jesus at the table.

Now again this table is not like a table that we would be used to, but more like a coffee table for us.

With very short legs, you would sit down…or the table would have short legs.

Some of you might have short legs too.

But whatever length your legs were, you would sit down on your hip, and you would extend your feet out behind you, typically leaning on your left elbow.

And everyone would do that around the table.

That was reclining at the table.

When it speaks of one of the disciples being in the bosom of Jesus, it's the idea that they're leaning on the table, and this one who is just to the right of Christ being close to Him.

That is the one who is being indicated.

This different kind of seating, seating on the floor here, but one thing it allows is that your feet are exposed.

They're behind you, and that will become important when we see the action of Mary here in just a moment.

Martha is serving them; otherwise, Martha probably has no invitation to be at this table.

It's going to be a table of men.

It's just the culture.

Mary has no invitation to be at the table.

It's going to be a table of men.

That's the culture.

But Mary enters the room.

It's been a while, if we understand our chronology, since Mary has seen Jesus since her brother was raised from the dead.

She has always been a worshiper of Jesus.

I've told you before that every time we find Mary she is at His feet.

She is listening to Him.

She is learning from Him.

And here she is going to be at His feet again, but this time she walks into the room carrying a clay bottle…a box, a bottle.

In it a pound, a Roman pound, of very costly perfume.

A Roman pound is about 11 to 12 ounces of our English weight, so about three-quarters of a pound of this nard.

Now nard was a plant that grew in the mountains of India, and they would take the roots of this plant because the roots and the spikes that grew from this plant were very aromatic, and hence the term spikenard that you may have in your translations.

This nard was so valuable, so aromatic, that it was often bought with the intention of an investment.

Much as people will buy gold today, they would buy bottles of this nard.

Now it wasn't in a bottle that had a screw on top that could be easily opened and closed.

Generally, it was waxed over, and the way you would open the bottle was to lop off the top of it.

And you would only do that on a very special occasion because there is not a very good way to reseal this bottle, and so you would tend to use it all in one sitting.

But this wasn't any ordinary perfume.

We find in the text today that Judas says it was worth 300 denarii.

That is a day's wage, a denarius.

Three hundred denarii is a year's wage because they didn't get paid for the Sabbath.

They didn't get paid for holy days.

There were 300 working days in a Jewish year, and the common laborer's salary or pay for a day was a denarius.

So 300 is a year's salary.

So we're talking about a bottle, a flask, a box, a container of perfume that was worth a year's salary.

Quite an investment.

Quite a prized possession.

We're not even sure how Mary comes into possession of this.

Was it an inheritance, or does it just further indicate that they were really quite a wealthy family?

Either way, this is valuable stuff.

This is thousands and thousands of dollars, easily the most valuable item they had there in their home.

And she has brought it with her.

If Simon lives in a different home, she has brought it to the home of Simon the leper.

Or if Simon owns the home that they are living in…some think that Simon was the father of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary…either way, Mary has brought this container.

And she brings it into the room.

Now that in and of itself is a little bit socially awkward because she is not coming to serve the food.

But she comes to the feet of Jesus sticking out, and she bows down, lops off the end of that alabaster container.

And at the moment, that expensive nard cologne begins to permeate the room.

She takes it and she pours $10,000…$20,000 worth of oil on the floor where Jesus' feet are.

She does this out of her sense of love and devotion.

But there is one more step.

She pulls the pin out of her hair, and she lets the tresses of her hair fall down.

Now that is only something a prostitute would do.

But you see, she is going to do a servant's chore here.

She is anointing the feet of Jesus, which anointing someone's feet, washing someone's feet, that was a sign in itself of servanthood.

Jesus will denote that just a chapter later in John when He washes the feet of the disciples.

And He says, "As I have done this to you, you should also do to one another."

But normally there is a towel involved.

Even when a servant would anoint someone's feet or wash someone's feet, he would use a towel to wipe them off.

But Mary steps lower than that.

She uses the glory of a woman, her own hair, and uses her glory, and gives her glory to Jesus, and wipes His feet with her own hair.

There is an intimacy.

There is a nakedness.

There is an I-don't-care-what-people-think-when-I-worship attitude when Mary lets her hair down in this public setting and wipes her Savior's feet.

Without saying a word, she gathers up the empty alabaster box and prepares to leave.

The Bible tells us in the other accounts that not just Judas is upset about this, that the other disciples were as well and perhaps others who were in the room.

You know what they saw?

They saw the oil.

They saw the waste.

They saw $10,000…$20,000 being poured out on the ground.

They saw it thrown out.

They saw an investment.

Judas saw a year's income, a year's income, being wasted and destroyed.