Beautiful Waste: Mark 14:1-11

Two days before Passover, plots thickened in shadow. The chief priests and teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. "But not during the festival," they said, "or the people may riot."

Meanwhile, in Bethany, at the home of Simon the Leper, Jesus reclined at table. A woman entered—Mark does not give her name—carrying an alabaster jar of pure nard, perfume worth a year's wages. Without a word, she broke the jar's neck and poured the entire contents over Jesus' head.

The fragrance exploded through the room, thick and sweet, overwhelming. The perfume ran down his hair, his face, his shoulders, pooling on the floor. A year's income, gone in seconds.

Some at the table reacted harshly: "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." They rebuked her sharply.

"Leave her alone," Jesus said. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me."

Beautiful. The word hung in the perfumed air.

"The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial."

Beforehand. She had anointed him for burial before he died. Whether she knew what she was doing or simply loved extravagantly, Jesus received it as preparation for the tomb.

"Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her."

Wherever the gospel went, her story would follow. Two thousand years later, we tell it still.

Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted and promised him money. So he watched for an opportunity.

The contrast could not be sharper: a woman pouring out everything in love, a disciple selling his master for cash. Extravagant worship and calculated betrayal, side by side in the same chapter.

The fragrance of nard lingered. The stench of treachery spread.