Mary of Bethany

From: Miscellaneous Papers By: Edward Denny

• 9 min. read • grade level: 14

Identical With the Woman of Stain in the Seventh of Luke.

"Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”

ROMANS 5:20²⁰Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: (Romans 5:20).ROM 5:20²⁰Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: (Romans 5:20)

THERE are two ways of reading John 11:2²(It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) (John 11:2). The first is, "It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick." The second is, (omitting the word "that," which is not in the Greek, as the English reader may know from, its being in italics,) "It was Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment," &c. Now if we adhere to the former of these two readings,, the conclusion is, that the passage refers to the action in the following chapter (John 12:1-8¹Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. ²There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. ³Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. ⁴Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, ⁵Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? ⁶This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. ⁷Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. ⁸For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. (John 12:1‑8)) in which case the stress must be laid upon the word "that," pointing as it would do in this case, to Mary the sister of Lazarus, who is there presented, as anointing the Lord's feet in the way here described. But if, omitting the word "that" (which, as I have said, does not occur in the original) and laying the emphasis on the name,, we read "It was Mary which, anointed the Lord with ointment,", &c., we cannot surely with any consistency connect 'it with the narrative in John 12:1-8¹Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. ²There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. ³Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. ⁴Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, ⁵Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? ⁶This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. ⁷Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. ⁸For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. (John 12:1‑8), because in, this latter passage Mary is definitely named as the one who thus acted, and therefore it would be wholly unmeaning and needless to refer to her thus in the foregoing chapter.

To what then, if this be the case, does the passage thus read bear relation? Not, I believe, to the twelfth chapter of John, but to the seventh of Luke. There we find a woman doing the very same thing -that Mary of Bethany did; while we are not told who she was, or what was her name. Here, however, we find who she was who thus honored her Lord. Here the secret comes out, "it was" (as we read, laying, observe, the stress on the name,) "Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick." Thus the despised outcast of Nain, the forgiven one in the Pharisee's house, she who loved much, because of the deep sense she had of the pardoning love, the abounding grace of her Lord, turns out to be the devoted worshipping Mary of Bethany, who afterward anointed Him in the house of Simon the leper.

This view of the subject, I am aware, will be distasteful to those who realizing Mary of Bethany only in the interesting light in which she is presented in Luke 10, John 11, 12, refuse to believe that she can possibly be the "woman in the city, which was a sinner," whom a self-righteous Pharisee shrank from, as being unworthy of entering his house. (Luke 7:36-50³⁶And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat. ³⁷And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, ³⁸And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. ³⁹Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner. ⁴⁰And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. ⁴¹There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. ⁴²And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? ⁴³Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. ⁴⁴And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. ⁴⁵Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. ⁴⁶My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. ⁴⁸And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. ⁴⁹And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? ⁵⁰And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. (Luke 7:36‑50).) But what if the Lord's object herein is not so much to tell of the grace that was in her, as to magnify His own grace in redeeming her from evil, in making her one of His people? This we believe to be the fact, and that in not beginning with Mary in the seventh chapter of Luke, we should drop the first link of the chain of her history, the object of which is to trace' the path of one emerging from the lowest depths of degradation and sorrow, and never turning aside till she had reached that height of ineffable joy which she tasted when she anointed the feet of her Lord in the house of Simon the leper.

And now we will rapidly go through her history, our object herein being to show how consistently it all hangs together, what a tale of mercy it is what a blessed illustration of the truth of that word in Rom. 5:20²⁰Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: (Romans 5:20) "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”

Our first view of Mary (as we shall now assume her to be) is in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50³⁶And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat. ³⁷And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, ³⁸And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. ³⁹Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner. ⁴⁰And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. ⁴¹There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. ⁴²And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? ⁴³Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. ⁴⁴And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. ⁴⁵Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. ⁴⁶My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. ⁴⁸And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. ⁴⁹And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? ⁵⁰And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. (Luke 7:36‑50)), in the city of Nain, Where, an alien from those whom she loved, she had been leading a dissolute life. There, 'at the Pharisee's table, the Lord had been received as a guest, and there she approaches Him, not as a stranger, but as one to whom her heart was attracted, one from whom she had learned the great secret of happiness. How she first came to know Him, we are not told. May it not have been at that moment when,' at the gate of the city, He raised the young man; the only son of the widow, to life? Much people of the city we find was with the sorrowing mother, and she, Mary, perhaps, was one of that number, or more probably, lonely and friendless, and yet hardened in evil, she, like the strange woman in the second of Proverbs, was passing carelessly on, when all of a sudden a scene such as she never witnessed before burst on her view, and the voice of that heavenly 'stranger, of that Wonderful man, "the man of the gate of Nain," as a beloved, brother was accustomed to call him, fell on her ear, 'saying "Young man, I say unto thee, Arise," words which while they called back his spirit, at the same time reached the heart of the poor outcast of Bethany, telling her that there was happiness even for her, that there was one who could fill the void in her craving desolate heart. This it was which led her, regardless of man, of the social order of life, to make her way into the banqueting-room of Simon the Pharisee, there to bathe with her tears and her ointment the feet of Him, who in so unlooked-for a way, had taken possession of her heart, there to get the sweet and blessed assurance, from Him that her offering was accepted, that her sins, which were many, were forgiven.

And now we pass on to the tenth chapter of the same Gospel, and there we find her again, as before, at the feet of her Lord (her natural place it seems, in each case), learning lessons of divine and heavenly wisdom from Him who had forgiven her sins. No longer the broken-hearted penitent that she was, but a happy saint, in sweet communion with Him who had spoken peace to her heart. Nor is she alone, as before, a disconsolate outcast, no, she has found a home with her kindred; her brother and sister, reflecting the grace which Jesus had shown her, having forgiven and, forgotten the past, have received the wanderer back. They are not however at Bethany, the true home of this family, but at a "certain village," the name of which is not told us, How, we may well ask, is this? A question which perhaps may be answered in this way; that Mary having brought disgrace on herself and on them, they had none of them courage as yet to face, their friends and their kindred, and so they tarry awhile at this village, before they return to Bethany.

And now we come to the eleventh chapter of John, where we find the scene changed altogether, the family are again at their own home at Bethany, alas to them a desolate home, death having entered the scene, and taken Lazarus away from his sisters. But is this all? No, it is not, the triumph of death is but for a moment;, the Lord being, on His way, at the call of his sisters, to awaken the sleeping one, to call Lazarus back from the grave. Thus we see Mary again at His feet, the sweetest spot to her in the world, there to learn fully to know Him as "THE RESURRECTION; AND THE LIFE:" she who, as we venture to assume, had witnessed the miracle at the gate of the city, which had witnessed her shames, had seen the young man raised to life, now beholds the marvel repeated in the case of her brother.

What wonder then if, in the following chapter (John 12:1-8¹Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. ²There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. ³Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. ⁴Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, ⁵Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? ⁶This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. ⁷Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. ⁸For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. (John 12:1‑8)) we find her in the house of Simon the leper; anointing the feet ("beautiful" beyond all thought in her eyes, Isa. 52:7⁷How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! (Isaiah 52:7)) of Him to whom she is so deeply indebted;, what wonder if her ointment of spikenard, so costly, so fragrant, that it filled the house with its odor, should have been treasured up by her till that moment, when, as she knew through some divine instinct within her, the day of His burying was near. Not as a penitent here, as in the house of Simon of Nain, but as a worshipper, we find her honoring Him thus in the house of Simon of Bethany. And that too without any reproach, or resentment, on the part of either the host or the guests; Christ having dealt with her in grace, as He had done, He would not suffer her to be shut out, (as some would fain shut her out, as unworthy of being there)from this supper table where He Himself was a guest, He would incline the hearts of others to receive her as He Himself had received her; would find a place for His forgiven disciple among the honored of Israel. This is surely sufficient to silence one of the Common, we must call them self-righteous, objections as to the identity of Mary with the penitent in the seventh of Luke And this, we may add, is to us a very interesting thought, savoring as it does more of grace than of law, more of God, than of man. And it is here I would say that if my conjecture is right as to the manner and time of her meeting the Lord, namely, when He raised the young man at the gate of the city, it is interesting also to bear in mind that in each case her act is connected with death and resurrection, that the grace shown to the widow of Nain and her son, and that which had been vouchsafed to herself, and her family, should have led to the same result in the two different cases, to her anointing the feet of her Lord.