Such was the testimony God gave to the Lord Jesus as the Son in resurrection power, with the plain result of deadly hatred in those that bowed not in faith. Here, before a fresh witness is given, we are permitted to see Him in the home of those He loved at Bethany, where the Spirit gives us a fresh proof of grace in the recognition of His glory, and this in view of His death.
"Jesus, therefore, six days before the passover, came unto Bethany, where was Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from [the] dead. They made there for him a supper and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those at table with him. Mary then, having taken a pound of ointment of costly pure nard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. And Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, that was about to give him up, said], Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denaries, and given to poor [persons]? And this he said, not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and, having the bag, used to bear what was deposited. Jesus then said, Leave her to have kept it for the day of my burial; for the poor ye have always with you, but me ye have not always.” (Vers. 1-8.)
In presence of the Lord each comes out in his true colors. Jesus personally, as everywhere, is the object of God, the light which makes all manifest. But He does more. As He had brought life into the scene of death, the witnesses of His power and grace are there in their due place, according to their measure, one only having that special discernment which the love that is of God imparts, though grace may interpret it according to its own power. They made for Him a supper there, Martha serving, Lazarus at table with Him, Mary anointing His feet with the precious spikenard, and the house filled with the odor of the unguent. The Lord felt and explained its meaning, according to His own wisdom and love.
But if one of the blessed family was led by a wisdom above her own, in single-eyed devotedness, to an act most fitting and significant at that time, one of His disciples was not found wanting for the work of the enemy, which makes nothing of Jesus. All of good or evil turns at bottom into a true or false estimate of Him. We may be, and are, slow to learn the lesson, albeit of greater moment than any other; but it is the object of the Spirit in all scripture to teach us it, and nowhere so conspicuously, or more profoundly, than in this Gospel. So Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, that was about to give Him up, says, Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denaries, and given to poor people? He never thought of Jesus! Yet Mary's act might naturally have awakened affection. What was He not to her? Judas coolly calculates the lowest selling price of the nard; he falsely puts poor persons forward, for whom he had no real care; he would have liked that sum added to his unlawful gains. Nothing can be more thoroughly withering, more calmly true, than the comment of the Holy Ghost in verse 6. But what said Jesus? “Leave her to have kept it for the day of My burial: for the poor ye have always, but Me ye have not always."
Here is the truth said in divine love. It was not that Mary had received any prophetic intimation. It was the spiritual instinct of a heart that had found the Son of God in Jesus, of a heart that felt the danger that hung over Him as man. Others might think of His miracles, and hope that murderous intents might pass away at Jerusalem as at Nazareth. Mary was not so easily satisfied, though she had witnessed His resurrection power with as deep feelings as any soul on earth. And she was led of God to do what had a weightier import by far in the Lord's eyes than in her own. The love that had prompted it was of God, and this is above all price. “If a man would give all his substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.” So said he who knew above the sons of men the vanity of human love, with the amplest means ever vouchsafed to the head of any house. But what was Mary's unguent, or the love that brought it out (kept as it had been, and now she knew why at that critical moment), compared with His who vindicated her, and was about to die for all, even for Judas?
It is indeed a scene to dwell on, most instructive and affecting, whether one contemplates the family as a whole, or Mary in particular, whether one may think of the disciples (for Matthew and Mark show that all were unappreciative, some even angry), or of the one whose dark influence acted so ill on the rest, and, above all, when one looks and listens to Him whose grace formed Mary's heart according to its own nature and ways.
"A [or, the] great crowd of the Jews therefore knew that he was [lit. is] there, and came not on account of Jews only but that they might see Lazarus also whom he raised from [the] dead. But the chief priests consulted that they might kill Lazarus also, because on his account many of the Jews were going away and believing on Jesus.” (Ver. 9-11.) “The Jews,” as often remarked, are not merely Israelites, but men of Judea, and greatly under the influence of the rulers in their hostility to Jesus as in other things. But they are not the rulers, and one sees the difference marked in these verses. The great crowd however seemed influenced quite as much by curiosity as by better motive. To see Lazarus who was raised from the dead is a very different thing from believing God. Still there was reality among some; and hence the deeper and deliberate malice of the chief priests, because many of the Jews were deserting them and believing on Jesus.