Very Costly
“Then 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 odour of the ointment” (John 12:3).
What price was paid for this ointment of spikenard? It is described as very precious in Mark. 14:3, and here in John 12, as very costly. For Mary no price was too high. This was her great sacrifice she was laying at Jesus’ feet. It might have cost three hundred days’ or about a year’s working wages (a penny a day was the average wage for a worker in Bible times), as Judas was so quick to point out. To him it was a waste to cast such ointment at Jesus’ feet. But it did not matter. Mary loved her Lord and He was going away soon. He was more important than anything or anyone else. But poor Judas, he was prepared to sell his Lord for just thirty pieces of silver. How distorted his perspective of life’s values! How much is Jesus Christ worth to you?
How much does the Lord mean to you? Will there be “the sacrifice of praise” (Hebrews 13:15), from your heart today?
