anointed (Mt 26:6-13)

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Psalm 13; Matthew 26:6-13

“In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial."
(Matthew 26:12)

The disciples are indignant that this woman "wastes" a good $20,000 to $30,000, maybe more (the other gospels tell us it was worth 300 denarii - or 300 days of a laborer's wage) - it should have been given to the poor. I bet if Jesus had seen or heard of her quietly selling the ointment and giving it to the poor, he still would have thought it was a good thing. He doesn't dismiss ministry to the poor, he just places his presence in the days before his crucifixion as more important.

The time is drawing near, and perhaps this devoted woman had heard Jesus and believed that he really would die during the Passover feast. Perhaps not. But she loved him, and honored him, and lavished expensive fragrant ointment on his head. And he blesses her blessing him; he honors her honoring him... "She has done a beautiful thing to me" (v. 10)

Jesus has his pending suffering and death on his mind, and whether or not she meant it, he receives the outpouring as an anointing for burial. “In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial" (v. 12).

I think we can we say that Jesus loves it when people passionately and compassionately pour themselves out for him, especially as it relates to a response to his death for us. Isaiah 53:12 says "he poured out his soul (or "life") to death." And as we heard Sunday, Philippians 2:6 reads, he "emptied himself" (RSV, NASB). When our ministry to him, or in his name, mirrors his outpouring, or is an echo of it reverberating in our hearts and through our actions, he is blessed. In other words, when his pouring himself out in death so impacts and radically transforms us that we pour ourselves out, lay our lives down, even to the point of death, I think he is "satisfied" (Isaiah 53:11).

Prayer for Tuesday in Holy Week
O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


“Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her”
(v. 13)