Preparation for Jesus burial! !

Matthew 26:1-13

Mark 14:1-9

Matthew 26:1-13, Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that He said to His disciples, 2 “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” 3 Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, 4 and plotted to take Jesus by trickery and kill Him. 5 But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.”

The Anointing at Bethany 6 And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, 7 a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table. 8 But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? 9 For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.” 10 But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman?

For she has done a good work for Me. 11 For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always. 12 For in

pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial. 13 Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.” Matthew chapters 26, 27, and 28 is the most significant, wonderful section in all this gospel, because its focus is the cross of Jesus Christ.

Everything to this point is only prologue. This is the main theme. This is the main event. This is the issue in the revelation of God, the cross of Jesus Christ. We come to the climax of Matthew’s gospel. The climax of redemptive history.

The greatest event in the history of the world. The greatest source of hope in the heart of any man or woman who ever lived – the cross of Jesus Christ. Everything in the sacred story gathers around the cross. We cannot have Christianity without the cross of Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:2, For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

The cross is the epitome of redemptive truth.

• Foreshadowed in the acceptable sacrifice of Abel,
• Foreshadowed in the ark of safety that saved Noah,
• Foreshadowed in the sacrifice provided on Mount Moriah – a ram in the place of Isaac,
• Foreshadow in the deliverance of Israel from Egypt,
• Foreshadowed in the smitten rock in the wilderness that brought forth water to quench the thirsty people.
• Foreshadowed in the Levitical ceremonies, sacrifices, and offerings.
• Foreshadowed in the serpent lifted up in the desert for healing,
• Foreshadowed in Boaz, the kinsman redeemer.

We see the cross detailed in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. We see the pierced and wounded Saviour in Zechariah 12. John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets, pointing to Jesus and saying, “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”

All Old Testament Scripture, all the prophetic ministry of John the Baptist points to the cross. All the gospel writers and the epistle writers write of the cross, for it is the focal point of everything.

Christianity is a belief in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The salient truth of the Christian faith. We come now to the greatest truth, the greatest portion of this gospel of Matthew. Matthew deals with the cross in very concise, straight-forward, simple, clear terms. This is the narrative of the cross.

In Romans 3-11 we studied in detail the theology of the death of Christ and essential that is. But here we are not dealing with the theology of the cross but the reality of it historically. The story of the cross as it happened.

Matthew breaks up the picture of the cross into some very clear, distinct elements. In Matthew 26 we will see the preparation for the cross. At the end of Matthew 26, the arrest of Jesus Christ. Matthew 27, the trials of Christ, execution and His burial.

Matthew 28 comes the resurrection and His final instructions to His disciples. We move through the preparation, the arrest, the trial, the execution, the burial, the resurrection and the final instructions.

Very simple and concise to the point, as Matthew describes the greatest event ever happened in the history of the world. Here we find the preparation for the death of Jesus Christ, seen in three perspectives.

Background

Jesus has just finished the Olivet Discourse. Matthew 24 and 25, His great masterful sermon on His own second coming. This is Monday. It has been a very long day. The day has lasted about 15 sermons in our study. So much has happened on this Monday.

Monday began in Matthew 21:23. Matthew chapters 21-26, and we are still on Monday!

Do you remember how the scene unfolded? Thursday, Jesus arrived in Bethany. Friday, while He was in the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, a great multitude came to Him there, and He taught them and ministered to them. Saturday, He got on the colt and rode into the city of Jerusalem to the hosannas, and the “Blessed is He that comes

in the name of the Lord,” that the crowd offered to Him as they threw palm branches and garments at His feet. Jesus was hailed as the Messiah on Saturday. He went to the temple that Saturday, then returned to Bethany. Sunday, He came into the city, cursed a fig tree on the way, and then went to the temple and cleansed the temple.

Monday again in the morning since He cleansed temple it was fit for Him to teach there, and so He began to teach. As He began to teach the multitudes, He ran into conflict with the religious leaders. The whole conflict began to unfold in Matthew 21 & 22.

Finally reached its culmination in Matthew 23 He pronounced a series of curses on the religious leaders and their people. So early Monday and throughout the day, He was teaching in the temple and confronting the religious leaders.

Toward the evening of Monday, He ascended the Mount of Olives with His disciples, sat down on the Mount of Olives, and it was there in the twilight of Monday that He began to unfold to them the truths about His second coming.

Still, it is Monday, and Jesus has finished all these sayings about His second coming, but He has something more to say. The disciples were preoccupied with the kingdom. They were preoccupied with the second coming. Do we get our glory now? Do we get our rewards now? They really wanted it now.

They were like children who couldn’t be patient. Having given them all this information about His second coming, He comes right back to reality in Matthew 26. When Jesus had finished all of that, He said to them. V 1-2, Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that He said to His disciples, 2 “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

At the end of an unbelievable day He was hailed as the Messiah on the next day He cleans out the temple on the next day He devastatingly rebukes all the religious leaders of Israel. Jesus has given them this tremendous message of His second coming.

Now He says, “Even having denounced those leaders, even having announced My ultimate supremacy and rule, I Am telling you now for this time I must die at their hands.”

Lord says, “It’s time for the cross now.” This is the fourth and last time that He tells them of His cross in Matthew. The first time He began to introduce His death. Matthew 16: 21, From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.

Matthew 17:22-23, Now while they were staying in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, 23 and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.” And they were exceedingly sorrowful.

Matthew 20:17-20, Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, 18 “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, 19 and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again.” Each time He told them He would die. Each time He told them He would rise again.

Those three times reached their culmination here in verse 2. This is the fourth and final time. Two days, for the Son of Man to be betrayed to be crucified. Matthew introduces to us the final scene. What Jesus has been saying for the last time and in just a matter of two days it will come to pass.

Matthew introduces us now the final scene. As we prepare to understand the death of Christ, He gives us three perspectives in these 13 verses. Everything must come together in the death of Christ: 1. The plan of God, 2. The hatred of the Jewish leaders, 3. The loving adoration and worship of His followers, God’s masterplans all these diverse things so that the death of Christ comes at precisely the right moment.

1. The plan of God. V 2, “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” Jesus, because the Father has revealed it to Him.

Remember He was restricted in His incarnation to that which the Father revealed to Him. He set Himself aside in the voluntary use of His omniscience and submitted Himself to that which the Father revealed. In the gospel of John, “I know what the Father reveals to Me.”

Jesus says here, “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified.” This is the Father’s time. Because it is so often the case that this death of Jesus Christ is thought to be an accident. People write books like The Passover Plot saying Jesus was a well-meaning revolutionary whose revolution went sour, and He wound up getting Himself killed. That’s not the case.

He was on a divine timetable. He knew exactly what was going to happen. He had already predicted three times He would go to Jerusalem, die, and rise again. Here Jesus says, “In two days it will happen.” It is no accident.

It is sovereign direction by God. He is on a divine timetable.

There were many times when the people would have taken His life, but they were not able to do that. It wasn’t a well- meaning revolution that went bad at the end. The religious leaders and others, they had been trying to kill Him from the very beginning, but unsuccessfully. Because He was always in control of everything. Everything was always on divine schedule in a majestic, dignified, powerful, and authoritative way. Jesus moved through the planned timetable for His life, never missing step with anything.

John 10:18, No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.” No man takes My life from Me.

John 19:10-11, Then Pilate said to Him, “Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?” 11 Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” You have no control over My death, even if you are the governor. No one has any control over My death except for sovereign God.

So always on divine schedule was our Lord. There were so many attempts to take His life that it’s ludicrous to assume that Jesus just had a revolution go bad at the end. The first attempt on His life was right after He was born, when Herod massacred all the babies under two years of age in that part of the world to try to get rid of this One who was born to be King of the Jews, who posed a threat to his own throne.

Matthew chapter 2 tells us about that massacre, which was an attempt to kill Christ who was saved by being taken away from that place in time by divine intervention. Then there was a time in Nazareth when He was ministering in the synagogue among His own people who knew Him well, for there He had lived and grown up. And He opened to them the Scriptures, Luke 4 says, and He read out of Isaiah, and He closed the book and says, “This day is that Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” What He was saying is, “I am the One of whom Isaiah spoke. I am the Promised One. I am the Messiah who has come to preach the gospel to the poor, to give sight to the blind, to release the captives” and so on.

When He said that, they took Him out to the brow of a hill, and they would have thrown Him off a cliff to crush Him to death, but He disappeared out of their midst. Then there was the time recorded for us in John 5 where He was at the pool of Bethsaida, and there was a man there who

had been crippled for 38 years. The Bible says that He healed that man, and immediately they sought a way to kill Him because He did it on the Sabbath. They were always trying to kill Him, but always unsuccessful until God’s timetable set it right.

Then after that when they tried to kill Him for healing on the Sabbath, He intensified their desire to kill Him by claiming to be equal with God.

John 5:17-18, But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” 18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

They went into a frenzy to endeavour to wipe His life out, which they could not do. The people at Jerusalem, during the Feast of the Tabernacles, when Jesus came there identified Jesus.

John 7:25, Now some of them from Jerusalem said, “Is this not He whom they seek to kill?

They sought to kill Him all along. Even the temple police in John 7 were sent to capture Jesus that He might be executed.

They came back without Jesus and all they could say was, “Never a man spoke like that man.” He so overwhelmed them they couldn’t even take Him captive.

John 8:40, But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.

John 8:20, These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come.

Again, it was wintertime and Jesus was in Jerusalem, and He was walking in the Porch of Solomon in the temple. The Jews picked up stones and wanted to stone Him on the spot, but the Bible says He escaped out of their hand and went beyond the Jordan miraculously, supernaturally delivered.

John 10:31, Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.

Again, when Jesus came into the city of Bethany and there raised Lazarus from the dead, He created such a furore among the Jewish leaders.

John 11:53-54, Then, from that day on, they plotted to put Him to death. 54 Therefore Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there into the country near the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim, and there remained with His disciples.

Why?

John 11:57, Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a command, that if anyone knew where He was, he should report it, that they might seize Him.

This has been an effort from the time of His birth and from the very beginning of His ministry, even in Nazareth. But all these attempts to take His life were unsuccessful because it wasn’t God’s timing. It wasn’t God’s timetable, but it is now.

If ever there was a time when the Jews wouldn’t want to do it, it is now. But this is the time when God wants it done. In other words, this is not the time for them, not now, not with Jerusalem swollen with pilgrims, many of whom are from Galilee. According to Josephus, at one Passover season in a census that was made, 256,500 lambs were slain.

Josephus says, “The Law was that there could be no less than ten people for each lamb because no one was to eat the Passover alone. It was a celebration of their community. So, if you have a minimum of ten people for a quarter million lambs, you have got a minimum of 2.5 million people swelling Jerusalem, many of them from Galilee.

All of them captured about Jesus Christ, all of them fascinated enough to cry, “Hosanna! Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord,” hailing Him as Messiah.

They were knowing He is a miracle worker who gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voices to the dumb, raises those that are infirm and ill and gives life to the dead. He was too volatile, too popular to touch. This would have been the worst time from the standpoint of the Jewish leaders. So, it had nothing to do with what their plans were.

When they wanted to do it, God didn’t let them do it. When they didn’t want to do it, they wound up doing it against their own plan, because it says in V 5, But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.”

God just overturns all their plans.

• They want to kill Him, but they can’t.
• They don’t want to kill Him, but they will.

We see the sovereign grace of God that brings Christ to the cross to die for the sins of men. Two days from Monday is Wednesday when all the Jews would be celebrating their Passover, when lambs were being slain all over every place. He would be offered as the Lamb of God.

What a perfect timing?

The sovereign One has planned that the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world will be sacrificed on the Passover, when the lambs that couldn’t take away sin were being sacrificed. This was the unchangeable plan of God.

Luke 22:22, And truly the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!”

Acts 2:23, Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;

It was determined that a lamb should die on the Passover and that the Lamb of God should die on the Passover. Even though the Jews didn’t want it to happen on the Passover, because they were afraid of the mob. They were afraid of the Romans, if they started a riot, the Romans would move in with their military power and it would mess up the political peace. There was nothing that would lead them to want Jesus to be crucified at this time, and yet that was the plan of God.

Why? Because He was the Lamb.

1 Corinthians 5:7, Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.

• He is our Passover.
• He is the Lamb of God.

John 1:29, The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Revelation 13:8, All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Philip was going along in the desert, engaged and talking to the eunuch, he opens Isaiah 53, and he reads about a lamb that was taken to slaughter, a lamb that was dumb before its shearers, a lamb that opened not its mouth, the sacrificial lamb. He began at that Scripture and spoke unto him concerning Jesus. Yes, He is the Lamb.

1 Peter 1:19-20, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 20 He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you

Jesus is ever and always the Lamb, and He must die on the Passover as the Passover Lamb. Even though that is not the will of men, that is the will of God. God will turn the will of men to accomplish His holy purpose. Jesus is ready now because it is the sovereign plan.

John chapter 12, when they would have crowned Him king, He said no.

John 12:24, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. Jesus’ spoke of His death. I must die. V 2, the preparation of sovereign grace as God plans the event of the death of Christ. 2. The preparation of hateful rejection. As Jesus was speaking these words to His disciples on Monday night, that same night the Sanhedrin had called a special meeting in the house or the palace of Caiaphas, and they were meeting there with the chief priests.

V 3, Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, The scribes no doubt were there. The elders were the lay nobility. They were noble family representatives, the wealthy, the aristocratic people out of the society.

The priests were those who were in the priestly order. They were all together there, all the rulers of the people, along with Caiaphas, the high priest, and they had one thing in mind. V 4, “They consulted together how they might take Jesus by deceit and kill Him.”

Again, they are plotting His death. Only this time it is going to come to pass. Not in the way they thought because of God’s plan. V 5, But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.” They didn’t want to do it during the feast it lasts eight days. So, their plan was wait for at least eight days.

God’s plan was two days!

Despite what their plan was, God would work His plan. The Sanhedrin and the ruling body are together. They have had more of Jesus than they can possibly stand. He has intimidated them beyond their ability to deal with it.

The people now are following Him. They are threatened. Caiaphas is insecure. Josephus tells us Caiphas’s real name was Joseph Caiaphas. He was a wretched, vile, conniving, treacherous, wicked, and deceitful man who is pictured in Scripture only in one role. He is a one-dimensional person.

Every time you see him in the Bible, he was trying to kill Jesus. He was either planning it or executing it. Caiphas not like Herod, who wanted to kill Jesus because he was such a threat to his own throne. He is driven by his own ego and his own satisfaction. He has no sense of justice or righteousness or what is fair or what is good. He has no concern for the people or for anyone else except himself.

Ordinarily the office of high priest was something you got because you were in the Levitical line. Since the Roman occupation, you wanted to be high priest, you had to buy your way in. But the people demanded some sort of heredity. They had to have some priestly ancestry.

Caiaphas, treacherous conniving man that he was, married the daughter of Annas, who was his predecessor. Annas was high priest from about the year 6 to 15 A.D. Caiaphas took over in

about 15 A.D. and went all the way to 37 A.D., which is very remarkable. He must have been an all-time good politician to coexist with Rome for being a High Priest for 22 years! Because in a period of about a hundred years, around the time of Christ, there were 28 different high priests. They came and went all the time. For one to have lasted that long, he must have politicized himself very effectively with the Roman government.

The one who succeeded Caiaphas lasted 50 days! Caiaphas had bought his way in. Annas his predecessor was an extremely wealthy and crooked man, who ran what were known as the Bazaars of Annas, all the businesses connected to the temple, that Jesus threw out.

This is the reason why Annas got back into the plot. Though he was a former high priest, he still carried the title. But he hated Jesus, too, because Jesus put him out of business. Now we have got the father-in-law Annas, and here comes the son-in-law Caiaphas. The Jewish tradition said that in marrying you had to marry the virgin, and you had to marry her between the age of 12 and 12 ½. Caiaphas then had married a 12-year-old daughter of Annas to get into the aristocracy and to find his way into the wealth and the prestige and the power and the prominence of the high priestly office.

There was no king in Israel. He had more power than anybody else. He wanted to use it to get rid of Jesus. He was very wealthy. We know he had a house big enough for the Sanhedrin to meet in. Later in chapter 26 it tells us he had a house that had a gatehouse. If it had a gatehouse, it must have been a palace with a gate outside, and a house there to protect from entry. He also had many servants.

Caiphas was the epitome of symbolism in the religious system of Israel, decadent as it was. Yet he carried out all the priestly function. He alone could go into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. He had to carry out all the leadership and ceremonies and sacrifices and rituals. He was in charge of everything.

Along with him at this meeting were the chief priests. Those were the leading priests who was second in command, called the captain of the temple, who was also in charge of the temple police. Under him there was the priest over the daily course and the priest over the weekly course.

Then there was the temple treasurer and the temple overseer. That little group made the chief priests. The scribes were those who worked with the Law. The elders were those who were the nobility out of the laity, having no priestly office but being the leaders of the people

that were sent to sort of rule and govern on behalf of the people. The envious hypocrite Caiaphas gets his group together and they have got to do something with Jesus. Matthew 23 alone would have been enough to bring this about, where Jesus blisters them up one side and down the other side with the fire of His wrath and pronounces their condemnation and that was the last straw.

But the problem was, they were afraid of the people. Why didn’t they just assassinate Jesus and get it over with? But there was never an opportunity to do that because everywhere He went He was in the midst of a crowd. Even when the crowd was gone, the disciples were there.

They just couldn’t get close to Him without having a situation that would have so many witnesses it could start a riot. They couldn’t just arrest Him because they didn’t have any reason to arrest Him. Jesus was surrounded by people all the time made it impossible to do that without an awful clear explanation.

They were looking for a place in a clandestine way where they could seize Him and capture Him, take Him prisoner and then trump up a charge against Him and do it all through the legal

process, twisted and perverted as they had it. That was their desire. But they needed an angle. They needed a way to pull it off. Of course, Judas became their henchmen. He became the betrayer. For the Savior to be crucified, it had to be done by hating men.

God brings that to a fever pitch

The resurrection of Lazarus, The hosannas that threatened their positions of power. If this was the Messiah, they knew they were all going to be deposed. Jesus’ threat to destroy their whole system and smash it and crush it and leave it desolate. His pronouncement on them as whited sepulchres, all these things came to a culmination, and their hatred had reached such a fever pitch that they were moving right in line with the sovereign plan of God to pull it all together.

They could stand more of this holy perfection from Jesus Christ. Grace and sin are moving toward the same end. Grace in the person of God’s King planning for the cross. Sin in the person of the ruler’s plotting for the cross.

3. The preparation of loving worship.

There aren’t just the enemies who want Jesus to go to the cross. One of his own saws the importance of that and had a sense of preparation. V 6, And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, When Jesus came to Bethany, that first day as He came up from Jericho and came to the city to stay with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus to be a part of all these events, Simon the leper invited him as a guest for a great supper.

Now Simon was no longer a leper. We know that because if he was still a leper, nobody would be going to his house. He was a healed leper. Leprosy in that day was incurable. The only cure for leprosy was Jesus Christ. Obvious that Simon was a recipient of the healing power of Christ. One way he could show his loving gratitude to Christ was to offer Him a supper.

Simon a former leper, outcast of outcasts, now having the Healer, God in human flesh, in his own home and hosting Him and all twelve of the disciples.

This is a good group for supper, approaching twenty people. There may have been others, we don’t know. But Mark and Matthew write of it, because it is a very important occasion. There is another anointing like the anointing here that Luke records in chapter 7 but it’s a completely different incident.

Even though the man Simon the Pharisee, not Simon the leper. Simon was a name as common as Joe or John, so we are not surprised there are ten Simons in the New Testament. Luke 7 the woman who does the anointing is different. It isn’t Mary but a sinful woman.

But John 12 records an incident to honour Jesu for raising Lazarus from the dead. We don’t have time to go into all the details of all the accounts, but I want you to see what happens. V 7, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table.

A lovely evening of gratitude and thanks and joy. We have no reason to know why he didn’t tell us except the Holy Spirit knew who it was for whatever reason.

An alabaster, almost transparent, and the word box should be the word vessel or cruse. It is really a bottle made from alabaster, very thin, and it would be a very fat or round bottle with a very narrow neck, and it would be corked or plugged at the top. Inside of it was very precious perfume.

How precious? A year’s wages. Mark tells us, 300 denarii, which would be a year’s wages. Very, costly.

Why did they even have it? It was customary when you had guests in for a meal to anoint them with perfume. They didn’t have deodorant. If you had been out all day tramping around in the dirt and your robes were a little sweaty, and you came at the end of the day they didn’t have the means for cleanliness.

It was a common thing to do in a home, to anoint the guest with a strong perfume which made it a lot nicer, a lot more enjoyable during the time of the meal. This was no doubt what was going to be done. She understands that Jesus is moving to His death, and she understands something of the resurrection.

She maybe remembers that Jesus said He would rise again every time He said He would die. Somehow it is in her mind that this is it, and she wants to prepare Him for that, because she knows that in it is her redemption. The preparation of loving worship here. When she starts with Jesus, she just can’t go any farther.

• Mark’s account she broke the whole bottle.
• Matthew says she poured it on His head.

The sum of which to say she poured it all over Him. She covered Him with the whole thing twelve ounces of costly perfume that takes a year’s wages to earn. Very expensive.

What made her do that? An act of love. An act of honour. She was absolutely adoring and absolutely controlled by worship that she couldn’t deal with restraint. Have you ever worshiped the Lord in such way that you lost all sense of restraint and economy?

Most of us worship what can I afford this week? I will give that. That won’t affect me.

We know very little about this, this unrestrained adoration, where you just crush the narrow neck of that alabaster bottle and pour its contents all over Jesus effusively, profusely. She was pouring out her love, her heart of compassion, her devotion. She was honouring the One that was going to die and rise again for her salvation, to bear her sin.

She did it for you! She did for me!! We all should have done it. She understood what the disciples didn’t want to understand. She wasn’t bound up in wanting to get right into the kingdom and have the glory. She apparently understood more of Jesus’

teaching then they did. She symbolizes the profuse, magnanimous outpouring of love that God desires. Even in our giving we tend to respond to need. There is a need, I will give. We don’t give for the sake of worship. We don’t know what it is to just say, “I don’t know if there is a need or anything, but I just love You so much, Lord. I am so grateful for Your death. I am so thankful for what You have done for me. I just can’t restrain myself. I want to take everything I have and pour it out on You.”

Is it going to come back to me in a program or a ministry?

It is just the unrestrained, unmitigated, effusive love of adoring worship that knows no restraint. V 8, But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? A discouraging statement.

Waste? This is not a time for the poor. This is a time for worship. This is not a time for programs and meeting the needs and philanthropy, this is for worship.

When do you just worship? V 9, For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.” The money never would have gotten to the poor. It would have been sold for three hundred denarii, put in the bag and stuck in Judas’ robe. He knew the whole thing was coming down. He knew the whole thing was coming to an end.

He was so disillusioned now, he wanted out fast. He knew it was the end of everything. He wanted to stuff that bag as fat as he could. If he wasn’t going to get in on the kingdom, he was going to get every dime he could get. He knew he had

already had what was there, and if he could just get another year wages in there, he would be satisfied. V 10, But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for Me.

Why are you putting burdens on her?

Why are you furnishing her a burden? Why are you making her feel bad or guilty as if this is a wrong thing? She has done excellently an outwardly beautiful, magnificent, lovely thing she’s done. V 11, For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always.

The Bible is very careful to say we need to meet the needs of the poor. Jesus is not overturning that teaching. He is just saying it is a question of priority this is time for worship.

• There is a time for charity.
• There is a time for philanthropy.
• There is a time for programming.
• There is a time for ministry.

But there is a time for worship.

As much as we should pour out what we possess on those who have need, so we should pour it out in an act of worship to God. If nothing was ever done with it except it spilled to the ground, if it was given in love, it is indeed an acceptable act of worship that He says is done excellently.

Adoring worship is the supreme act that any Christian could ever do. We get bound up in so much pragmatism, so much practicality. How much is it going to cost me to do it? Or do I have the time to do it? I can give the Lord this much this week and you give it out little by little because there is a constraint on you. We know nothing of this kind of gratitude, this kind of adoration.

V 12, For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial. This was an act of preparation. This was her way of showing love to Me. Why shouldn’t she know He was going to die and rise, His enemies knew that.

His enemies said, “Look out for this guy. He says He’s going to die, and He says if He dies in three days He’ll rise.” If they knew it, why shouldn’t she know it? She knew. She couldn’t prevent His death. She wouldn’t prevent His death. His death was for her and for all other sinners, so she poured out her love. And the word hath poured is a very strong term – lavish, profuse.

V 13, Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.” The Lord says, “I am going to make sure this is in the Scripture so wherever the gospel is preached, and wherever that’s preached, wherever anyone reads that, you are going to remember what this woman did as a memorial of her loving worship.”

The Lord makes a memorial out of this act because it is such a beautiful and necessary testimony. Here we are two thousand years later, seeing the loveliness, the sacrificial selfless worship of this very dear lady who loved Jesus Christ.

Those who loved Him were ready for the death to come, a death for them.

We see the preparation of sovereign grace, hateful rejection, and loving worship.

Conclusion

Do you reject the Lord Jesus Christ’s death?

Have you received Him? If you haven’t, then you reject Him. You are either with Me or against Me. You either stand with Mary or with Caiaphas, or maybe with Judas. You pretend to love Him, but you don’t. It isn’t genuine.

Let the Spirit work in your heart and come to the Saviour today. Pour out your adoring worship on Him. May God teach us all the lesson of profuse worship and adoration that pours out everything with no thought of gain. Happy to sacrifice with no thought of sacrifice because of the love.