As if to reinforce the growing consensus that Jesus was doing and saying what He was doing and saying within a messianic context, the next recorded event has Jesus healing a blind man in Bethsaida. Not only is this of tremendous significance in relation to evidence that He was the Messiah (witness Jesus telling the disciples of John the Baptist, when questioned as to whether or not He was “the one,” that part of His ministry was causing the blind to see, as well as Luke 4:18’s record of Jesus quoting of Isaiah 61---the regaining of sight to the blind), but this is especially so in light of the fact that Mark moves straight from healing the blind man to Jesus asking His disciples “Who do people say that I am?” (8:27b) and Peter’s subsequent response of “You are the Christ (the Messiah)” (8:29b). This healing of the blind man, coming on the heels of meals at which Jesus effectively serves as host, and an ears to hear statement that solidifies the whole of the feeding events within a kingdom context, while leading in to explicit messianic confession and acknowledgment, makes an interesting point to which we shall return when examining another one of Jesus’ meals.
The next time we find Jesus at a meal in Mark, we are in the fourteenth chapter. This story is also present in Matthew, though we skipped over it because Matthew’s story lacks a dynamic that is present in Mark, though we will not dwell long on the dynamic---merely long enough to draw the analogy as it relates to the kingdom understanding that threads its way through all of the Gospels. Though there is not an explicit mention of a meal taking place, based on what is presented in the text it is appropriate to infer that a meal is taking place. We read that Jesus was “reclining at the table” (14:3b). This is a clear indication that Jesus is participating in yet another meal, as it informs us that Jesus is utilizing a dining couch, rather than an upright chair, and that He has most likely assumed the traditional posture of laying on the couch, propped up on one elbow, with His head near the table and His feet at the end of the couch away from the table. Because we have a better picture in mind of Jesus’ posture, we are able to form a more complete picture of what then took place.
At His feet, which are not under the table, was a woman “with an alabaster jar of costly aromatic oil from pure nard. After breaking open the jar, she poured it on His head” (14:3c). The text indicates that the woman did not stop with Jesus’ head, but might very well have poured out the perfume over the whole of His body, because Jesus, when some present scoffed at what was perceived to be a waste of a costly item that could have been sold, with the money given to the poor, responded by saying, “She has done a good service for Me… She did what she could. She anointed My body before burial” (14:6b,8).
The interesting dynamic that is at play here in Mark, which is not to be found in Matthew’s telling of the story, has to do with the context in which Mark sets this event. Though there is an intervening chapter of prophetic apocalyptic speech by Jesus, the previous event that is recorded by Mark is that of Jesus observing the crowds making their offerings at the Temple. While observing, Jesus sees a poor widow who “came and put in two small copper coins” (12:42b), saying “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the offering box than all the others… she, out of her poverty, put in what she had to live on, everything she had” (12:43b,44b). Following that, Jesus goes on to tell His disciples that the very Temple to which this widow gave the last of what she had “will be torn down” (13:2b). It would be difficult for the disciples not to draw the conclusion that the offering made by this poor widow, sacrificing all that she had for that which was going to be destroyed, was a waste. From there, in terms of the presentation of events, Mark moves directly to the meal at which Jesus is present, and to the breaking open of the alabaster jar for the purpose of anointing His body, with the indignant insistence that this was nothing but a waste. However, Mark is making a point related to the fact that Jesus saw Himself as the true Temple of God.
In the same chapter, when Jesus stands before the Sanhedrin, we read that “Some stood up and gave this false testimony against Him: ‘We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this Temple made with hands and in three days build another not made with hands.’” (14:57-58) Mark punctuates this with “Yet even on this point their testimony did not agree” (14:59), but He is clearly cognizant of and counting on an awareness of what must have been the well-known Jesus tradition that we find recounted in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus says, “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up again” (2:19). Shortly thereafter, John provides the gloss on Jesus’ words by informing the reader that “Jesus was speaking about the Temple of His body” (2:21). When we take all of this together, we see a widow giving all that she has to a Temple that is going to fall, which is ultimately a wasteful action, whereas the woman with the alabaster box gives something of immense value in recognition of the One that is the eternal Temple, causing the onlookers to refer to this as a wasteful action. Jesus makes it clear that it is the former that was wasteful, whereas the latter was “a good service” (14:6b), and therefore not wasteful. We find this only at play in Mark, as Matthew leaves out the widow at the Temple, whereas Luke omits the woman with the alabaster box.
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