Now while Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the
leper, reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of costly
aromatic oil from pure nard. After breaking open the jar, she poured it
on his head. – Mark 14:3 (NET)
Jesus is at a meal table.
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.
Mark writes 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
the reader 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 this presents a much better
picture of Jesus’ posture, it is then possible to form a more complete picture
of what took place at this table.
It is said that there 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).
There is an interesting dynamic
that is at play here, having to do with the context in which Mark sets this
event. Though there is an intervening chapter of prophetic apocalyptic
speech (pulling back the veil) by Jesus (Mark 13), the previous event that is
recorded by Mark is that of Jesus observing the crowds making their offerings
at the Temple. While observing this activity, 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 itself quite 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 that would stand
eternally, so that nothing offered to it could possibly be considered a waste
(unlike the widow’s tragic offering).
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