The Oil of Devotion
The woman pouring the costly ointment over Jesus is a beautiful display of her love for Him and relationship with Him. Deeds done with love as the basis are not without value. Yet her act was diminished by the disciples as impractical. Its a matter of the heart vs practicality, though the oil could have been sold to the poor, Jesus viewed her act as better because it was birthed from her heart. Mary’s alabaster jar was very expensive and so was the oil, which the Mark 14:3 mentions was spikenard. The disciples were so blinded that they didn’t take seriously the fact that Jesus’ death was imminent. They didn’t realize that truly she was preparing Him for burial. They overlooked the fact that they would not have Him for long and cared more about other things than the care of the Master. Their values were not in the same heartbeat as Jesus’ even after having been with Him for 3 years. Mary’s act of devotion He said would be remembered wherever the Gospel was preached. He never said that about any of the disciples.
The Passover Table
To break bread with someone was a sign of covenant friendship in the Middle East in those days. Though Judas had evil in his heart, Jesus still showed him friendship, even to the end. When you drink from the same cup as someone else, there is a sense of bond-ship, familiarity, love. When you eat directly from someone else hand, there is a release of both parties in the bond of unity, acceptance and desire. There was a covenant, a testament, an agreement of unity that Jesus was making with His disciples and all who would believe in Him through their lives, lived for the Gospel. This was no ordinary bread or ordinary wine. It was His body and His blood.
Jesus spoke more of His death and even His resurrection and that He’d meet them in Galilee, but the disciples weren’t in awe of any of that. Peter was concerned about being more loyal to Him than the other disciples; competition and pride were evident. However so, Jesus cautioned Peter about his self-righteous pride, though He prophesied Peter would deny Him three times. Yet not only Peter, but all the disciples chimed in and declared their pride of never denying Jesus. Yet we find when he was betrayed by Judas and arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, they all fled, leaving Him completely abandoned.
His Grief in Gethsemane
Peter, Jacob & John were the 3 disciples who had gone with Jesus to the mount of transfiguration. He also took these 3 to the Garden of Gethsemane. It seems they were privileged to share with Jesus in moments of glory on the mount and moments of pain in Gethsemane’s garden.
Jesus going away to pray to the Father to ask in humility to allow the cup of suffering to pass shows that truly, He as God in flesh, walking as a Man, relinquished all of His power and became lower than the angels and lived completely dependent on Abba Father. Jesus, in every aspect of His life on Earth endured everything that we have or will go through as humanity and showed us how to be led by the Spirit and depend on God in every way.
As Jesus prayed and the 3 disciples who were with Him slept, Judas was coming with a mob to betray Him. Judas told those who would arrest Jesus that he’d be distinguished by a his kiss of greeting. Paul, in many of his epistles to the Churches encouraged those in the fellowships to greet one another with a holy kiss. Judas uses this act of endearment and friendship under the guise of betrayal. Yet amid the evil that manifested in Judas’s actions, Jesus returned the greeting with humility and care in still calling him a “Friend.” I have a friend who had a vision of being in God’s arms, yet God wasn’t looking at him and he wondered why. He saw that God’s attention was on something else. When he looked in the direction God was looking, the Earth came into view and a person whom he knew came into view. This person had previously betrayed him, yet God looked at that person with longing and love. Though this person had done wrong to the person who was in Gods arms, God’s heart was longing for that person to know His love. What a perfect picture of God’s heart toward humanity especially those of us tied up in sin.
Jesus was arrested and Peter, in His defense resorted to violence. Jesus said those who live by violence will die by violence and what was happening was prophetically designed. Jesus was merciful to the end, and a teacher to the end.
Summary
- Don’t allow life to tare you away today
- Surrender your will to God’s
- Extend mercy despite the offense
- Live by anger and you’ll die by it
- Be steadfast in prayer
- Don’t fail to be on watch
- Jesus doesn’t need defending
- Don’t let tragedy lead to tragic measures
