John 12:1-11--The Stage is Set

John 12:1-11
English Standard Version
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Mary Anoints Jesus at Bethany
12 Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. 3 Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” 6 He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. 8 For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”

The Plot to Kill Lazarus
9 When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, 11 because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

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The title may seem a little strange, but I want to point out how John is now intentionally counting down days until the Feast of the Passover.  The reason for this is that John knows that Jesus is going to be sacrificed as the Passover Lamb on that day and this is countdown to how many days are left for Jesus.  We see that we have less than a week's time remaining, and some things are going to happen in this passage that show that Jesus knows that He's about to die and to prepare His disciples for the reality that He is about to die.

First, we see that Mary of Bethany, the same Mary that is the sister of Lazarus that we saw in chapter 11, is going to anoint Jesus with some very expensive perfume.  John actually tells us the exact weight and type--a pound of expensive ointment made of pure nard, and she used this to anoint Jesus' feet while He was reclining at the table and then wiped His feet with her hair.  The perfume was very strong so that the whole house was filled with the fragrance of this offering that she was making.

John now gives us a little behind-the-scenes with Judas Iscariot who we learn was the "treasurer" of the group.  He protests that such expensive perfume should not be wasted in this way, but if Mary wanted to give it as an offering she should have sold it and given the money to the disciples (which would have put it into the money bag that he controlled).  We see Judas claim that they could have sold the ointment for at least 100 denarii (that is about 3 month's wages), and he claimed that he would have given the money to the poor.  However, John, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit and probably close association with Judas over these years, reveals that his actual motive here is that he wanted access to the money because he had been embezzling money from the money bag (taking money for himself out of the funds that had been given to support their ministry).  It was because of his greed and covetousness that he was angry.  The text also reminds us that this is the same Judas that is about to betray Jesus (for 30 pieces of silver), so we will see that Judas has such a problem with greed that he was willing to betray Jesus for the price set by the Pharisees (by way of the Old Testament) for a man's life--30 pieces of silver (shekels).

Jesus softly rebukes Judas without exposing him to the entire group, which He easily could have done as He had done with the Pharisees.  He knew what was in Judas's heart and could have said, "Why do continue to let money be master over you?" or "You and I both know that you have no intention of giving the money to the poor, and that you only desire it for yourself," but Jesus did none of that.  Instead He focused on the offering that was being presented to Him and told Judas to leave Mary alone because she was anointing Him for His burial.  Jesus then makes a comment that seems strange, but maybe they were just used to Him saying "strange" things by now.  "You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."  Both of these things strike me as odd because they imagined that Jesus was going to be the Messiah and that part of that is that He would eliminate poverty.  Jesus challenges this idea and says that it's going to be a perpetual issue as long as this fallen world exists (it will be an issue eliminated in the New Heavens and the New Earth), and also the fact that He just talked about His own burial and that time is short.  They just seemed to let this one fly right past them.  They either didn't hear what He said or just didn't want to hear what He was saying.  This certainly wasn't the first time He had talked about dying and we have seen some times where they tried to argue with Him about this and it didn't end well, so maybe they had just learned to keep their mouths shut on this so as to not have a repeat of the "Get behind me, Satan" conversation that happened with Simon Peter.

We wrap up this day with the crowds gathering around Jesus and the Pharisees and other religious leaders plotting to kill Jesus, and not just Jesus, but they also plot to kill Lazarus because Jesus had brought him back from the dead and he was living proof that Jesus was the Son of God.  As long as Lazarus lived and people knew that he had been dead and had been made alive, they didn't have much that they could say or do against Jesus.

All the pieces are in place, and Jesus is about to kick things into high gear on the next day that we would consider the beginning of Holy Week/Passion Week with what we call Palm Sunday.  We won't see Jesus stopping to rest at all and He will be giving it His all, all day long to finish the words and works that have been given Him by the Father before the Feast of Passover.  This is also going to put this event that we're studying tomorrow on a very special day for the Jews--the day that the Passover Lamb was selected by each Jewish family.  We know for John's timeline that tomorrow's events will be five days before the Passover which is the exact day that the selection is commanded in Exodus 12--see verses 1-6 to see that what we know as Passion Week is adhering to this timeline).  We'll talk about that more starting tomorrow.