THE MEANING OF MARY’S PERFUME
John 12: 1-8
This morning we are considering the gift Mary gave to Jesus. “Then Mary took about a pint of
pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.”
(John 12:3).In addition to information I will share this morning, you will be asked to do some
thinking on your own, deciding what you have to offer Jesus.
Mary gifting Jesus a bottle of perfume is something with which we can all identify. We do gifts:
on birthdays, for a Child’s baptism, weddings, anniversaries, as thank you gifts, retirement gifts
and housewarming gifts.This congregation has a tradition at Christmas of asking the Salvation
Army to provide names of families in need. You take a name, and purchase gifts for gifts for that
family.If you have ever hosted a foreign exchange student, you know they come with unique and
interesting gifts in their suitcasesfor their host families.
Mary presented the gift of perfume for Jesus for a couple of reasons.ONE REASON BEING,
SHE KNEW JESUS WAS ABOUT TO DIE.He would need to a burial, a proper burial. Jesus
said to Judas, “Leave her alone. It was meant that she should save this perfume for the day of
my burial.” (John 12: 7)A proper burial in the Jewish traditions of Jesus’s day was to:wash the
body of the deceased with clear water. Then anoint the body with perfume or oil.The body was
then wrapped in strips of cloth.Before sundown the body was then placed on a limestone shelf or
ledge down inside a tomb.Over time, the limestone rock leeched the fluids out of the body.So
that after some months and years, all that remained of the body was the bones.Cemetery workers
then entered the cave, the tomb.They removed the strips of linen cloth.The skull was removed
from the skeleton, and stacked with all the other skulls, against one wall of the tomb.The bones
of the skeleton were separated one from the other, and neatly stacked in orderly piles against
another wall with everybody else’s bones.This leeching the fluids from the body on the limestone
shelf, the disassembling and stacking of the bones, made it possible to store a great many bodies
down in a tomb.
The most highly religious step of the burial process was anointing the body with perfume or oil.
Anointing signified that the person was consecrated to God, that he or she belonged to God.
Here was the one exception.Criminals were denied having their bodies anointed. Once again,
here is judgmentalism showing up. The belief of that day was that a criminal could not possibly
belong to God. Jesus had been unfairly labeled a criminal, by His enemies. Mary must have
known that the authorities would not allow Jesus’ body to be anointed after he died. So she knelt
and anointed her Lord’s feet, just hours before he died.
Mary was showing religious devotion to her Lord.What is your best devotional practice?Praising
Jesus in song? Meditating on words of Scripture? Do you journal your prayers?The Lake Huron
United Methodist Retreat Center at North Lakeport has a prayer labyrinth on the ground that can
be prayerfully walked.Anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume was an act of devotion. What is your
best devotional practice?
MARY’S GIFT WAS ALSO AN EXPRESSION OF HER GRATITUDE.Verse 1 says,“Six
days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised
from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was
among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an
expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.” (John 12: 1-3).
Mary was the sister of thisLazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead.Mary’s gift ofperfume,was
her way of thanking Jesus for bringing back her brother from the dead.Very similar to, if a police
officer dove in the river and saved one of your family membersfrom drowning, you would most
certainly invite the officer to your home for dinner, and present her or him with a gift.
We thank Jesus for saving us, every time we sing the hymn, “Amazing grace, How sweet the
sound, That saved a wretch like me” and other hymns like it.We may not be able to say that Jesus
saved us from the lifestyle of being a slave trader, as was the case of the writer of that hymn,
John Newton.No one in this congregation may be able to say God saved them from a Hells
Angels motorcycle gang. We can celebrate Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross saved us or is in the
process of saving us from, the sins of: pride, selfishness, judgmentalism, and sins of the Tongue,
envy, jealousy, impatience and irritability
And not only does God save us fromthings. God saved us for something – for a life of joyful
Christian service. And we will ever be eternally grateful.
Mary’s wayof showing gratitude for Jesus saving her brother was a perfume called nard, or
spikenard. Spikenard received its name from spike-like shape root and stem of the nard herb that
grows in the Himalayan Mountains. In Jesus’ day, the price for one pint of spikenard perfume
was 300 denarri. One denarri was the average daily wage for a worker. So apint of perfume
costing 300 denarri such as Mary poured on Jesus’ feet, represented 300 days of wages.
It was quite an expensive gift, then,that Mary gave Jesus, when she poured the perfume on his
feet.To what expense are you and I willing to go to demonstrate our gratitude to Jesus Christ?
Several years ago, when Mark Trotter was Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church of
San Diego, he told a true story about a man in New York City who was kidnapped. His
kidnappers called his wife and demanded $100,000 ransom for his release. She countered with a
lower offer. The kidnappers countered her counter. She talked them down to $30,000.
The story had a happy ending. The man returned home unharmed.The ransom money was
recovered.The kidnappers were caught and sent to prison.
Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall though, to hear what was said when the man got and
discovered that his wife got him back for a discount price? Can’t you just hear her saying over
the telephone to the kidnappers.“$100,000 for that old geezer? Are you crazy!”“Just look at
him.”“Look at that gut!”“You want $100,000 for that?”“You’ve got to be kidding.”“$30,000 is
my top offer. Take it or leave it.”
That story might make us chuckle, until we recall we are the wife in that story. When we earn
$25,000 a year income but give only $500 to the church.Or earn $35,000 and give only $1,000.
Or earn $50,000and give only $2,000.What does that say about our love relationship with God?
How much we loveGod is glaringly revealed in our patterns of giving.One of the blessings of
tithing, or giving 10 percent of our income to the church – is that it helps us keep alive our love
for God.If you love someone, then you will bring home gifts to them. Mary loved Jesus. She
gave spontaneously to her Lord, without too much calculating, out of a heart full of gratitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson made the point in his writings that if the constellations in the night sky
appeared just once in a thousand years; imagine what an exciting event that would be. But
because those stars are there every night, we barely give them a look.
Imagine that this year at the Easter services of First United Methodist Church we heard for the
first and only time in our lives, the wonderful news that Jesus died for our sins and three days
rose from the dead. What an exciting service that would be! Can we find a way to regain that
sense of gratitude for Jesus dying and rising from the dead for us?
So just what does it mean to be a Mary? – to be a grateful disciple of Jesus who kneels at His
feet? It means kneeling in humble service before other human beings, the ones to whom Jesus
referred when he said, “When you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it unto
me” (Matthew 25: 40) Becoming a friend to someone of the church, who does not receive a lot
of attention.Working withchildren of the church, as part of a Sunday School class or Kids
Discovery Network. Taking the Sunday bulletin and a cookie from Wesley Hall to elderly people
listed in the bulletins.Becoming part of the mission work team that during the first week of June
will travel to the east coast clean and clean up homes damaged by the hurricane.
My wife’s sister returned to last week from Papua New Guinea, where she has been a missionary
for two decades.When your sister is a missionary, missionary publications arrive in your mail.
Many of those publications include stories about people in foreign lands. There is an interesting
story about the Masai tribe ofWest Africa. The Masai have an unusual way of expressing their
gratitude. They stand outside the hut of a person who did something kind or heroic for them,
bow their foreheads very low so that it touches the ground, and say, “My head is in the
dirt.”That is their way of saying, “Thanks.”
Mary, bowed her head, looking down, wiping the dirt and perfume from Jesus’feet. Mary
understood, like the Masai tribe, as do you – that gratitude at its very core, is an act of humble
service.