Sermon from January 13, 2002
Mark 13 ends with Jesus' dramatic parable. "Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It's like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

"Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back – whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. It he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: "Watch!"

You and I hear those words, and our minds go immediately to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the preparedness of the Church for that great event. We are of course right to think that way. We must never give it up. But suppose those words had an intermediate application. Suppose Jesus was alerting His followers to be on guard, not only for the Second Coming but also for other critical moments in life. Mark has written his Gospel in a way that supports this idea. Let me show you.

Look first at Mark 13:35. Jesus tells us that we do not know when the owner of the house will come back, and then he mentions four times of day when the owner might come back: in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. Now, let me show you how Mark has interwoven those times into chapter 14.

Look first at verse 17. When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve to celebrate Passover. And what is the first conversation Mark reports in verses 18-21? It is the prediction that one of His inner circle of twelve men is going to betray Him. The disciples are stunned. Evening is a moment of truth.

Look next at verse 38. Jesus, Peter, James and John have drawn apart from the other disciples, and Jesus goes apart from them in order to pray. He comes back and, since it is the middle of the night, He finds the three men asleep. He says to them in verse 38, "Watch!" It is the same language in which He had spoken to them at the end of chapter 13. In the moment of Jesus' great personal agony, they had failed to watch. Midnight has become a moment of truth.

Look next at verses 71-72. Peter has already twice denied any association with Jesus. Then, a group of people near Peter say that his Galilean accent gives him away as a follower of Jesus. Verse 71 says, He began to call down curses on himself, and he swore to them, "I don't know this man you are talking about." Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. The rooster's crowing becomes a moment of truth.

Finally, Mark 15:1 completes the deliberate use of Mark 13:35 in putting together the pivotal events leading up to Jesus' crucifixion. Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. Their decision of course was to turn Jesus over to the Roman bureaucrat in charge of Jewish affairs, Pontius Pilate, who that morning sentences Jesus to death. Morning becomes a moment of truth.

In writing Jesus' words in chapter 13:35 "Mark believed in a final day when God the householder would call his servants to account (at the Second Coming), but he sees that day anticipated in the critical moments of his story. Hence the servants (the followers of Christ) must be vigilant at all times, because the master comes to each of them at an hour and in a manner that he least expects," (G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, 267).

That is how I want us to understand Jesus' words at the end of chapter 13. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ to call humanity to account will be anticipated in the critical events of a civilization, of a nation, of a church, of an individual. In those moments, whether it be the Second World War, the September 11 Attack on America, the Reformation in the 16th century, the threat of a church split, or a couple's contemplation of divorce, the Lord of the Church who is the Lord of the nations is present to test the loyalties of human beings to the Kingdom of God.

Today, we turn to the testing of individuals and Empire that took place in the last hours of Jesus of Nazareth. We begin in chapter 14:1, and I want you to be aware of a curious feature that characterizes the last three chapters of Mark. We can see this feature quite clearly in our text today, Mark 14:1-9.

The feature I am talking about is an alternation between an episode that centers on pivotal events that lead to the crucifixion of Jesus and an episode that centers on the spiritual significance of those events. Back and forth the narrative goes right to the end. We begin in verses 1-2 with the first pivotal event that led to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. "But not during the Feast," they said, "or the people may riot."

Passover is to Judaism what the Fourth of July is to America. It is a celebration of liberation, although this comparison also fails in significant ways. The 13 colonies were not slaves as were the Hebrews, nor were the Hebrews liberated by military action but by an act of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Furthermore, Passover did not occupy just one day on the calendar in the first century Israel. It may have gone on for a week or more, and the place to be was in Jerusalem.

The high point of Passover, in keeping with the commands of the Torah, was the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb in the Jerusalem temple. It was that sacrifice that Mark had in mind when he said that the Passover was only two days away. Jews from across the Roman Empire had come to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. For some the moment was marred by the disruptive presence of Jesus and His scruffy followers from Galilee. It is clear from verse two that Jewish officials feared a public riot.

But something more than public order occupied the minds of the authorities. They were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. As we go through the last chapters of Mark, we will try to understand the motives behind their murderous intent. Verse two helps us understand the tricky position they were in. Jesus Himself might indeed be the occasion of a public riot, and they feared that. On the other hand, if they pursued their murderous intentions toward Jesus carelessly, they themselves might cause the very public disturbance they wanted to avoid. Mark 14-15 will show us how they solved their tricky political problem.

the first pivotal event, therefore, that would result in the crucifixion of Jesus, is a policy decision by the authorities in Jerusalem. They did not know how or when, but they began looking for a quiet way to arrest Him, get Him out of public view and get rid of Him. What happens next in Mark's story takes place a few miles east of Jerusalem, but its atmosphere and meaning might seem to come from another planet.

The hamlet of Bethany (modern day el-Azariyeh) lies about two miles east of Jerusalem on the southeast slope of the Mount of Olives. Jesus retreated there at night during His last week in Jerusalem. There, the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. On this occasion something unpredictable happens.

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper (Jesus keeps such impeccable comany!), a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. This astonishing act deserves special treatment, and I will come back to it after we see its meaning in the story Mark has told. He focuses first on the hostile reaction of verse four and five.

Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly. I want you to notice three things about this response.

Firse, verse five explains how expensive the perfume itself is, when they say it could have been sold for more than a year's wages. It is easy to see why people see in the woman's act a careless and wasteful extravagance. There is something else we can see in it, and we will get to that in a minute.

Second, the reason given for their indignation at the woman is honorable. The perfume could have been sold, and the money given to the poor. Few of us know what life is like without Social Security and Medicare. Without such centralized programs the care of the elderly, the sick and the indigent falls to families and to the voluntary generosity of the well-to-do. There was reason for indignation.

Third, were the motives for their indignation pure? Something about their reaction bothers me. I am speculating, and I would encourage you to weigh carefully the merits of what I am about to say. I may be reading back into this episode a piece of modern psychology that has no place there.

Did they overreact, and is their overreaction an indication of something other than concern for the poor? Verse four says that they expressed their indignation first among themselves. Then, they rebuke the woman, and they do it harshly. Sometimes human beings display that kind of righteous anger as a cover for less noble motives. Since there was more than one person, maybe there was more than one motive. I will tell you that when the Gospel of John reports this event in John 12:4-6, it attributes the primary objection to Judas and says that he did it, not ... because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. Whatever the mix of motivation, Jesus would have none of it.

"Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.

In a flash Jesus' words connect the woman's adoration with the policy decision of the Jewish officials. Jesus, who foretold His rejection, suffering and death three times earlier in Mark, interprets the woman's act in a way that probably never entered her mind. It anticipated the burial rites that would be accorded Jesus in oh! so short a time.

The consciousness of Jesus correlates with the policy of the officials and carries the fateful story forward toward its conclusion.

Jesus then pays tribute to the woman for her act and for the meaning, which she never intended but which was true all the same." I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her." And here we are, 200 years later, remembering that woman, honoring that woman, just as Jesus said we would.

I would like to honor her in one more way by reflecting on her act of adoration. I want to explore with you the nature of her act and what it tells us about the possibilities of spiritual devotion. We see the nature of her act in what she did and what she did it for.

What she did seems clear. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. But what a jar and what perfume! I saw an alabaster jar, which was made to hold perfume, at the King Tut, Egyptian exhibit that toured the U.S. a few years ago. It was much larger than I expected, and I cannot imagine the price tag for an object like that. Alabaster jars had great value then as well, and that woman took it and simply broke it, so that the jar would have no more usefulness. She did the same with the perfume that was worth more than a year's wages.

And what did she do it for? For no practical purpose, it would seem. Her act does not help the poor. It went way beyond the act of hospitality in which a host would put a daub of oil on his guests' heads (Lk. 7:46). The perfume is irretrievably lost, as is the jar, and materially the world is none the better for it. It appears that, having used these precious instruments in her act of devotion to Jesus, she wanted to make sure that they would never be used again.

So, what does this tell us about the possibilities of spiritual devotion? First, it would be impossible and disruptive for even one person to express devotion like this day in and day out. Routine destructiveness would no longer express devotion; it would simply be destruction. The spiritual value of the woman's act lies in its symbolic power.

On one hand, her symbolic act stands as a perpetual reminder that spiritual realities, not material possessions, deserve humanity's deepest allegiance. On the other hand, the infrequency of such symbolic acts stands as a perpetual reminder that material possessions are not evil in themselves, and their wanton destruction would be an offense against the great spiritual realities that deserve our deepest allegiance.

Second, the woman's act takes my language of spiritual realities and gives it focus. Jesus Christ and all He stands for deserve our deepest allegiance. A few months ago, in one of those fascinating conversations at our front door, a friend of someone here wanted to know the difference between Islam and Christianity. The short answer is simple: Jesus Christ is the difference. Islam honors Jesus Christ; Christianity thinks Him worthy of deeds of adoration such as the woman's, which Islam reserves only for Allah.

There is a third meaning in the woman's act that connects with us. The harsh treatment she received came at the hands of people closest to Jesus. Isn't that always the toughest thing to take? If you stay around churches long enough, you will get hurt. It is terribly easy to respond by saying, "If that's the way Christian people are, I don't want any part of the Church or even God."

One of the most common accusations I hear goes like this: "I don't go to church, because it's full of hypocrites." I say, "You're right. So what? What did you expect?" When people walk in here, they don't check their humanity at the door. We bring with us all our bad manners, bad habits, bad connections, and bad language. God throws us together, and in a fit of divine humor calls us saints.

The woman in Mark 14 saw past her abusive friends. She remembered the center of all that matters and worshiped Him. If we can do the same, it will liberate us from the sinfulness and abuse of other people. We will ourselves become a kind of alabaster jar that can be broken and pour out praise and worship on Jesus Christ.