EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
John 12:1. See Homiletic Note, p. 341.
John 12:2. The Synoptists inform us that it was in the house of Simon the leper (Matthew 26:6; Mark 14:3). It has been suggested that Simon was a relative of the family of Lazarus, or that Martha was the wife of Simon. There is no ground for such conjectures. It seems more in accordance with verisimilitude that Simon and Lazarus, being both subjects of Jesus’ healing power, resolved to honour their Benefactor, and that the feast was held in Simon’s house as being the most commodious. The special mention of the part taken by Martha, and the position of Lazarus at the board, favour this view.
John 12:3. A pound (λίτρα).—In Matthew and Mark “an alabaster” (cruse) is the term employed, i.e. a box or flask made of this beautiful spar, in which the ointment was hermetically sealed. Ointment of spikenard (μύρου νάρδου πιστικῆς).—I.e. either genuine or pure nard; or Pistic Nard, which is perhaps, as Westcott suggests, “a local technical term.” John does not mention, with Matthew and Mark, that Mary first anointed the head of Jesus, which was an ordinary mark of honour (Psalms 23:5; Luke 7:46). It is the extraordinary feature of the occurrence that this Evangelist records—Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair.
John 12:4. Simon’s son.—These words are omitted in all the best MSS.
John 12:5. Three hundred pence.—A little over £10 in our money.
John 12:6. Bag (γλωσσόκομον).—Chest or box. Bare (ἐβάσταζεν).—It means here, perhaps, bare or took away.
John 12:7. Let her alone, etc.—The best MSS. read “in order that she may keep this against the day,” etc.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— John 12:1-8
The anointing at Bethany.—It was eventide at the close of the Jewish Sabbath, the last Sabbath before the final passover of our Lord’s ministry, the passover at which He was to be offered up as the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The restful close of a restful day, bright with the sunshine of spring, beautiful and fragrant with the fresh greenery and the profusion of flowers of that season in Palestine, was this Sabbath evening. In the rural retreat at Bethany, hidden from the city by the brow of Olivet, Jesus and His disciples had passed the peaceful day. And now, when the rosy tints of sunset had faded from earth and sky, the little company was found under a hospitable roof for social cheer and intercourse. It was at the house of Simon the leper, probably one of those who had been healed by Jesus, that the guests had met (Matthew 26:6). Among them were the members of that family whose connection with it has made Bethany ever memorable. Martha, true to her character as depicted in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 10:40), was present, busied with needful and congenial household duties. Thus at the board were seated Jesus Himself and two of the trophies of His redeeming might: Simon, the host, who had been delivered from a double death in life; and Lazarus, “strange guest,” who but a short space before had been laid in the tomb with almost despairing sorrow, and had been summoned forth by the Life of men anew to see the light of mortal day, and to witness to the divine glory in the action of the Son of God. But this feast is memorable for the circumstance here related as having occurred at it.
I. The offering of loving devotion.—
1. After the signal miracle of the raising of Lazarus, Jesus had left the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, thus giving to His enemies a last opportunity for repentance (John 11:53-54). Since that time He had not been in Bethany, and Mary had had no opportunity of showing her affection and gratitude to Him.
2. But now, as she sees Him sitting at the table in Simon’s house, there rushes in upon her soul a sense of all the preciousness of Christ. What had He not been to her and hers during those years of intercourse! How blessed had those hours been when she had listened to His heavenly teaching, sitting like a disciple at the Master’s feet and learning of Him, drinking in His words of heavenly wisdom, with all their comfort and hope and promise!
3. Above all, there was Lazarus, her brother, seated there in health and vigour, whom Christ had snatched from the prison-house of the grave. Whichever way she turned, indeed, were evidences of the blessedness Jesus had brought to her home and to her own life. How shall she display all the gratitude and love that are welling up in her heart? Words! how poor they are to express love! Gifts! are they not even poorer?
4. There was one way in which she could in a measure express her feeling better than by costly gift, or even fervent speech. She possessed an alabaster box of an esteemed and precious unguent (Mark 14:3)—spikenard, or pistic nard; and approaching the Saviour, she broke the flask, and then poured the unguent on His head. This was in the East “an ordinary mark of honour” (Psalms 23:5). But passing beyond that, she showed a further token of her love and esteem in anointing His feet and wiping them with her hair.
5. Further than that, there may have been in Mary’s heart the idea, gathered not alone from Jesus’ own words, but from the hate and fury of His foes, that He might not be long here to receive such tokens of gratitude and affection. Mingled with this would be the feeling also that our Lord would be cheered in the midst of so much opposition by the consciousness of the deep love and devotion of those who knew Him best.
6. Thus she poured forth the precious oil, unconsciously as it were anointing the great kingly Priest after the order of Melchisedec, as He went forward on His path to conquer and redeem.
“Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,
Nor other thought her mind admits
But, he was dead, and there he sits,
And He that brought him back is there.
“Then one deep love doth supersede
All other, when her ardent gaze
Roves from the living brother’s face,
And rests upon the Life indeed.
“All subtle thought, all curious fears,
Borne down by gladness so complete,
She bows, she bathes the Saviour’s feet
With costly spikenard and with tears.
“Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers,
Whose loves in higher love endure;
What souls possess themselves so pure,
Or is there blessedness like theirs?”
In Memoriam, xxxii.
II. The worldly judgment of this offering.—
1. Acts of spiritual devotion are not to the world’s liking. The world cannot understand them, and dubs them with the epithet “enthusiastic,” or “fanatical,” or “foolish.” And thus it was here. From the Synoptic narratives we learn that the disciples of our Lord generally murmured at what they called the waste of the ointment.
2. But we further learn from this Gospel who it was that instigated this feeling. It was the traitor—the son of perdition. The sweet and penetrating odour of the nard actually stank in his nostrils. It awoke into active and hateful activity the avarice, the meanness, the duplicity, of his poor, degraded nature. A pound of spikenard—so costly—worth at least three hundred pence (about £10), which might have done so much for the poor by going into the bag, which was lean enough! Such whispers, circulated among the disciples, made them, at first view of the matter, indignant at the apparently wasteful act. And this feeling was readily expressed by Judas Iscariot.
3. But it was an altogether false and evil judgment; and the Evangelist, looking back on the scene, discovers for us the true meaning. Even at that very moment, Judas, that man of dark soul, was meditating the betrayal of Jesus. His plausible sympathy for the poor was altogether hypocritical. Much the poor would have got from him, even had the ointment been transmuted into gold; for “he bare the bag, and was a thief.” And as the time of betrayal was near, which would leave the bag entirely in his hands, he boiled over with avaricious rage to think how much more might have been in it had he had the disposal of this ointment.
4. It is very significant to read in Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 26:14-15) that immediately after this incident Judas went to the chief priests and said, “What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.” He has lost the three hundred pence, but He will have something to swell the small sum in that common purse, which, depend upon it, he will cling to when the end comes. What a contrast! The love and devotion of Mary side by side with the avarice, hatred, and hypocrisy of Judas. Here on earth they may be seen together, and may be misjudged—the avarice counted prudence, and the free-handed devotion waste. And yet even here there is fixed between a gulf as great—nay, that same gulf—as that which separates heaven from hell.
III. Our Lord’s appreciation of Mary’s act.—
1. The sensitive nature of Mary must have been deeply wounded. She was “troubled.” Had she done wrong? Not long was she permitted to be in suspense. The Lord spoke, and He spoke not directly to Judas, but generally to all the disciples: “Let her alone, that she may keep it for the day of My burial.” The other Gospels tell what the meaning of the deed was at that time. But it was preliminary to a further anointing, for which part of the costly unguent was preserved.
2. It was the beginning of a good work done on the Saviour, and having a double significance. Not only was it the anointing of our High Priest and King, who was to be hailed with hosannas on the coming day—the High Priest was also to be the sacrifice; and thus it was a beginning of His embalming, a preparation for the supreme act of His self-sacrificing and redeeming love.
3. The house was filled with the odour of the ointment; but it has gone forth also beyond the house at Bethany, and the world has been filled with the fragrance of this loving deed. It clings to this woman’s memory as an imperishable perfume; and as the gospel spreads, the sweet odour of this loving act spreads with its advance, teaching men the spirit of consecrated service, the spirit of true devotion to the Saviour. Mary had anointed Jesus; but His words, like a rich anointing, have imperishably embalmed the memory of her gentle, loving deed.
In this beautiful and touching episode, standing out more clear and beautiful against the dark background of the treachery of Judas, there are lessons of life and conduct.—
1. We cannot now imitate Mary’s act of love and devotion by doing what she did, but we may manifest the same love and do homage to Him in other ways. There are many gifts we may bring directly to Christ, many an act of service specially designed to honour Him. Love in every new age, and in every new combination of circumstances, will find and grasp the opportunity.
2. And such service done specially for Christ will never conflict with duty to the poor and indigent. What is really spent in honouring Him can never be “waste.” It is only the grasping, covetous mind that will ever grudge such manifestations of love. For in reality all that is done for His sake, and in advancing His kingdom, is in a broad but true sense done for the poor. For wherever His kingdom comes with power, there comes with it a greater care for the poor, a deeper sympathy for the wretched, a wider humanity.
3. A frequent objection to the cost of foreign missions, e.g., is that we have enough to do with home missions, the care of the poor, etc., as if the doing of one duty could absolve us from another specially commanded by Christ! If the believers of the apostolic age, and of the early Christian centuries, had acted thus, how would the gospel ever have been made known? And if we are to wait till every one at home is converted before going abroad, we shall have to wait till doomsday.
4. Beware of the sin of Judas! Temptation comes often to us in that very work for which we are best fitted. Judas was the accountant of the infant Church, perhaps because his gifts inclined him that way. His temptation lay in this very direction, that love of money which is a root of all evil. Hypocrisy and temptation made him a thief, and at last a criminal, who basely betrayed his Lord. “Lust, when it hath conceived,” etc. (James 1:15).
John 12:8. The Christian care of the poor.—The meaning of our Lord’s words is evidently this: “The poor,” etc.—As Moses wrote, “The poor shall never cease out of the land.” “But Me ye have not always.” But My person, My bodily presence, will be soon removed beyond immediate communion. The poor are always around you, but opportunities of personally ministering to My wants will soon be at an end.” Him they would have always in a spiritual sense (Matthew 28:20); but soon as the despised and rejected Emmanuel, who had not where to lay His head, He would no longer be known to them. And opportunities of thus showing their faith, homage, devotion to Him in His state of humiliation would no longer be afforded. In these words our Lord lays down the duty of Christians toward the poor in conjunction with special devotion to Christ.
I. The poor will always remain.—
1. There have been, and are, dreamers who imagine that if in some way or other all capital and property were, so to speak, commuted, then all men would be equally wealthy, that poverty would cease, and a sort of lotus-eater’s heaven begin on earth.
2. It is a vain dream, for men cannot commute and bring into one common fund health, intelligence, industry, skill, etc. These will always regain unequal, and thus some men will always rise higher than others.
3. Opportunity and position of course go for something, but they do not explain all social differences. I may be poor to-day, but my son may be rich to-morrow, having more faculty or greater skill in acquiring means. Or my neighbour may be rich to-day and his child poor to-morrow, because the latter had neither the health, nor skill, nor ability to retain and add to what has been bequeathed to him. There is a perpetual fluctuation, a rising and falling in the social scale, in so far as wealth is the standard.
4. And it is good that it should be so, otherwise humanity would stagnate. It is good for our common weal that few are absolutely idle, that all have to labour with hand or brain. And “honest poverty” that does not fall to utter destitution, but which permits the satisfaction of its simple wants, need make no man “hang his head.” It is the field on which grow many of the flowers of national virtue, and from it come forth many who are strong to endure and act for the good of the whole community.
5. But from this class, and from all classes, there come, part by force of circumstances, part through weakness of nature, and part through their own folly, a number who reach the lowest deeps of poverty, who are indigent and in want of things needful. It is to these our Lord specially referred when He said, “The poor,” etc.
II. In these words our Lord commits the care of the poor to His Church.—
1. He had made it His care while here to relieve the indigent. That was the reason partly of the existence of the “bag,” the common purse in the charge of Judas. And now our Lord made over this charge to the representatives and original members of the New Testament Church that stood around Him.
2. And certainly from what is recorded of the example of the early Church, and indications in the Gospels themselves and in our Lord’s teaching, there is much which would lead us to conclude that there should be a greater general distribution of the world’s wealth than there is. There is nothing in the New Testament to incite men to the interference with property which is a too common feature of socialistic panaceæ. But there is a warning against the accumulation of too great wealth, and the inculcation of a wider and freer spirit of benevolence.
3. “With Christianity began the organised and individual charity of modern Europe” (Loring-Brace). And it is a question whether it would not be better in a professedly Christian land to continue to permit the Church—all sections in this working in unity—to undertake the care of the poor. It is admitted by most that the present state-devised and worked method of relieving indigence is not the best; for it is neither the least expensive nor the most effective, in that it tends to break down the spirit of independence, whilst many of the most deserving indigent poor receive no benefit.
4. Hence there are still many charities in existence, having for their end the care of the poor. But never will this work be rightly done and this duty properly discharged until the Church as a whole, filled with the Spirit of her Master, realises the claims of the poverty-stricken and distressed, and, in the words of the Redeemer, “The poor,” etc., recognises the fact that these are committed to her care.
III. The cost of honour and devotion to Christ will never lessen care for and succour of the indigent and poor.—
1. Often the best way to help the poor is to help them to labour, or so to strengthen and support them that they may by-and-by be able to support themselves. So that even the pouring out of this ointment was no waste. There were poor men and women employed in the making of it and its costly case, and also in the various avenues of trade through which it came to the last buyer.
2. Thus many poor had food provided for them, and every new supply of spikenard meant bread and to spare in some humble home.
3. And especially if what is spent is dedicated with loving heart to the divine honour and glory, it will not lead to less being spent for the relief of the poor and indigent. The man who builds a church, e.g., to the glory of Christ, and who has it fitted up, with some true sense of the “beauty of holiness,” as a fitting place in which men may worship thankfully their God and Saviour, is not the man whose heart will be untouched by the tale of human misery, or whose hand will be slack in doing what the heart prompts, etc.
HOMILETIC NOTES
John 12:1-8. Jesus came from Ephraim, whither He had gone after the raising of Lazarus (John 11:54), on His way to the last passover at Jerusalem. He arrived at Jericho, in company, doubtless, with the pilgrim bands going up to keep the feast (Matthew 20:29). Resting at Jericho in the house of Zaccheus for a time, He then went on to Jerusalem (Luke 19:5; Luke 19:28), and came, as St. John records, to Bethany. The Synoptic Gospels place the incident of the anointing after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem; but that is for the purpose of bringing it into connection with the betrayal by Judas and the history of the passion generally. If we consider that the crucifixion took place “between the two evenings” of the 14th and 15th Nisan (see note, ch. 13), then the anointing took place in the evening at the close of the Sabbath, the day of rest which followed the journey to Bethany. On the following day (our Sunday) Jesus made His entry into Jerusalem amid the shouts of Hosanna. He would therefore reach Bethany on the eve of the Sabbath (the 8th Nisan).
Bethany (now called El-’Azrîyeh—El-’Azîr, i.e. Lazarus) is at present a small, poor village on the east slope of Olivet, about two miles from Jerusalem. The name signifies “house of dates.” The traces of ancient buildings, and the fact that even the houses of the present day are built out of old and somewhat heavier stones than we should expect to find villagers’ houses built of, show that at one time the place was of more importance than it is now. But almost no place in Palestine fills a greener spot in memory. It was apparently a place of rest and refreshing for the Redeemer (Matthew 21:17; Luke 10:38-42; John 11:1, etc.). And the recollection of the home there is a sunny one, with one night of darkness (John 11:17), and one passing cloud (John 12:4-6).
ILLUSTRATIONS
John 12:6. The love of money.—In every nation there are, and must always be, a certain number of those fiends’ servants who have it principally for the object of their lives to make money. They are always more or less stupid, and cannot conceive of anything else so nice as money. Stupidity is always the basis of the Judas bargain. We do great injustice to Iscariot in thinking him wicked above all common wickedness. He was only a common money-lover, and, like all money-lovers, didn’t understand Christ; couldn’t make out the worth of Him, or meaning of Him. He didn’t want Him to be killed. He was horror-struck when he found that Christ would be killed; threw his money away instantly, and hanged himself. How many of our present money-seekers, think you, would have the grace to hang themselves, whoever was killed? But Judas was a common, selfish, muddle-headed, pilfering fellow; his hand always in the bag of the poor, not caring for them. He didn’t understand Christ; yet believed in Him, much more than most of us do; had seen Him do miracles, thought He was quite strong enough to shift for Himself, and he, Judas, might as well make his own little bye-perquisites out of the affair. Christ would come out of it well enough, and he have his thirty pieces. Now, that is the money-seeker’s idea, all over the world. He doesn’t hate Christ, but can’t understand Him—doesn’t care for Him—sees no good in that benevolent business; makes his own little job out of it at all events, come what will. And thus, out of every mass of men, you have a certain number of bagmen—your “fee-first” men, whose main object is to make money. And they do make it—make it in all sorts of unfair ways, chiefly by the weight and force of money itself, or what is called the power of capital; that is to say, the power which money, once obtained, has over the labour of the poor, so that the capitalist can take all its produce to himself, except the labourer’s food. That is the modern Judas’s way of “carrying the bag,” and “bearing what is put therein.”—Ruskin.
John 12:8. The rise of organised Christian charity.—With Christianity began the organised and individual charity of modern Europe, which for these eighteen centuries has wiped away so many tears, softened so much suffering, saved so many young lives from misery and sin, ministered at so many deathbeds, made the solitary evening of life sweet to so many forsaken ones, and the morning glad to so many who would have been born to sorrow and shame; which in so many countries has cared for the sick, the blind, the deaf, the crippled, the outcast and tempted; the young, the orphan, the foundling, and the aged. Surely, if anything is a fore-gleam of that kingdom of heaven which is yet to shine over the earth, it is the brotherhood of spirit, shown in the charity of the modern world. This is most distinctly the fruit of Christ’s teachings. And yet the Master did not lay any extraordinary weight on alms-giving. He simply taught the love of man through love to Himself, that the poorest and lowest of the human race represented Himself, and what was done to them was done to Him. The equal brotherhood of man came forth from His teachings, and all human beings, of whatever rank, or under whatever disabilities of misfortune, became of equal value in the eyes of His followers, as being those for whom He lived, and in behalf of whom He felt it not unworthy to die. The unfortunate had henceforth around them the halo of the great Sufferer, and a very different place in the sympathies of the new world of Europe.—C. Loring-Brace.
John 12:8. The effect of Christianity on pauperism.—It has been alleged, with some apparent justice, that this spirit of Christian charity, which has made modern society so different from ancient, has cultivated dependence, and increased pauperism or that kind of poverty which is without hope or energy. But it should be remembered that there is nothing in the teachings of Christ or the apostles which favoured indiscriminate alms-giving, or the supporting the poor without labour. “If a man will not work, neither shall he eat,” is evidently a favourite proverb with the great apostle. He himself laboured with his own hands. The disciples were working people; and Christ, in human relations, belonged to the working classes. The type of character He stamped on men was the very opposite of the idle and dependent kind; it was earnest, self-controlled, under a deep sense of responsibility, looking continually to Him to whom men should give an account of every word and work, with the conviction of being the child of God, and therefore calling no man master.… The influence of the great Master is directly to lessen one of the greatest of human ills—pauperism. The self-control, sobriety, temperance, and moderation He teaches tend to a certain control over circumstances. The good-will He encourages brings sympathy and help from others. The great sources of poverty are idleness, intemperance, and vice. The Christian, other things being equal, is less likely to be very poor and a pauper he cannot easily be—that is, he cannot have that spirit of dependence, idleness, and dishonesty which are the essentials of pauperism. If by misfortune he come to the lowest depths of human ills, be bears as a greater One hath taught him to bear, and does not become degraded in spirit. Having a sense of his great dignity as a child of God, and one for whom Christ hath lived and died, he is less likely to become a parasite on society. And ever being in the mental habit of looking forward to the judgment of another life, he will be the more apt to provide for the ills of this; so under Christianity society tends, as has often been seen on the rugged soil and under the harsh climate of New England, to throw off pauperism and eliminate poverty. Many villages are known in that region, apparently so little favoured otherwise by Providence, where not a pauper and scarcely an abjectly poor person can be found for miles around—the causes of this good fortune being mainly moral.—Idem.
John 12:8. The manner in which Christianity may mitigate poverty in the future.—It is not claimed that religion alone in future ages can remove pauperism from the world, but the Christian belief will tend towards a more just distribution of property; it will promote temperance and good morals; it will stimulate co-operation between labourers and between labour and capital; it will encourage many forms of insurance, and above all elevate and train the character, so that the human being, though unfortunate, cannot be degraded; and thus under the influence of Christ on the world the labouring classes will be less likely to fall into extreme poverty, and if they do, will be more readily assisted, or will not sink morally. Cabet, a socialistic writer, well says: “If Christianity had been interpreted and applied in the spirit of Jesus Christ, if it had been well known and faithfully practised by the numerous portions of Christians who are animated by a sincere piety, and who have only need to know truth well to follow it, this Christianity, its morals, its philosophy, its precepts, would have sufficed, and would still suffice, to establish a perfect society and political organisation, to deliver humanity from the evil which weighs it down, and to assure the happiness of the human race on earth.”—Idem.
John 12:8. Sympathy with the poor.—Nothing seems much clearer than the natural direction of charity. Would we all but relieve, according to the measure of our means, those objects immediately within the range of our personal knowledge, how much of the worst evil of poverty might be alleviated! Very poor people, who are known to us to have been honest, decent, and industrious, when industry was in their power, have a claim on us, founded on our knowledge, and on vicinity and neighbourhood, which have in themselves something sacred and endearing to every good heart. One cannot, surely, always pass by, in his walks for health, restoration, or delight, the lone, wayside beggar, without occasionally giving him an alms. Old, careworn, pale, drooping, and emaciated creatures, who pass us by without looking beseechingly at us, or even lifting up their eyes from the ground, cannot often be met with, without exciting an interest in us for their silent and unobtrusive sufferings or privations. A hovel, here and there, round and about our own comfortable dwelling, attracts our eyes by some peculiar appearance of penury, and we look in, now and then, upon its inmates, cheering their cold gloom with some small benefaction. These are duties all men owe to distress; they are easily discharged; and even such tender mercies as these are twice blessed.—Chalmers.