The Alabaster Box.
Here is a woman probably a poor woman doing an action which excites the indignation of the whole Church. Not a voice is heard in her favour except sublime exception! the voice of Jesus. In such circumstances there must be something worth looking at. A minority which God approves must not be overlooked with heedlessness and contempt. The wisdom in this case is with the few, and the folly with the many; the wisdom is with love, not policy, with gratitude, not calculation.
The points of special interest are these:
I. The all-surrendering generosity of love. The woman had ah alabaster box of very precious ointment only one box and that solitary box she broke, and poured its pure nard on the only human head that had not lost its crown. Love never puts its own name upon anything. Love has some object, must have some object, on whose shrine it lays its every possession. Love, warm, intelligent, growing love, keeps back nothing from God.
II. The moral blindness of a prudential policy in the service of Christ. There are men who can never take other than an arithmetical view of things. They are the keen economists of the Church; they get near enough to Christ to ascertain the texture of His garments, and to calculate the value of His seamless vesture. There is a point of criticism here most singularly suggestive. The same word in the original is used to signify both waste and perdition; and if we connect this idea with another, we shall apprehend the idea I wish to present. "Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition;" and this very son of perdition was the man who, on another occasion, and probably on this, called a sacrifice "waste," and vehemently maintained the claims of the poor. There, then, is the startling fact before us, that the men who denominate other people's service "waste" are themselves the most likely to be cast away as the refuse of the universe.
III. The all-comprehending wisdom of the Saviour's judgment. (1) He shows His anxiety for the peace of all who attempt to. serve Him. (2) He shows His sympathy with the poor. (3) He shows that every age brings its own opportunities for doing good.
IV. The assured immortality of goodness.
Parker, Hidden Springs,p. 276; see also Inner Life of Christ,vol. iii., p. 194.
References: Matthew 26:6-13. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 156; Homiletic Magazine,vol. xii., p. 141; A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 300.