Mary’s Beautiful Gift

I always find it a great honor and privilege to talk about Christmas and the coming of Jesus. One of the traditions I think all of us have at Christmas is the giving of gifts. I love that process—not so much personally receiving gifts (I make my family crazy because there’s nothing that I want or need, and they say that’s not fair)—but I love searching for just the right thing to match just the right person, a gift that’s appropriate and would be valuable to them.

And so, I want to take you to a little story in the life of Jesus that I don’t think gets as much attention as it should get, but there are ways in which it’s the perfect Christmas story. This is Mark 14:3-9:

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

There is a of couple things that jump off the page right away in this story. First of all, that Jesus is reclining in the house of a leper, which itself is radical. Lepers were outcasts. They were driven outside of the city walls because leprosy was a communicable disease and it was a horrible thing to experience.

But the story quickly turns to this moment when this woman—we know from other passages it was Mary—pulls out this alabaster flask and pours it over Jesus’ head in an act of anointing. What’s striking is that, immediately, those who are watching—again, we know from other accounts, the disciples—were immediately outraged. The reason they’re outraged is because they know how costly this gift was.

Nard was from a root of a plant that grew in the lower regions of the Himalayan Mountains. Those roots didn’t let off a lot of liquid, so the process was hard, and then it had to travel all the way from what would be northern India all the way to Palestine. So, it was, in our terms, ridiculously expensive. 300 denarii is the equivalent of a year salary for the average worker in New Testament time.

Can you imagine ever thinking of buying a bottle of perfume that cost your entire year’s salary? It’s an incredible moment. Nard was used as a perfume. It was used actually as aromatherapy. It was thought to relieves stress and anxiety. It was very valuable. Everybody in the room would have been naturally aghast at this act.

But Mary, of all the people in the room, had the right set of values, because Mary had a sense of the utter priceless glory of the One she was anointing. For Mary, it was an act of love. For the disciples, it was about money. For Mary, it was worship. For the disciples, it was a waste. For Mary, even that expensive gift was not enough. For the disciples, it was way too much. Mary’s act, according to Jesus, preached the gospel and would preach the gospel forever. The disciples’ reaction demonstrated how much they needed the gospel.

It’s an incredible moment, and the thing that I find convicting and troubling for me is that the people who were protesting were not pagans; they were disciples. These were the guys that had left everything to follow Jesus, and we shouldn’t think just because we’re believers, that we always get our values right.

This gift makes me think about myself and asks the question, “Are all of my choices, all of my decisions, all of my actions, all of my words driven by the fact that Jesus is the most precious, valuable thing to me? And, what I want about everything in my life is that Jesus would be pleased?”

I would have to say no! There are times where I forget Jesus exists. I just want what I want, when I want it, how I want it, why I want it—and don’t get in my way.

But there’s something even deeper in this passage. The most precious gift in the room is not in that alabaster container. The most precious gift in the room is the One being anointed. The only way to understand this story is that Mary is giving a very precious gift to the One who is the most precious Gift.

That gets back to the values of Christmas. Are our traditions and our values and the things we do at Christmas driven by the fact that material things are the most valuable things to us? Or, is our celebration of Christmas driven by the fact that we’re blown away that God gave us his Son, Jesus, and that Jesus was on a death mission. He knew what his job description would be. He knew that his suffering would begin as pieces of straw pierced his infant skin and he knew that every moment of his life would be suffering. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58). He knew that he was facing torture and a cross—death—innocent as he was. and he was willing, because he knew that he was the best gift to ever be given.

In the giving of Jesus is acceptance with God, righteous standing before him, transformed lives, brand new identity, the defeat of sin and death, and a final ticket to the new heavens and new earth where peace and righteousness will reign forever and ever.

The anointing of Jesus is a finger pointing to the most precious event that’s ever happened, the most precious gift ever given: Jesus. And that’s worth celebrating, and that’s much more valuable than a year’s salary. May we celebrate the best Gift ever.