Mark 14:3-9 Every Step Is Joy: Christ Is Anointed For Us

The Text

Mark 14:3–9 (CSB)
³ While he was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured it on his head.

⁴ But some were expressing indignation to one another: “Why has this perfume been wasted?

⁵ For this perfume might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they began to scold her.

⁶ Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a noble thing for me.

⁷ You always have the poor with you, and you can do what is good for them whenever you want, but you do not always have me.

⁸ She has done what she could; she has anointed my body in advance for burial.

⁹ Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

The Devotion

Spoiler alert: Christ was perfect in his obedience to the law. Another way of saying that he was perfectly obedient to God. In other words, he is without sin. He is perfect. He is holy. He alone is good.

He became us in every way except he was without sin.

Hebrews 4:15 (CSB) For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Why was Christ being anointed by this woman for his buriel. He already told the Disciples several times that he is going to die, give up his life and be crucified. But Christ was to die, couldn't the people simply anointed him when he died?

Except he died on the Sabbath. He died on the day of rest. On the day he gave mankind. A day that was holy. And if never sinned, don't you know that we do not have to commit sin in order to minister to one another?

That was true for those who buried Christ on the Sabbath. That is true for us today.

God gives us grace to do his will.

At this moment in time, Christ told the Disciples that he was going to give his life up. The Disciples couldn't understand it and without the indwelling of the Spirit of God, neither could we. Yet, our Lord was completely sovereign in his death. He rescued this woman from her sins. And she was saved to God. And she ministered to others. And she started with her own Lord preparing him to die so that we might live.

Romans 6:1–11 (CSB) What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Every step that Christ took towards the cross was in complete joy and satisfaction because every step he took was one step closer to completely, satisfactorily, perfectly, definitely, absolutely, forever "save his people from their sins."