The Spikenard

WEB Matt 26:13 Most certainly I tell you, wherever this Good News is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of as a memorial of her.”

If you don't speak of her when you "present the Gospel message", you're not preaching the whole gospel.

Imagine a cabinet-maker, who spends ten years making a cabinet so special that it defines his career, giving him his identity as a cabinet-maker.

He stores a $50,000 bottle of perfume within it, to be used as his retirement fund. This perfume is strong, leaving a heavy scent on everything it touches, for days. Open the bottle, and the strong fragrance fills the house; spill it, and the floor, soaking up the perfume, will keep the house smelling fragrant for days.

There's no way to get to the perfume without destroying the cabinet with a sledgehammer.

Jesus comes to the cabinet-maker's house, and sits down for supper. The cabinet-maker, seeing that the feet of Jesus are dirty, grabs his sledgehammer, smashes his cabinet, and uses the perfume to do the work of a minimum-wage servant, washing the feet of Jesus, using his $2000 suit as a wiping rag.

The fragrance fills the house. The scent remains on Jesus, and on the cabinet-maker for days, wherever they go, whether to Wal-Mart or to the Electric Chair.

This is what Mary of Bethany did.

The "waste" was scandalous, and the reminder of that waste lingered on and on for days, being perceived by the Roman soldiers who man-handled Jesus and gambled over his clothing. Judas' reaction was probably no different than how you or I would have reacted. "That could have fed so many hungry children!"

But Mary knew. The other disciples had been told, but they had not absorbed that knowledge. Mary knew where Jesus was headed, and she anointed the Anointed One, because of her devotion to him. Her retirement meant nothing to her; her reputation was meaningless. What mattered was Jesus.

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Notes:

1. Mary's hair was part of her identity, part of her body. The $2K suit was extravagant, but it's not a perfect analogy, because it wasn't part of the cabinet-maker's body/identity.
2. When the Roman soldiers were mocking Jesus as a king, they were smelling the scent of royalty. The nard used by Mary was imported from the Himalayas, and was the perfume of kings. It was an oil that did not evaporate, but that was absorbed into the fibers of Jesus' clothing.
3. Jesus didn't say that what Mary had done was "nice"; he said it was 'kalon' -- good, beautiful, noble, excellent, honorable.
4. Jesus also said she had done what she could. She couldn't stop the execution, but she could anoint the Anointed One with a kingly ointment

Originally published at:

https://kentwest.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-spikenard.html