Mark 14:1-11
1It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; 2for they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.” 3While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. 4But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? 5For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 6But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. 7For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. 8She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. 9Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” 10Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. 11When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.
After instructing His followers about the future, Jesus’ arrest and execution are just days away.
Mark writes about three sets of people who are preparing for the death of Jesus – Chief priests and the scribes; the unnamed woman with an alabaster jar of nard; and Judas Iscariot.
The chief priests and the scribes are planning to kill Jesus. They have seen the great power and teaching abilities of Jesus, but since they cannot accept Him as the Messiah, they feel He is dangerous. To their eyes, Jesus is a blasphemer who has great powers. They feel that the multitudes are being misled, and they feel it is their duty to put an end to Him and His movement.
Judas is also planning the betrayal which will lead to the arrest of Jesus. After spending three and a half years with Jesus and being appointed as one of the Twelve, we can only conjecture what led Judas to this action. In Mark’s account, Judas goes to the chief priests to betray Jesus without first being offered money. The money is offered only after Judas agrees to betray Jesus. There has been much discussion about what moved Judas to this point – Dissatisfaction with what Jesus was doing; No longer believing Jesus was the Messiah; Trying to force Jesus into acting like the Messiah of his imagination; etc. – But we do not know, since the Gospel writers do not tell us. They probably did not know either. The only thing we know for sure is that he is the one who betrayed Jesus and accepted money for it.
Sandwiched between these planners of Jesus’ demise is the woman with an alabaster jar of nard who pours the oil onto Jesus’ head. The value of the nard was about a year’s worth of pay for the typical worker of the time – Very expensive oil. Some complained that this was a waste of a valuable item that could have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor. But Jesus defends the woman, telling them that she is doing a service for Him – That she is anointing Jesus for His burial. Jesus tells them, “She has done what she could.”
What can we take away from this passage? Where do we see ourselves?
We probably do not see ourselves as the chief priests and the scribes, since we would not plan for Jesus’ death. But if we had the same knowledge as them, and lacking the completed New Testament, I am not sure what we can say with certainty that we would not have sided with them. If we believed that the Messiah would establish His eternal kingdom, but Jesus was saying that He was going to be arrested and be killed, it is possible that we too could have concluded that Jesus was not the Messiah. But gracefully, God has placed us in a post-resurrection time and place where we can freely read and learn from the Bible, so it is much easier to believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
Judas was planning to betray Jesus, and he did. Later in this chapter, Peter swears that he would never deny Jesus, but we know that he does, not just once, but three times. The rest of the Twelve also said that they would not deny Jesus, but they all run away.
If the Lord were to ask us whether we would betray Him, most of us would say, “No,” but then end up betraying Him. Every time we deny that Jesus is our Lord, we betray Him. Every time we do not witness for the Lord, we betray Him. Every time we do not show love to the needy, we betray Him. Every time we get even with the people who hurt us, we betray Him. Every time we put anything or anyone, including ourselves, above Kingdom work we betray Him.
In contrast, the woman did all that she could for the one who was about to give His all for us. Her action is the only one of the three that Jesus commends. Commendable actions that we can do would be to give our all for the cause of the Kingdom – To spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to those who do not know Him.
We will fail Christ, whether we mean to or not. When we do, we repent, confess our sins, ask for forgiveness, and move on to do Kingdom work.
After this, Jesus will have the Passover meal with His disciples and will institute the Lord’s Supper. He will tell His disciples that they will all desert Him when He is arrested. The disciples all tell Jesus that they would rather die with Him than to deny Him.
Peter is especially adamant that he would not desert Jesus. Jesus tells Peter that he would deny Jesus three times before the night is done.
If we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we will probably not consciously deny Him. We may even be confident that we would not. But just like Peter, we will deny Him multiple times, in many ways – Through our words, through our actions, through our inactions, through our thoughts, through our attitudes, etc.
However, we need to keep in mind that Jesus is willing to forgive our multitude of sins. After all, that is why He came to die on the cross – So that our sins will be forgiven, if we acknowledge them, confess them, and ask for forgiveness.
God loves us and would rather forgive our sins than to see us condemned. And yet, God’s justice is absolute and the wages of sin must be paid. That is the reason that Jesus was sent to earth, so that He could pay the penalty for our sins. And by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, not only our sins will be forgiven but we will be given eternal life with the Lord and His people.
So, let us be like the woman and do all that we can do for the Lord who gave His all for us
(The above is a summary of the message shared by Pastor Shun Takano during our worship of November 8, 2026.)
