Matthew 26:6-16 - Homiletics

The supper at Bethany.

I. THE ANOINTING .

1 . The house of Simon the leper. The Lord was always welcome there. It may be that he had healed Simon of his leprosy. He had raised Lazarus from the dead; he was regarded with the utmost reverence and affection by Martha and Mary. St. John tells us that Jesus, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany. "There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him." St. Matthew is evidently relating the same events, but, like St. Mark, he gives no note of time, and apparently neglects the chronological order. Very possibly the two evangelists may have had some reason for omitting the names of Lazarus and his sisters which did not exist when St. John wrote. It was a memorable supper. One sat there who had been dead, who had known those awful secrets which we shall one day know—those secrets so full of deep mysterious interest, so attractive, but so inscrutable. And One was there who is the very Life, without whom there is no life, who had again and again given life to the dead, who one day will call all the dead from their graves as he had a short time before called Lazarus from his; who, though he is the Life and hath life in himself, was yet about to die, to lay down his life of himself, that the dead in sin might live through him who by death abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light. He sat there at supper in his infinite condescension, as now he deigns to sup with those whom he hath raised from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness ( Revelation 3:20 ).

2 . Mary. The two sisters were at the supper. Martha served, as she had done before; Mary could think only of the Lord, and of his late wondrous mercy vouchsafed unto the family.

"Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,

Nor other thought her mind admits

But, he was dead, and there he sits,

And he that brought him back is there."

She showed her thankful devotion. She brought an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it first (it seems) on his head, afterwards on his feet, as he sat at meat. It was a very costly gift, but it Was not waste, for it was an act of worship. It signified the exceeding sacredness of the holy body of the Lord Jesus Christ. That body was, in the truest sense, the temple of the most high God; it was the tabernacle wherein abode the Word of God, God the Son, One greater than the temple at Jerusalem, the most Holy One for whose worship that temple was built. That temple was rightly held in reverence; the Lord Jesus himself was zealous for its honour. How much greater reverence was due to that holy body in which he had manifested himself! That anointing was a solemn act of worship, a pure unbidden rite of adoration.

II. THE MURMURINGS OF THE DISCIPLES .

1 . Their complaint. It was a waste, they said; "the ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor." St. John gives us to understand that it was Judas who had excited this dissatisfaction. Not that he cared for the poor; his talk about the poor was mere pretence to hide his dishonest avarice. So people often talk now when they blame acts of generous liberality which seem to condemn their own selfishness and want of charity. In their narrow avaricious temper they cannot understand the free generous love which prompts faithful men to give largely for the glory of God, and they impute unworthy motives. The murmurings of Judas seem to have led astray, for a time, several of the other disciples. Men are too ready to listen to disparaging criticisms, too ready to form unfavourable views of their neighbours. Let us judge carefully our own motives, and learn to believe the best of others.

2 . The Lord ' s reproof. "Why trouble ye the woman?" Judas was rude, unmannerly; he and the other disciples had vexed the gentle, shrinking Mary by their criticisms of her conduct. But, indeed, her act was not a waste; it was a beautiful deed of unselfish generosity. It is good to help the poor; those who blamed Mary would always have opportunities of doing that, if they were so minded. But there are other ways in which Christian love will show itself. It was good to honour the sacred Person of the Lord Jesus; it is good to give freely, largely, to church building and other such objects, if the end in view is the true Christian motive—the glory of God. Such was Mary's motive, and it was an especially fitting time to show her love to Christ, for he was about to depart. His death was very near at hand. He had told the disciples; they knew it; probably Mary knew it; she had loved to sit at his feet and hear his word. The gifts which the Wise Men from the East offered at the Saviour's cradle are thought to have a mystic meaning; the myrrh had a reference to his death. Mary's gift of the precious ointment, offered just before that death, spoke yet more distinctly of death and burial. She may have been unconscious, or only dimly conscious, of the meaning of her act. But certainly it was an act of loving adoring worship, and it should have its reward; it should be told throughout the world as a memorial of her. Christ knew that "this gospel," the good tidings of his death and resurrection, would be preached. in all the whole world. He who was despised and rejected of Pharisees and Sadducees looked forward to a world wide empire over the hearts of men. Wide as the gospel would spread, so widely should this good work of Mary be made known. There is no fame like that which the gospel gives; the fame of monarch, warrior, statesman, poet, is not to be compared with the honour granted to the lowly Mary. She sought only the praise which cometh from God. She hath also the praise of all faithful Christians. Her conduct is an example to us; it teaches us that acts of generous, self-forgetting love are beautiful and noble, precious in the sight of God. The odour of the ointment; which filled the house at Bethany ( John 12:3 ) has spread through the great Christian Church, keeping alive the sweet memory of Mary, urging countless Christian men and women to follow her example.

III. THE BETRAYAL .

1 . Judas. There was one to whom the fragrance of that perfume was a savour of death unto death. He bore an honoured name, a name of religious significance. "Now will I praise the Lord," said Leah, when she gave that name to her fourth son. And he was one of the twelve, as all the evangelists tell us, to mark the strangeness, the exceeding guilt, of his sin. Yet we suppose he must have been like the others when the Lord first chose him to be near unto himself. He must have been, we think, full of bright promise. Certainly he, like the rest of the apostles, forsook all and followed Christ ( Matthew 19:27 ). The good seed had been sown in his heart, and it soon sprang up; but there were thorn roots there too; and they, alas! shot up into evil luxuriance, and choked the good seed, and dominated the whole life. Probably he had been fascinated by those dreams of earthly splendour and an earthly kingdom which the apostles entertained so long. He had hoped, like James and John, for some high place near the King; but his ambition was more selfish than theirs. And when the Lord would not claim the throne of David, when he would not allow the enthusiastic multitudes to make him a King, when he spoke of seeming failure, of impending death, and that the death of the cross, Judas was hurt, offended, disgusted with the service which he had chosen. And, St. John tells us, there was one ruling sin in his heart—the degrading vice of avarice. Judas had shown, perhaps, an aptitude for business; he had been entrusted with the bag which contained the alms of those who ministered to the Lord of their substance. Perhaps he had sought the office of purse bearer; and, alas! it was a snare to him, for he was a thief. Probably he had been long brooding over disappointments, fancied vexations, covetous hopes; for no one becomes utterly base in a moment. A year ago the Lord had spoken of him in words of awful warning ( John 6:70 ). He did not heed the Master's voice; probably he went on in his evil ways, feeding his secret vice by acts of petty dishonesty, till it became a tyrant passion ruling the whole man, debasing the whole character. He had yielded himself little by little to the power of Satan; at last he had become his captive; now any little temptation would be sufficient to lure him to his doom. The offering of Mary proved to be that last temptation. Satan, in his malice, brings evil out of good. Judas blamed her generosity. It was wasteful profusion, he said; that large sum ought to have been better spent. He wanted it, not really for the poor, but for the bag which he carried; he would have appropriated it, in part at least, to his own use. The Lord's reproof chafed him still more. His mention of his approaching burial crushed the last hopes, if any hopes remained, of an earthly kingdom. Judas determined to forsake his Master. Nothing, he thought, could be gained by faithfulness; something might be gained by treachery. What an awful picture of the deceitfulness of sin, especially of that soul destroying sin of avarice!

2 . His agreement with the chief priests. He went to them as soon as he could, perhaps four days after the supper at Bethany; his disappointment had been rankling in his mind ever since. He was ready now to deliver his Master to death, and that for money. "What will ye give me?" he said, openly manifesting that miserable vice which he had hidden under the cloke of care for the poor. Alas! that one of the chosen twelve could say such words, could think such thoughts! He had heard the Lord's solemn question, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange tot his soul?" And now he was going to sell his soul for a paltry bribe. They weighed unto him thirty pieces of silver; the price which God, speaking by the Prophet Zechariah ( Zechariah 11:13 ), denounces as "a goodly price that I was prised at of them." Probably they did not think of the prophet's words, or they would not have become the instruments of fulfilling them. It was the price of a slave (see Exodus 21:32 ), far less than the value of the offering of Mary, which had been the occasion, not the cause, of this awful treachery. For this poor bribe he sold his Master, "and from that time he sought opportunity to betray him."

LESSONS .

1 . No offering is too costly for the Lord's service. Let us imitate Mary in her loving gifts.

2 . Men will scoff at Christian generosity. Let us seek only the praise which cometh from God.

3 . One of the twelve fell into deadly sin. Let none presume upon their spiritual privileges.

4 . "The love of money is the root of all evil." Let us learn to love it not.