Mark 14:1-11

Sermon Notes - Mixed Company

• The gospels record two kinds of time keeping. Roman time had the civil day which ran from midnight to midnight, and the natural day which ran from sunrise to sunset. The first hour after sunrise would be designated the First Hour and the second would be the Second Hour and so on. The last hour of the day would always be the twelfth hour and then twelve hours of night began.
• It is the natural day timing that often appears in the Gospel of John.
• The Jewish day was from sundown to sundown and the reason is rooted in the biblical story of creation, which teaches that God created night and then day.
• Understanding the difference between a Roman day a and Jewish day is helpful in understanding the sequence of events and the timetable of the last week of Jesus' life beginning with the triumphal entry and ending with the resurrection of Jesus from the grave.

• As we have witnessed throughout Mark's gospel, as Jesus' ministry and popularity grew so also the religious leaders' attacks on Him intensified. They became bolder and more public in their attempts to humiliate and discredit Jesus and His teaching. When all of their attempts failed and backfired in their faces, their resolve to kill Him grew stronger and stronger.
• The chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to seize Him 'by stealth.'
• "Stealth" means "a bait for a fish," hence treachery, fraud, to deceive by using trickery and falsehood. It means "cunning deceit" and accurately describes what is going to happen.
• It speaks volumes about the religious leaders and the length to which they are willing to go, to get rid of Jesus.
• It was not just the religious leaders that wanted Jesus dead, but the evil one did too.
• From Herod's murder of the innocents in an attempt to kill the newborn King of the Jews, to entering into the heart of Judas, the evil one has sought to destroy Jesus, and his ultimate effort was the cross.

• The setting is a meal which is at the house of Simon the leper. In attendance are Jesus, who is the guest of honor, the disciples, Mary and her sister Martha, and their brother Lazarus.
• The Bible doesn't say who Simon the leper was but it is conjectured that he was the father of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus or the husband of Martha.
• Based on the Old Testament Law, Simon the Leper could not have been leprous at the time Jesus visited his home. According to Leviticus 13:46, lepers were considered unclean and had to live outside the camp, alone and could not dwell inside the house. Anyone who attended a meal with a leper would have been considered unclean also. So while it speculative, it is possible if not likely that Simon was one of the many hundreds of people Jesus had healed and, in an act of gratitude, Simon the cured leper welcomed Jesus and the disciples into his home for a meal along with Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
• What is more significant than the identity of Simon is the act of Mary who at some point during the meal took some very expensive ointment and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped them with her hair.
• But the thing that seemed to attract the most attention about what she did was the extravagance of her act. Spikenard, a perfume for royalty and commoners alike, was so expensive that a woman would have to save her money and use it only on her wedding night. Mary however, used all of hers on Jesus.
• Mary's act was an act of devotion, love, and worship and when it came to her Savior there was nothing she held back.
• Does our devotion, love, and worship for Jesus drive us to the same level of sacrifice as hers?
• Someone observed that "The life of Mary is painted for us in three memorable pictures, in each of which she is at the feet of Jesus." (1) Luke 10:39: Mary sat at Jesus' feet and learned. (2) John 11:32: Mary fell at Jesus' feet and surrendered. (3) John 12:3: Mary anointed Jesus' feet and honored Him.
• Mary teaches us something about the true nature of worship - if Jesus is the object of our worship nothing is too extravagant or lavish.
• If Jesus willingly died on the cross to forgive me of my sins how can I not give Him my life in return?
• Normally one would not anoint the feet of a living person (rather the head) but one could anoint the feet of a corpse while preparing it for burial.

• Judas was a disciple of Jesus but he was not a believer in Jesus.
• John mentions Judas eight times in his gospel and almost every time he connects Judas Iscariot with the betrayal of Jesus.
• Judas made the decision to cut his loss and at least get something out of the deal. Both Matthew and Mark seem to indicate that it was immediately after Mary's anointing that Judas left and made his deal with the Jewish authorities to deliver up Jesus.
• What the religious leaders were willing to pay was thirty pieces of silver; that was what Jesus was worth to them and the price was not random. In the Old Testament (Exodus 21:32) if an ox gored a neighbor's slave to death, the owner was obligated to pay the neighbor thirty pieces of silver, the price at which a dead slave was valued and an amount that became symbolic of contempt.
• The Jewish leaders deliberately chose thirty pieces of silver to show their contempt for Jesus and offered it to Judas, who took it. Both the Jewish leaders and Judas were willing to sell out the Messiah for the price of a dead slave.
• It has also been pointed out the money ultimately came from the Temple treasury. One major purpose of the Temple treasury was to purchase sacrifices and ironically, though it was not their intent, for thirty pieces of silver the chief priests purchased a sacrifice - the final sacrifice for sin.

• Behind all of the human drama and activity is the carrying out of the mission of Jesus and the will of the Father.
• The disobedience and the consequences of that disobedience by the first Adam in the Garden of Eden, are reversed on the Cross by the second Adam, Jesus the Messiah.