"And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples, Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified. Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people. Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her."
The beginning of today's lesson sets Jesus on the path to His eventual, death, burial, and resurrection.
In the latter portion of the lesson, while Jesus was in a meeting with His Apostles, a woman who is believed to have been Mary Magdalene, anointed Him with a very expensive oil from an alabaster box. What that woman had done was so important to Jesus that he commanded that it be mentioned wherever His gospel was preached throughout the world, as a memorial to her.
I mention that to demonstrate just one example of what I see as the negligence of today's "preachers".
That woman obviously recognized the importance of who Jesus actually was, not just a mortal man, but the living breathing Son of God, the third part of the Holy Triune, the savior of the universe! She also realized what He was about to go through. Jesus saw this in her, and rewarded her for it by demanding that this story be forever told in her honor.
Of the countless hundreds of times I have heard the bible preached, and in all the different places I've heard it preached, no more than five times have I ever heard the story of that anointment told.
There are two things we should take from this lesson: First, we should always, as that woman did, recognize the awesomeness of our blessed savior, in every thing we do. We should prepare for His second coming in the same way that woman prepared for His death. We should devote everything we have, no matter what the material cost, to that preparation. Secondly, we should be careful to ALWAYS obey those two great commandments He gave us, just as that woman did, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."(Mark 12:30-31)
Wherever we teach, we should ALWAYS relate the story of "The alabaster box".~
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