Fragrant Offering
5 min read
3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.”
John 12:3-5
A year’s wages for a day-laborer was about 300 denarii. If we assume a minimum wage of $15 per hour, the value of that perfume would be about $45,000. But it’s not just that Mary offered her perfume to Jesus, but that she poured it out on His feet and then wiped His feet with her hair. Perfume would never be used to wash someone’s feet. Neither would a person’s hair be used as a towel to wash someone’s feet.
On the one hand, anyone with any sense of the value of money would be completely appalled. It would seem like burning money. On the other hand, anyone with a sense of compassion for the poor and social justice would also be completely appalled. How could anyone waste so much money on a luxury item, first of all, and then flush it down the toilet, basically, for a completely pointless application?
If we can all be really honest with ourselves, our own reactions would have been very much like Judas’s.
Of course, the whole dinner scene is quite surreal—not just because of what Mary did, but because a dead man who had been brought back to life by Jesus was eating with them at the dinner table.
I think that is the part that we don’t fully grasp when we think about how Mary could have done such a thing. What is the value of $45,000 compared to her dead brother having been brought back to life?
But even then—again, if we can be really honest with ourselves—if we were in Mary’s shoes, we would probably do something much more “practical” and not something so “extravagantly wasteful.”
For Mary, though, the perfume suddenly had no value at all, except to be used to worship her Lord.
When Jesus comes back, I wonder how many things I will cling to with Judas’s perspective rather than with Mary’s. And I know in my head that Jesus could come back today. Can I accurately weigh the value of all things compared to the unsurpassed worth of the eternal life I have in Christ Jesus? How often do I weigh my offerings to Jesus based on worldly values rather than eternal values?
And yet, Jesus does not demand “pure nard” from me. Jesus knows that, sooner or later, He will have all of me.
Father, There are so many things that I hold on to as being “valuable” to me. Forgive me whenever I value those things more than I value You. But change my heart, Lord. May I not see You with the practicality of Judas but with the extravagance of Mary. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
