The Biblical Illustrator Mark (Ch.14 16) (A Compilation)

《The Biblical Illustrator – Mark (Ch.14~16)》(A Compilation)

14 Chapter 14

Verses 1-9

Mark 14:1-9

And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper.

Working for Christ

The home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus at Bethany, about two miles from Jerusalem across the Mount of Olives, had been the scene of some of the calmest and happiest moments of our Lord’s life. We know something of the sweetness of a quiet home after work and anxiety and worry-the labourer knows it, the man of business knows it. We can therefore understand how restful to the Lord Jesus, after those angry scenes that had been gathering around Him all day in the temple, were the peaceful evenings of this week in the home at Bethany. There are two things which we should notice about that home as we follow Jesus thither.

I. It was a home of true family love, or Jesus would not have sought its shelter so often as He did. What tender memories cluster round the childhood that has been spent in such a home! What a foretaste of the home beyond the grave, the haven where we would be!

II. It was a home where Jesus always was a welcome guest, whither He was summoned in every trouble, where He was the Companion, the Guide, and the familiar Friend. Are our homes like that? Is He felt and acknowledged to be the Master of the house? the unseen Guest at every meal? the unseen Hearer of every conversation? Is His blessing asked on every meal, on every undertaking, on every event? But now, as we stand with Jesus at Bethany, look what one of the sisters is doing to Him as He sits at meat, either in her own house, or in one of a similar type where she is hardly less at home. “Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus.” Beloved, is there not something like that that we can do for Jesus in this Holy Week? Is there not something that we can bring and lay at His feet while we are watching with him through the hours of His Passion? Something that will be an earnest of our love-some secret sin which it would really cost us something to give up? And cannot we find something, too, in our family life, or in the part we have to play in it? Is there not some new departure we might make for Jesus’ sake, to make our homes a little less unworthy to be His dwelling place? (Henry S. Miles, M. A.)

Mary anointing Christ

What she is said to have done. This standard for our service is, you perceive, at once stimulating and encouraging. It is stimulating, for we are never to think that we have done enough while there is anything more we can do; and it is encouraging, for it tells us that though we can do but little, that little will be accepted, nay, considered by our gracious Master as enough. We are not to condemn ourselves, or to repine, because we can do no more. But something else must be noticed here.

I. Mary did more than she was aware of doing. It is an affecting circumstance, brethren, that wherever our Lord was, and however engaged, His death seems to have been always in His mind. It was in His mind here at a social meal, and what we should have called a happy one, with those He loved the very best on earth around Him, and with the love of some of them towards Him in the liveliest exercise. It is a cheering truth, brethren, that we can never measure the use to which a gracious Saviour may turn our poor doings. As His designs in our afflictions often lie deeper than we can penetrate, so do His designs in the services to which He prompts us. We do this, and we do that, and we mourn that it is so little, and that so little good to our fellow men and so little honour to our God will come from it; but we know not what will come from it. That little thing is in the hand of a great, omnipotent God, and His mighty arm can bend and turn it we know not how or whither.

II. We must now ask what Mary’s motives probably were in this extraordinary act.

1. The strongest of them perhaps was a feeling of grateful love for her blessed Lord. He had just raised her brother from the dead; had just shown a sympathy and affection for herself and Martha, which might well astonish her; had put an honour on her family she must have felt to be surpassingly great. “Thank Him,” she perhaps said within herself, “I could not when Lazarus came forth. I cannot now. My tongue will not move, and if it would, words are too poor to thank Him. But what can I do? Kings and great men are sometimes anointed at their splendid banquets. My Lord is to be at Simon’s feast. I will go and buy the most precious ointment Jerusalem affords, and at that feast I will anoint Him. It will be nothing to Him, but if He will suffer it, it will be much to me.” Do something to show that you are thankful for blessings, though that something be but little.

2. Mary was probably influenced also by another motive-a desire to put honour on Christ. “Let others hate Him, and spurn Him,” she must have said, “Oh for some opportunity of showing how I honour Him.” It is an easy thing, brethren, to honour Christ when others are honouring Him, but real love delights to honour Him when none others will.

III. Let us now come to the judgment men passed on Mary’s conduct. They censured it, and strongly. Men are generally made angry by any act of love for Christ which rises above their own standard-above their own ideas of the love which is due to Him. They can generally, too, find something in the warm-hearted Christian’s conduct to give a colour to their displeasure. “Why was this waste of the ointment made?” It was a plausible question; it seemed a reasonable one. And observe, too, men can generally assign some good motive in themselves for the censure they pass on others. And mark, also, Christ’s real disciples will sometimes join with others in censuring the zealous Christian. “There were some that had indignation.” But yet again, the censures passed on the servant of Christ often have their origin in some one hypocritical, bad man. Who began this cavilling, this murmuring against Mary? We turn to St. John’s Gospel, and he tells us it was Judas-Judas Iscariot, the betrayer. Trace to their source the bitter censures with which many a faithful Christian is for a time assailed, you will often find it in the secret, unthought of baseness of some low, hypocritical man.

IV. The history now brings before us the notice our Lord took of this woman’s conduct. He, first, vindicated it. And observe how He vindicates Mary-with a wonderful gentleness towards those who had blamed her. The practical lesson is, brethren, to adore the blessed Jesus for taking us and our conduct under His protection, and while acting through His grace as He would have us, to feel ourselves safe, and more than safe, in His hands. “He that toucheth you,” He says, “toucheth the apple of My eye.” But this is not all-our Saviour recompenses this grateful woman as well as vindicates her. “Wheresoever,” He says, “this gospel shall be preached, throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.” Our Lord had said long before, “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven.” But here He anticipates this; there is a reward for this woman on the earth, and a wide and large one. And now, turning from Mary and her conduct, let us think of ourselves and our conduct. What have we done for Christ? “We love Him because He first loved us”-there is the secret of Christian obedience, Christian self-denial, Christian devotedness. (C. Bradley, M. A.)

The box of ointment

I.The nature of the act. It was done to Christ. It was inspired by a right sentiment. If we give all that we possess to Christ still it is less than He deserves. Her regret is not that she gave so much, but so little.

II. The lessons. An action is precisely of the value of the motive by which it has been actuated. We must, moreover, take into account the difference of positions and mental tendencies. Good intention, which is no other thing than love, may deceive itself, without doubt, but it does not always deceive itself. In the Divine flame which the Spirit kindles the light is inseparable from the heat. He who seeks to do the will of God will know the mind of God. Even in giving to the poor it is possible to make serious mistakes. True charity does not open the heart without expanding the mind. (Alexander Finer, D. D.)

A woman’s memorial

It well exhibits, in a single illustration, the appropriateness, the motive, the measure, and the reward of Christian zeal (Mark 14:3-9).

I. We start out with a recognition, on our part, of a settled rule of activity. All of Christ’s friends are expected to do something for Him.

1. Work and sacrifice are not inconsistent with even the highest spirituality, leer this is the same Mary whose other story is so familiar to us all. She was the one who used to sit at Jesus’ feet (Luke 10:39) in all the serene quiet of communion with her Lord; yet now who would say that Mary at the Master’s head might not be as fine a theme for the artist’s pencil? Piety is practical, and practical piety is not the less picturesque and attractive because it has in such an instance become demonstrative.

2. Our Lord always needed help while He was on the earth. There were rich women among those whom He had helped, at whose generous hands He received money (Luke 8:2-3). And His cause needs help now.

3. It is a mere temptation of the devil to assert that one’s work for Jesus Christ is vitiated by the full gladness a loving soul feels in it. Some timid and self-distrustful believers are stumbled by the fear that their sacrifices for our blessed Master are meritless because they enjoy making them. There used to be rehearsed an old legend of an aged prophetess passing through a crowd with a censer of fire in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other. Being asked why she carried so singular a burden, she replied, “This fire is to burn heaven with, and this water is to quench hell with: so that men may hereafter serve God without desire for reward or fear of retribution.” Such a speech may appear becoming for a mere devotee’s utterance; but there is no warrant for anything like it in the Bible. Heaven is offered for our encouragement in zeal (Romans 2:7). Hell is often exhibited that it might be feared (Matthew 10:28).

II. Next to this, the story of this alabaster box suggests a lesson concerning the motive which underlies all true Christian activity.

1. In the case of this woman, we are told that her action grew out of her grateful affection for her Lord. Every gesture shows her tenderness; she wiped His very feet with her own hair (John 12:3). This was what gave her offering its supreme value.

2. Herein lies the principle which has for all ages the widest application. It is not so much what we do for our Saviour, nor the way in which we do it, as it is the feeling which prompts us in the doing of anything that receives His welcome. It is the affection pervading the zeal which renders the zeal precious.

3. It may as well be expected that the kindness which proceeds from pure love will sometimes meet with misconstruction. Those who look upon zeal far beyond their own in disinterested affection, will frequently be overheard to pass uncharitable misjudgments upon it. We find (John 12:4-6) that it was only Judas Iscariot after all, on this occasion, who took the lead in assigning wrong motives to the woman, and he did not so much care for the poor as he did for his own bag of treasure. No matter how much our humble endeavours to honour our Lord Jesus may be derided, it will be helpful to remember they are fully appreciated by Him.

4. This is the principle which uplifts and enobles even commonplace zeal When true honest love is the motive, do we not all agree that it is slight ministrations more than great conspicuous efforts which touch the heart of one who receives them? The more unnoticed to every eye except ours, the more dear are the glances of tenderness we receive. It is the delicacy, not the bulk, of the kindness which constitutes its charm.

IV. The final lesson of this story is concerning the reward of Christian zeal. Higher encomium was never pronounced than that which this woman received from the Master.

1. It was Jesus that gave the approval. Set that over against the fault finding of Judas! If we do our duty, we have a right to appeal away from anybody who carps. When Christ justifies, who is he that condemns? Some of us have read of the ancient classic orator, who, having no favour in the theatre, went into the temple and gestured before the statues of the gods; he said they better understood him. Thus may maligned believers retire from the world that misjudges them, and comfort themselves with Jesus’ recognition.

2. Jesus said this woman should be remembered very widely-wherever the gospel should go. Men know what is good and fine when they see it. And they stand ready to commend it. Even Lord Byron had wit enough to see that-

“The drying up a single tear has more

Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.”

Some of the grandest lives in history have had only little show to make. Care burdened women, invalids on couches, ill-clad and ill-fed sons of toil, maid servants, man servants, apprentices and hirelings with few unoccupied hours, timid hearts, uneducated minds, sailors kept on ships, soldiers held in garrisons-these, with only a poor chance, have done such service that the world remembers them with its widest renown (Psalms 112:5-6).

3. It was just this parable of Jesus which became Mary’s memorial. A word sometimes lasts longer than a marble slab. We must learn to be content with the approval of God and our own consciences. Nothing will ever be forgotten that is worth a record in God’s book. Those who die in the Lord will find their works follow them, and the worthy fame remains behind: “The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot.” Only we are to recollect that love alone gives character and value to all zeal. That was a most suggestive remark of old Thomas a Kempis: “He doeth much, who loveth much; and he also doeth much, who doeth well.” (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

The sacrifice of love

I.The sacrifice of love. Observe-

1. What Mary gave. The alabastron of precious and perfumed ointment. Rare and costly. Love does not measure its offering by a bare utility; nor by a legal claim.

2. What Mary did. Anointed with this precious ointment. Things worthy of our highest uses are honoured when used in the lowliest uses of religion. What is worthy of our head, honoured by being laid at the Master’s feet.

II. The rebuke of covetousness. Judas’s criticism.

1. Waste! because his plan was not adopted. He thought not of the good that was done, but of what might have been done.

2. He had an excuse. The poor! He was one of those who are always “looking at home;” who do so with shut eyes; who see little, and do less.

III. The argument of wisdom.

1. I shall not be here long. Jesus is not long-in this life-with any of us. Let us make much of this guest. Do what we can now.

2. You will always have the poor. These Jesus loved and eared for. This legacy was not forgotten (Acts 4:31-37). Nor are the spiritually poor forgotten.

Learn-

1. To love Jesus and show it.

2. That no gift consecrated to Jesus is wasted.

3. The best gift is a broken heart, the perfume of whose penitence and faith is pleasant to the Lord. (J. C. Gray.)

Profusion not waste

I. A motive. Mary no doubt intended well. Her right intention would hardly have been questioned by the murmuring disciples themselves. Whatever may be said of her work, nothing can be said of her motive but that it was purely and altogether good. Now motive is of first importance in the estimate we form of any act whatever, small or great. Motive of some kind there must be, or the act cannot be moral; it becomes merely mechanical. The motive too must be good, or the act cannot be otherwise than bad. It need not, however, appear so, and frequently does not. Words are not necessarily the garb of truth, nor appearances the signs and pledges of corresponding realities. However good the motive may be it does not follow that the act as such will be equally good. That is, there may be something more and higher in the motive than appears in the act. This may arise from ignorance, from our not knowing how to make the act better; or it may result from the nature of the act itself, as being essentially humble and commonplace. But a deeper cause is found in our inability to do what we would. We seem to do our very best, we put forth and strain our resources to the utmost, and yet, after all, come short, and sometimes sadly short, of our preconceived desires and hopes. There is, however, another and brighter side to this. Our work is not considered absolutely by itself. The motive that inspires it counts for something, it may be for much.