John 12:1-11 | What's happening (and who's involved)?

Do you remember last week how I said as we get nearer to the most important part of a narrative, it seems to slow down and it really zeroes in? Well this section does just that. There is a lot to unpack of very key details here.

It is six days before the Passover and Jesus is at Bethany. Remember that Jesus is currently having to stay under the radar lest He be caught and killed. He does not head straight to Jerusalem. He instead goes to be with the family of the man who was just raised. They are eating a meal and we have described to us the actions of a few of them. Jesus sits at the table, Lazarus sits with Him, Martha is serving, and then Mary does something amazing. She anoints the feet of Jesus.

Scripture gives us a little more detail here. Mary poured a pound of spikenard (or myrrh) upon the feet of Jesus and begins wiping His feet with her hair. In an interesting note, the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Now this is something we will be getting into with more detail throughout the week so I am not going to be spending a whole lot of time on it now, but I want to be sure that it is emphasized here.

As a result of Mary's offering, Judas ridicules her. He realized he lost some opportunity to snag some money from it. You can say that this is a bit of biblical foreshadowing of Judas. Nevertheless, Jesus rebukes Judas' comment and recognizes that this anointing is for His burial. Myrrh was commonly used as burial ointment. It helped keep the odor of death at bay. In this case, Jesus is predicting His death that is coming.

Word spread of Jesus arriving at Bethany, so many of the Jews came to see not just Him, but Lazarus who was raised from the dead. Seeing this caused many to believe in Jesus. You can imagine, that did not make the Jewish leaders happy. As a result, they did not only plot to kill Jesus, but Lazarus as well! By this point, Jesus had developed quite the reputation. And that is what will carry us into our next section.

What observations are you making?