John 12:1-8 brings us along to peek into one of the last meals Jesus will share with his closest group of friends, allowing us to join Jesus as he has dinner at the home of his dear friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany. Martha is serving the meal. Lazarus (who was just recently raised from the dead) is reclining at the table with Jesus, along with whomever of the other disciples that were present; and Mary, who adores Jesus, and who has often sat as his feet absorbing whatever he was teaching with enormous interest, gets out about a pound (according to the ESV) of very expensive ointment of pure nard, rubs it generously on his feet and wipes his feet with her hair. The generous use of the nard is unmistakable as the scent of the costly perfume wafts throughout the house.
This draws the immediate ire of Judas, who declares that it should have been sold and given to the poor. John adds a couple of editorial comments in this passage, since he was writing it "after the fact." One of those asides is that Judas didn't care in the least for the poor, but since he was the keeper of the group's finances (the moneybag) he used to help himself to what was put into it. Jesus does not call Judas out for his pilfering of their mutual funds - he merely tells him, "Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."
What a reminder for me to take a moment whenever necessary and try to see through Jesus' eyes. It also gives me enormous joy to experience vicariously such a precious moment in Jesus' life, while knowing the end of the story. Historically I have often been too much like Martha, doing things FOR Jesus instead of prioritizing spending time WITH him. He wants us to have a balance of both - and we can only achieve that when he is the one in charge!
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