Anointing at Bethany
Days before the cross, Mary poured costly ointment on the feet of Jesus, and He said she had kept it for His burial.
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, and there they made Him a supper; Martha served, and Lazarus sat at the table with Him. Mary took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Judas Iscariot objected that it could have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor, though John notes that he said this because he was a thief and carried the bag. Jesus defended her: 'Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.' Matthew and Mark add that Jesus promised her deed would be told for a memorial of her wherever the gospel was preached.
Did You Know?
Three hundred pence was close to a year's wages for a laborer paid 'a penny a day.'
Matthew and Mark describe a woman anointing Jesus' head at the house of Simon the leper in Bethany, an account usually read alongside John's.
Because of Lazarus, the chief priests also 'consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death.'
Key Passage
Anointing at Bethany
John 12:1-8
1hen Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
Meanwhile in the World
The Roman Empire is at its peak under Augustus and Tiberius (Pax Romana). Rome controls the entire Mediterranean world. Roads, common language (Greek), and peace make travel and communication easy - the 'fullness of time.' Herod the Great rules Judea as a client king.
