MATTHEW 26:1-16
NOT LONG AGO CHARLOTTE, my four-year old daughter, was sitting next to me on the couch. I was reading a book, and she was playing a game. I put my book down and turned to her. “Lotte,” I asked, “do you know how much Daddy loves you?” I then opened the space between my pointer finger and thumb, saying, “This much?” She put down the game, leaped off the couch, stood in front of me, and said, “No, this much, this much, this much!” as she waved her arms wider and wider between each “this much.” Then she paused and began to count as the arm-flailing restarted. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 100 this much!” she shouted.
What a sweet moment. What was especially sweet about it was that I have only done that “how much/this much love game” with her two or three times in her life. The last time I remember doing it was when she was three. Also, when I did it last, I only did three extremes—this much (showing her the space between two fingers), this much (half of the space of full hand extension), and this much (full extension). She added the arm-flapping and the counting to a hundred. Well, this exercise in love (and it was literally an exercise for her) showed me how much she thinks I love her. And yes, her estimation was right on target.
The text we will study now is about love. It’s not about a father’s love for his little girl or a little girl’s love for her father. Rather, it’s about a disciple’s love for Jesus and his love for her. It’s specifically about how she loved him and how he loved her.
A Spectacular Setting
Before we look at how, however, let’s begin with when and where. That is, let’s begin with the setting of our story.
When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.” Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper... (Matthew 26:1-6)
Notice four observations about the setting. First, with the start of verse 1, we are keyed into the fact that we have entered the fifth and final part of Matthew’s Gospel. The phrase “When Jesus had finished all these sayings” or its equivalent is used five times in this Gospel (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1), always ending a key teaching section and introducing the next narrative. The first time we saw this transition phrase was after the Sermon on the Mount. The last time we see it is here, after the Sermon on the other mount—Jesus’ Olivet Discourse on the Mount of Olives.
Some scholars argue that these five sections are Matthew’s way of pointing to the five-book structure of the Pentateuch or the five-discourse structure of Deuteronomy, part of the idea being that Jesus is a new Moses about to lead a new exodus. Whatever Jesus’ relation to Moses, Matthew certainly relates Jesus to Israel’s exodus from Egypt. In 2:15, as the boy Jesus journeys from Egypt to Nazareth, Matthew quotes the final phrase of Hosea 11:1, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son,” and applies it to Jesus. In our text Matthew records that the week of Jesus’ passion was the Passover, the yearly celebration of Israel’s exodus.
That takes us to our second important observation. Let’s call it Jesus’ Passover prediction. In verse 2 Jesus prophesies to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and [at that time] the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” I will share more about the Passover in the next chapter. For now I simply want to remind you that the Passover—the final plague before the exodus—was when the angel of the Lord passed over the houses that had the blood of the Lamb on the doorposts but killed the firstborn sons of all the Egyptians (Exodus 12). Here in Jesus’ own Passover story, God’s people will be saved ironically when the Lord does not pass over his own firstborn Son. Jesus himself is the Lamb of God about to be sacrificed for the sins of the world (John 1:29).
Our third important observation is the Passover plot. While Jesus is openly expressing how he is about to freely give himself to be delivered over to death, the religious elite in town are plotting to beat him to the punch. As Jesus, the Great Prophet, gives his final prophecy about his great High Priesthood—the final mediation for sins through his death—Caiaphas, “the high priest” of Israel at the time (AD 18-36), has gathered representatives of the Sanhedrin—“the chief priests and the elders”—in order to secretly strategize the slaying of our Savior (vv. 3,4). The irony is thick. Their plan is to have Jesus arrested quietly and secretly (“by stealth,” v. 4) and do so after the Passover week (“not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people,” v. 5). They’re sneaky. They’re smart. Jerusalem’s history is filled with uprisings when messianic figures came along, especially during the Passover, when the city was mobbed with millions of pilgrims.
Whose will will win? we wonder. Will Jesus be killed during Passover, as he said? Or will Jesus be killed after the Passover, as they planned? The temple aristocracy is pitted against the Son of God. Let’s see whose Passover plot prevails.
Our fourth important observation comes at the start of the second scene: it’s where Jesus is. In scene one we can picture two places. There is Jesus in the open speaking openly to his disciples, and then there are the religious leaders plotting in the palace with the doors and windows closed. Then we come to scene two. In verse 6 we move from Jerusalem to “Bethany,” from a palace to a “house,” from Caiaphas the high priest to “Simon the leper.” You see, when this woman shows her devotion to Jesus is nearly as significant as where she does it. Two days before the Passover (when) Jesus is in the house of “Simon the leper” (where). Matthew’s artistry is magnificent.
Do you know what those religious men in Caiaphas’s palace would have been doing (besides plotting to kill Jesus)? They would have been preparing for the Passover by purifying themselves. In John 11:55, which comes right before John’s record of this woman’s anointing Jesus, we read, “Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves.” So, as all the devout Jews in the land are busy cleaning their impure bodies, Jesus takes his pure body into the most impure setting imaginable—a leper’s house!
Matthew further heightens the drama by leaving a few questions hanging above the readers’ heads, the first being, who is this Simon the leper? The term “the leper” might just be to distinguish him from other Simons. Simon was the most popular name in Jesus’ day. There are four other Simons mentioned in Matthew’s Gospel alone. But that still doesn’t tell us much about him. In fact, from that distinguishing and awkward title—“Simon the leper”—a further question arises: is this Simon still a leper? And if not, how did he get cured? Did Jesus cure him? Is that his connection with Jesus? Or is he somehow connected to the woman mentioned, who we learn from John’s Gospel is Mary, as in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus? Is Simon Mary’s husband? Or is he perhaps her father? Who knows?
I think the vagueness is intentional. It makes perfect sense to say this Simon was presumably cured because if not, Jesus and his disciples were violating the law of Leviticus 13:45, 46, which forbade residing with lepers. It wouldn’t be the first time, however, that this theme of Jesus trumping the Torah comes up. In fact, he will trump the Torah’s whole sacrificial system on Wednesday. Why not start trumping it now?
Yes, this “leper” detail is very interesting. Jesus’ first distinguishable miracle in Matthew, which comes right after the Sermon on the Mount, is his cleansing of a leper: “And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, ‘...be clean.’And immediately the leprosy was cleansed” (8:3, 4).
Are we to make some sort of connection to Jesus’ final act of public ministry, to Simon the leper? Did Jesus heal another leper here? Does Jesus begin and end his healing ministry with the unclean, those he will ultimately “cleanse... from all sin” (1 John 1:7) by being “delivered up to be crucified” (26:2a)?
Perhaps I am reading too much into Matthew’s magnificent artistry. To be safe I'll just stick with more certain connections of contrast—the contrast between the seemingly pure palace of Caiaphas and the seemingly unclean house of Simon and the contrast between the evil high priest who will soon no longer be able to offer any covering of sin and the good High Priest who will cover many nations through his own dead and buried body.
A More Spectacular Love Story
Those are my four observations about the spectacular setting. Now, if you think the setting is spectacular, we come next to the story itself. Set between two scenes of hatred—the plot of the priests (vv. 3-5) and Judas’s betrayal (vv. 14-16)—is a love story. It is one of the greatest love stories in the Greatest Love Story ever told. It is short (told in two verses) but spectacular:
Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table, (vv. 6, 7)
Again Matthew is vague. And again I think he is vague intentionally. Who is this woman? Was she rich or poor? Was this a small sacrifice or a huge one?
What were her motives? Was she a sinner, like that other woman in Luke’s Gospel who did something like this (Luke 7:37, 38)? Was she in need of some miracle, like the great majority of women who approached Jesus in the Gospels? Or was she doing what she did for purely devotional reasons, like the magi who came bearing gifts to the newborn king? Our list of questions might go on.
What Matthew does here is simply communicate this woman’s odd action and then in verses 8-16 give us three very different reactions to it. We’ll look at those reactions in a moment, for they will interpret her action for us. For now I want us to focus on the woman herself. Put differently, we will soon look at how she loved Jesus, but first we will focus merely on who loved Jesus.
The who here is a her: “a woman” came up to Jesus (v. 7a). Here I think Matthew is setting up another ironic contrast. The contrast this time is between an unnamed woman and some of the named men. Jesus is named; so too are Caiaphas and Judas. Even Simon the leper is named! Many of the men have names; why not the woman? The Apostle John, in his Gospel, will name her “Mary,” as I said. So why doesn’t Matthew? It’s not that Matthew is not into naming women. In his first chapter he lists five women in Jesus’ genealogy, which was a rare thing to do in a Jewish genealogy.
I think the reason Matthew doesn’t name this woman (I’m only speculating here, but I’m so good at speculating) is to set up two contrasts. First is the contrast between a lowly woman (someone so little esteemed in the first-century world) and Caiaphas, the high priest (about as important a man in that day as any). She shows love, he hatred. Second is the contrast between her and the apostles. She is a disciple of Jesus, but so are the Twelve. But in the scenes to follow we will see the man Judas betray his Lord and then the man Peter deny him, and then the ten men left standing will all fall when Jesus is raised up on the cross. In Matthew’s Gospel as all the male disciples have scattered to their safe houses, faithful women stand beneath the cross (27:55, 56) and come the next day to the tomb (27:61).
There is a lesson in these peculiar historical facts. And the lesson is not that girls rule while boys drool. No, it’s a Bible lesson, not a sociological lesson. The lesson is that all people can come to Jesus. Even the lowliest can love the Lord. Even the no-names can praise his name.
Near the prestigious Oriel College of Oxford University there is a pub called the Boar’s Head. (The English have lovely titles for their taverns.) On the wall over the fireplace there is a collection of neckties tacked to the wall. The unstated rule and long-held tradition is that no ties are allowed in the establishment, and anyone walking in with one on will have it snipped off and tacked to the wall. The snipping and tacking of ties is this pub’s way of saying, “You may be an Oxford don, but when you enter this place everyone is equal.”
A similar picture is given in our text. Matthew’s unnamed woman is Jesus’ invitation to all women, and men and children, to come to the table of our Lords koinonia. If it’s okay to use a pub analogy in this chapter (I hope so; forgive me if not so), the Ecclesia is like the Boar’s Head. There is no hierarchy of holiness upon entrance, and there is no pedigree and no degree requirement for entrance. The only prerequisite is faith in Jesus. All who have faith in Jesus can come for a meal.
How She Loves Jesus
Next we move from when and where and who to how. There are two ways to evaluate this woman’s action. We can walk through the three reactions—from the disciples, Jesus, and Judas. Or we can, with those reactions guiding us, answer the question, how did she love Jesus? Let’s take the second path, the path less traveled. I think it will make all the difference.
The First Characteristic
There are three characteristics of her love I want us to understand and apply. First, she loved Jesus above all. Take a look at verses 8-11.
And when the disciples saw it [her pouring out the expensive ointment], they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”
Here the disciples are partly right and partly wrong. They are right that this ointment “could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” Mark tells us that the ointment was made of “pure nard” (Mark 14:3; cp. John 12:3) and that it would have sold for “more than three hundred denarii” (Mark 14:5), a full year’s wages for a common laborer (cp 20:2). That’s a lot of money. She just poured out $30,000!
But they are wrong that what she did was wasteful. It was not wasteful, Jesus says, but “beautiful” (v. 10b). Why? Because it was done to Jesus: “For she has done a beautiful thing to me” (v. 10b). Underline “to me.” Without the “to me” this is an absolute waste of money. Yes, it’s a beautiful thing, Jesus continues, “For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me” in the flesh (v. 11). Again we find that word “me.” We also have a striking antithetical parallelism. I’ll reorder the sentence to show this parallelism better:
You have always the poor
You will not have always me
Here Jesus is claiming that her action is not objectionable because of love to him, but also not antithetical to love to others (remember the last parable we looked at). Jesus first, everything and everyone else second is how I’ve sometimes phrased it. Jesus put it this way: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (10:37). Our unnamed woman demonstrates that radical commitment. She shows the Ecclesia that Jesus must be first—above money and mother, above the home and even the homeless.
You see, the disciples’ “poor,” if you will, is poor (bad or wrong) because they have put our vertical relationship with Jesus as Lord on the same level as our horizontal relationship with others. Their mistake is natural, especially in view of Jesus’ parable about loving the least being equal to loving him. But it’s still a mistake. It’s the same mistake Martha once made—shortsighted utilitarianism. In some ways this is the story of Mary and Martha revisited, and once again Mary shows the better way (cp. Luke 10:42, niv).
The better way is not to put off serving people. The better way is not to put off feeding the hungry. The better way is simply believing and demonstrating that Jesus deserves the highest outpouring of your love. Jesus taught a social gospel (love your neighbor, help the poor), but his social gospel is also the gospel of the Son of Man, in which our glorifying the glorious Lord always comes first.
The Second Characteristic
The second characteristic is that she loved Jesus with costly love.
In John’s version of this event, while Jesus, Lazarus, and the apostles are reclining at table, Martha is serving them (John 12:2). Where’s Mary? John doesn’t tell us. Was she slaving away in the kitchen or serving alongside Martha? I doubt in that culture she was reclining with the men. Whatever she was up to, a spontaneous thought must have come over her. Instead of bringing in a pot of tea, she carried in an alabaster flask of perfume, perhaps a family heirloom. She broke the flask and began to pour it over Jesus’ head. Can you picture that? How strangely extravagant and shockingly costly!
Now compare her action to Judas’s. The “then” of verse 14—“Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?’” (v. 15)—has as diabolic a ring to it as the “then” of verses 3, 4—“Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered... and plotted together [to]... kill him.” While one group of men plot, another man (“one of the twelve” no less) makes a part of that plot possible. Amazingly, after Judas has just seen this woman waste a year's salary on Jesus, he accepts about four months’ wages for his Lord’s life, “thirty pieces of silver” (v. 15), the price paid by the owners of an ox that gored a slave to death (Exodus 21:32). Is Jesus worth no more than a slave to him? Once again we have a remarkable contrast of characters and their character. While the woman gives generously, Judas seeks to gain greedily; “and whereas her sacrifice is costly, Judas settles his bargain for a relatively paltry sum.”
Earlier I quoted 10:37, where Jesus said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Look now at 10:38. Jesus continues, “And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Here this woman takes up her cross in the form of pouring out a bottle of costly perfume, and the Ecclesia should follow her example.
You see, the question we are to ask ourselves as we witness afresh this odd act is not, how can I act more emotionally unstable in my relationship with Jesus? or how can I be more over the top in my giving money to the Ecclesia?—although impulsive check-writing in access of $29,999 is always acceptable. Rather, the question is, are you willing to love Jesus with what is most valuable to you? Loving Christ is costly.
The Third, Characteristic
The third characteristic is that she loved Jesus for who he said he was. Here is where verses 12, 13 come into play. Jesus teaches his disciples:
In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.
One way to read verse 12 (I’ll return to verse 13 later) is to say that while her actions indeed showed that she loved Jesus above all and in a costly fashion, she didn’t necessarily get the symbolic value Jesus attaches to her actions. In reference to his burial, Jesus relates her action to the normal burial rite, in which a dead body would be drenched in perfume to cover the smell. In other words, she acts better than she knows. With the oil on his body, she unwittingly signifies his impending death, and perhaps with the oil going on his head (Matthew’s emphasis) she unwittingly anoints him as King (cp. 1 Samuel 9:16).
Another way to read verse 12 is not to say she acted better than she knew, but to say that while she knew little, she acted as best she could. This more positive reading would fit with the theme in Matthew’s Gospel that the littlest people of the little people understand Jesus first. It would also fit with what we know about Mary. We know from John 11 that her family was very close to Jesus. We also know from that chapter that her sister Martha was fairly well-informed and her mind teachable about new truths. We also know that Jesus gave four public predictions about his death (16:21; 17:22, 23; 20:17-19; 26:2), one of which Mary must have heard first or secondhand.
So perhaps this woman (Mary of Bethany), who starts off the passion narrative, understood something of what was said to the first woman who starts off the birth narrative (Mary of Nazareth). Maybe she gets Matthew 1—that Jesus is King and Savior. Maybe the object of her love is Jesus as the Christ and as Christ crucified. Maybe contra to the Jewish leaders, those we met at the top and tail of our text, she believes that Jesus is the Son of Man and believes that Jesus’ coronation will somehow mysteriously come upon Calvary’s cross. Maybe she gets the crown and the cross. Maybe.
But whether I am reading too much or too little into her motives, our vision of Jesus today—post-crucifixion, burial, and resurrection—should be crystal clear. We are to take Matthew’s Gospel as a discipleship manual, and her passion here is to be ours now. We are to love Jesus above all and with costly love and for who he said he is (the Son of Man who was delivered over to die and be buried for our sins).
The Passion of the Christ
Do you remember the story of when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead? When Lazarus became very ill, Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus about their brother, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill" (John 11:3). Jesus loved Lazarus. Then when Jesus got the word, these words follow: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5). Jesus loved that family.
I want to end by expanding upon that thought. We have looked at how Mary loved Jesus; let’s next briefly see how Jesus loved her. There are three ways he showed his love.
First, he defended her. When the men were in a huff and puffed out, “Why this waste!” (v. 8). Jesus came to the rescue. He showed a simple but sadly rare male sensitivity.
Second, Jesus praised her. This was part of his defense. He didn’t merely come to her rescue because the boys were being brutish, but rather because the boys got it wrong and the girl got it right. Jesus’ “she has done a beautiful thing [or “good work,” as it can be translated] to me” (v. 10) reminds us of our Lord’s praised-filled approval in the Parable of the Talents, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (25:21). And Jesus’ “Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (26:13) is as high a praise as Jesus gives anyone in any of the Gospels. And whether the phrase “this gospel” refers to the Gospel of Matthew (unlikely) or “the passion drama itself’ (more likely) or “the good news about the Messiah—news which must include this story and so his passion” (most likely), her sweet perfume that filled this leper’s house now fills the four corners and seven continents of the world.
It’s a rare day (don’t you think?) when you can hear or read a tract and learn that an actual Bible prophecy was fulfilled in your hearing or reading. But Jesus said that she would be remembered, and we are remembering her. As J. C. Ryle thoughtfully put it over a century ago:
This prophecy of his about this woman is receiving a fulfillment every day before our eyes: wherever the Gospel of Matthew is read, her action is known. The deeds and titles of many a king and emperor and general are as completely forgotten as if written in the sand; but the grateful act of one humble Christian woman is recorded in 150 different languages [might we add 2,000 plus to Ryle’s number, as the Gospel of Matthew has been translated into nearly 2,300 different languages], and is known all over the globe.
So Jesus showed his love for her by defending her and praising her. But he also showed his love (third and finally and ultimately) by dying for her. There is her passion (devotional love) for him and his passion (suffering) for her. There is the passion of the Ecclesia and the passion of the Christ.
Matthew’s Gospel has been called “a Passion Story with a long introduction.” That is true. For it is now in this Gospel that we come to the heart of the matter. As much as Jesus’ birth matters, his miracles matter, his parables matter, his prophecies matter, his second coming matters, the matter that matters most is the cross of Christ. You see, as Jesus loved Lazarus and Martha and Mary, so he loves all who are his. He loves us—his Ecclesia—with undying and dying love. He loves us with strangely extravagant and shockingly costly love. He loves us this much, this much, this much, 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 100 this much!
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)