Mark 14

³ And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. ⁴ There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? ⁵ For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.

¹⁰ Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. ¹¹ And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money. And he sought an opportunity to betray him. ¹² And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” ¹³ And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, ¹⁴ and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ ¹⁵ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” ¹⁶ And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. ¹⁷ And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. ¹⁸ And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” ¹⁹ They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” ²⁰ He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. ²¹ For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

When I was in school we would have mandatory chapel services. They were, in my humble opinion, a bit hit or miss, but I am grateful we had them. I can think even now of a number of powerful moments that stayed with me from those services. Unfortunately, I also remember some very strange moments that I wish I could forget! And, on occasion, there were the simply odd or confusing moments. I think I would put the “backmasking” service in this latter category.

Backmasking is a technique whereby people will build subliminal messages into songs that you can only hear rightly when you play a song backwards. While there can be no doubt that certain musical artists did indeed backmask their songs, sometimes in disturbing ways, there can also be no doubt that this was the kind of thing that certain expressions of fundamentalist Christian culture ran with in the 1980’s in order to warn about the dangers of rock and roll. The problem was that it was often next to impossible to hear the alleged backmasked message. I recall, for instance, sitting in the chapel service (I think this happened in two services in those years but I could be wrong) in which the speaker would play a song forwards and then play it backwards in order to point out the bad, dark or Satanic message. My problem was I could never understand or make out the message when it was played backwards and I do not think most others could either.

Again, I do not deny the reality of backmasking. There are clear examples of it if you care to look them up. I simply argue that some folks ran a little wild with these allegations.

I thought about backmasking while working on our text this morning. Simply put, I would argue that Mark 14:10-21 sounds like Mark 14:1-9 played backwards! One of the things I have been increasingly struck by is Mark’s brilliant structuring of his gospel in such a way as to contrast certain diametrically opposed stories for maximum effect. We have seen this before (and commented on it before) as we have journeyed through Mark. This, I would argue, is one such example.

Put another way, the story of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus is the reverse of the story of the woman who anointed Jesus with the costly ointment. The first half of Mark 14 involves two meals: the meal in Bethany in which Jesus is anointed by the woman and the meal in Jerusalem in which Jesus announces he is being betrayed.

Two meals. Two characters. One is going the right direction and the other is going the opposite. Let us compare and contrast Judas and the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany.

Judas moved away from Jesus. The woman moved toward Jesus.

The first contrast between Judas and the woman is a contrast of movement and direction.

^3a-b And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment…

¹⁰ Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them.

The scandal of the first meal is that the woman dares to move close to Jesus when the custom of the day said she was to keep distant. The scandal of the second meal is that Judas, before it, moved away from Jesus when love would have demanded that he stay near. The woman moves further in toward Jesus. Judas moves further out toward “the chief priests.” The woman is compelled closer by love. Judas is compelled further by hatred. Judas was at the last supper but his heart was far from Jesus. He had fled to the priests, Mark tells us, “in order to betray him to them.”

This contrast of movement is most interesting. It reminds us that we are either moving closer to or farther from Jesus. In her prayer journal, a young Flannery O’Connor wrote, “I don’t want to be doomed to mediocrity in my feeling for Christ. I want to feel. I want to love. Take me, dear Lord, and set me in the direction I am to go.”[1]

That is a good prayer! And, fortunately, Jesus has indeed set us in the direction we are to go. We are to move ever and always toward Christ. In the 19^th century, Sarah Flower Adams wrote the beautiful hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” It reads:

Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me;

Still all my song shall be nearer, my God, to Thee,

Chorus: Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,

Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;

Yet in my dreams I’d be nearer, my God, to Thee,

Chorus: Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

There let the way appear steps unto heav’n;

All that Thou sendest me in mercy giv’n;

Angels to beckon me nearer, my God, to Thee,

Chorus: Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

Then with my waking thoughts bright with Thy praise,

Out of my stony griefs Bethel I’ll raise;

So by my woes to be nearer, my God, to Thee,

Chorus: Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky,

Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upwards I fly,

Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee,

Chorus: Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

Many of us may be more familiar with Fanny Crosby’s great hymn, “I Am Thine, O Lord!”

I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice,
And it told Thy love to me;
But I long to rise in the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to Thee.

Chorus:
Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord,
To the cross where Thou hast died;
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord,
To Thy precious, bleeding side.

Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord,
By the pow’r of grace divine;
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
And my will be lost in Thine.

Oh, the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God
I commune as friend with friend!

There are depths of love that I cannot know
Till I cross the narrow sea;
There are heights of joy that I may not reach
Till I rest in peace with Thee.

If you had to put in song form a description of the movement of your heart over the last twelve months would you write, “Nearer to Jesus!” or “Further from Jesus!” This woman draws nearer. Judas retreats further. What is the direction of your heart?

Judas sought to profit from his betrayal. The woman gave all she had to worship.

The next contrast is one of focus and intent.

^3b-c  a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. ⁴ There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? ⁵ For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.

¹¹ And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money. And he sought an opportunity to betray him.

Judas intended to profit from his betrayal. The woman intended to give everything she had in an act of worship. Judas moved away from Jesus in order to fill his pockets. The woman moved closer to Jesus in order to give everything she had!

The woman draws the disciples’ ire because she gives so lavishly. Judas, for a season, resides in their favor though he was plotting to take everything. Things are not always as they seem!

Judas’ sharing of the meal was particularly dastardly given what he was really up to. The ancient work, The Sentences of the Syriac Menander, “And he with whom you had a meal, do not walk with him in a treacherous way.”[2] Everybody knew that there was something really despicable about eating with a man you are intending to betray.

Judas was at the table but his heart was locked inside his own twisted soul. The woman was not invited to the table but her heart was given to Jesus.

This is usually how this works: the closer we move to Jesus the more we want to let go of what we have. The farther we move from Jesus the more we want to clutch feverishly to what we have. We see this reflected in the very person and work of Jesus as Paul describes it in Philippians 2:

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷ rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Jesus, who is God, reflects, of course, the very heart of God. Therefore Jesus does not grasp or “use to his own advantage,” as the English Standard Version puts it, his very “equality with God.” Rather, Jesus “made himself nothing.” He emptied Himself. And this, we note, only makes sense, for the closer we move into the heart of God the more we wish to let go of what we have.

The woman who pours the costly ointment out upon Jesus’ head is simply reflecting the very heart of God Himself. Judas, however, moves away from Christ to try to fill his pockets. In doing so, he is reflecting the very character of Satan. He seeks to own, to elevate self, to have more, to be more, and, in the process, to rid himself of God.

“He must increase,” said John the Baptist in John 3:30, “but I must decrease.” Judas says the opposite: “I must increase and he must decrease.”

Where are you? Are you moving toward Jesus or away from Jesus? Are you giving more or are you hoarding? Are you increasing or decreasing? Is Jesus, in your own heart, increasing or decreasing? Are you living forward or living backwards? Or are you projecting one message that, when played backwards, says the exact opposite?

Judas pretended in order not to be ostracized. The woman was honest and did not care if she was ostracized.

Finally, we have a contrast in posture.

^5c …And they scolded her. ⁶ But Jesus said, “Leave her alone…”

¹² And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” ¹³ And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, ¹⁴ and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ ¹⁵ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” ¹⁶ And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. ¹⁷ And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. ¹⁸ And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” ¹⁹ They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” ²⁰ He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. ²¹ For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

Judas pretended in order not to be ostracized. The woman was honest and did not care if she was ostracized. The woman was unwelcome at that table in Bethany, yet she came. She came because she had to be who she was. She did not care about being ostracized. She did not care about being judged. The men at that table were not her concern. She came to Jesus. He was the singular point of her focus. She needed to worship her King! The woman was honest. She was exactly who she appeared to be.

Judas’ posture was one of acting and concealment. Had you been at the last supper you would not have seen visible evidences that Judas was the betrayer. Unlike many of the artistic depictions of Judas, he would not have looked ominous and conniving. He did not have a t-shirt on that said, “I’m going to betray Jesus!” Rather, we have every reason to think that he was just one of the guys, that everything looked ok on the outside. He was at the table. He had a place at the table. Yet he was not really there! His heart had been handed over to Satan. He was scheming even as he shared the meal.

Mark tells us that this last supper occurred “on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb.” David Garland explains the historical significance:

On the eve of Passover, work normally ceased at noon. The ritual slaughter of the Passover lambs began around 3:00 P.M. as the heads of the household brought their animals to the temple. The priests sprinkled the blood of the lamb against the base of the altar and offered the fat on the altar. With the legs unbroken and the head still attached to the carcass, it was wrapped in its skin and returned to the worshipers. The forecourt of the temple had been the place to eat the meal, but the large number of people made that now impossible. It was only stipulated that the meal had to be eaten in Jerusalem with a minimum of ten persons. This took place in the evening on Nissan 15—strictly speaking, the first day of Unleavened Bread.[3]

This meal therefore occurred in the context of Passover sacrifice when the Jews remembered God’s miraculous deliverance of His children from Israel. It was here, at this meal, that Jesus acknowledged the presence of a betrayer. How unbelievable! The Lamb of God, the One to whom all the Passover lambs preceding this meal pointed, sits with His disciples, for whom He will lay down His life, and acknowledges that the one who will betray Him is sitting at that very table! And in a powerful passage, verse 19, Mark tells us that this revelation caused the disciples to question themselves: “They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, ‘Is it I?’”

“One after another” they each ask the question: “Is it I?” It strikes me that this question is a question we must all ask again and again? “Is it I? Who am I? Where am I with Jesus? Am I the woman of Bethany: giving, fearless, real? Or am I Judas: pretending, posturing, concealing, and wanting to be rid of Jesus?” Danny Akin has written of this question:

            The answer to each disciple’s question—is it I?—requires an answer of yes from each and every one of us. Yes, Judas betrayed Jesus, but by morning all the disciples would betray Him…But what about you and me? Each one of us is a Judas because every sin against Jesus is a personal act of betrayal. Yet this is where the grace of the gospel shines so bright: even those who betray the great King and glorious Savior can experience immediate and complete forgiveness through simple repentance and confession of sin (1 John 1:9)….In grace God forgives, and He provides the strength to move forward in the “family of the forgiven.”[4]

Here is the good news that must enter through the bad news: we are Judas, but we might be the woman of Bethany. We are far from Jesus, but we might be close to Jesus. We are selfish, but we might be selfless. We conceal, but we might live openly. We pretend to say one thing, but played backwards we say another…but we could have the same message either way!

How? How can this happen? It can happen because Jesus is there in the middle, because Jesus goes to the cross for Judas, because Jesus is in the business of making sons and daughters of traitors!

The good news that walks through the front door of bad news: we are traitors, but we could be sons and daughters of God! How? We dare to come to Jesus. The woman brought her flask of costly ointment. We bring nothing but our sins. But Jesus welcomes the contrite sinner who dares to believe! Jesus’ arms are open to the brokenhearted! He will give you great gifts to offer Him in time, but first bring your brokenness and rebellion!

Come, dirty and broken, and fall in His welcoming arms! Come, Judases all, and fall at the feet of your Lamb who was slain! Come to this crucified and risen King! Come!

There is life there.

There is forgiveness there.

There is love there!

Will you come?

 

[1] Flannery O’Connor, A Prayer Journal. (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), p.35.

[2] David E. Garland, “Mark.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Gen. Ed., Clinton E. Arnold. Vol. I (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), p.286.

[3] David E. Garland, p.285.

[4] Daniel L. Akin, Mark. Christ-Centered Exposition. (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2014), p.328.