An Act of Love Remembered

By piecing together the gospel accounts in Matthew, Mark, and John, we discover that this woman is Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. Her actions caused a significant amount of extremely pungent and expensive perfume to cascade over the head and shoulders of Jesus, and she also anointed His feet as well. This took place six days before His crucifixion. Mary was doing this because she knew what was to shortly come to pass and was led to show Jesus the depth of her love and devotion to the One who had raised her brother back from the dead a short time before this.

Mary was totally unaware of how significant this act of love would prove to be to Jesus.  In those days people didn’t shower, but often ritually washed their hands, feet and other parts of their body. This is why expensive perfume was highly prized, as it disguised body odour. It is highly likely that the residue of the perfume remained within parts of Jesus’ skin, hair, and even His clothing during these six days until His crucifixion.

Fast forward now to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is a matter or hours before His betrayal. His time on earth was now rapidly drawing to a close, and He was struggling and battling with His human nature to follow His Father’s will. ‘And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground’ (Luke 22:44).

Sweating so profusely His sweat glands would have reactivated the residue of the perfume Mary anointed Him with. While we will never know this side of eternity if this is the case, I believe the smell of that perfume would have reminded Jesus of the love and devotion of Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and all the others who loved Him, and whose lives He was now faced with choosing to save.

How does this apply to us? Our acts of love towards God do not go unnoticed. He remembers them. They bless Him, and He wants us to know this. The writer of Hebrews says, ‘For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do’ (Hebrews 6:10, NLT).

That small act of love you did for someone was seen by God and it blessed Him. What an encouragement that should be to each of us!