The Anointing of the Anointed One

Mark 14:1-9
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, June 13, 2021
Copyright © 2021, Gregory Broderick

I want to say as we come to hear the word this morning that we had a different plan.  Our plan was for Rev. Buddingh’ to preach a different word.  But God intervened so that you would hear this word this morning.  And it is not an accident, and it is not a coincidence.  So let us hear together what the Spirit is speaking to the church this morning.

In Mark 14, we see the Lord Jesus anointed with very expensive perfume—pure nard from an alabaster jar.  At first glance, this recounting seems like a low-key footnote in the otherwise action-packed gospel of Mark.  Remember that we have seen Jesus doing extraordinary miracles throughout the book of Mark.  The book goes from one miracle to another from start to finish.  Jesus drove out evil spirits in Mark 1.  He healed the sick by His touch or by His word in Mark 2.  He even raised a dead girl to life in Mark 5 and fed 4,000 from a few loaves and a few fish in Mark 8.  And He also fed 5,000.  In fact, He walked on water in Mark 6.

Compared to those things, this anointing seems rather pedestrian at first glance.  We also notice Jesus gave many important teachings throughout the book of Mark, especially Mark 3 and 4 and Mark 9 through 12.   Major doctrines, major foundations of the faith were laid down.  And then in Mark 14, we come to this little story of the anointing.  To some perhaps it seems out of place.  It seems minor in comparison.  That is flesh reasoning.  Of course, we know as a general matter that nothing in Scripture is minor or insignificant or out of place.  The Bible is the very word of God, inscripturated and preserved miraculously by God without error and without adulteration for millennia.  Scripture itself tells us that “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16)—all Scripture, from the first verse to the last verse.

But this passage goes even farther than that.  As if we needed a reminder, verse 9 says, “Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of me.’”  There is a special promise from the Lord Jesus here.  It is an event of special importance and an event of special significance.

1. The Anointed One

The object of this anointing is Jesus of Nazareth.  He is no mere man, however.  He is the Christ.  He is the Son of God.  He is very God Himself.  And yet He became a man and He lived as a unique being, God and man, in all of history.  He was both God and man at the same time—two distinct natures in one person.

He did what no one else could do and what no one else has ever done.  He lived a perfect life of perfect obedience to God in thought, in word, and in deed.  No one else has ever done that.  No one else could ever do that.  And having lived that perfect sinless life, He suffered God’s full wrath on the cross in our place.  And then He died in our place.  This is substitutionary atonement.  We deserved the punishment, but He took it upon Himself.  He took all of our sin upon Himself.  He suffered the infinite wrath of God that was due us, and He suffered death in our place.  That was the penalty that we deserved for our sins.  He did not deserve it, but He suffered it for our sakes.  It was the penalty that justice demanded for our sins, an infinite penalty for our infinite sin against infinite God.

But more than that, He put all His righteousness onto us.  It is not just that He took away our sin and reset us back to zero.  It is not just He took away our infinite debt and left us neutral.  No, He deposited all His infinite righteousness onto us, into our account if you like, making us rich, making us perfect in the sight of God.  Think of a man loaded down with debt and facing bankruptcy and ruin.  And then an extremely rich man comes along and not only pays off the whole debt and eliminates all the trouble, but goes beyond that, loading down the formerly indebted man with vast riches.  That is a small picture of what happened to us, except that instead of facing temporal ruin, instead of facing temporal debt, instead of facing finite debt, we faced an infinite, eternal debt – a debt that deserved God’s wrath on us for eternity.  And Jesus came and paid it all, and then put all His infinite righteousness on us, making us righteous in the sight of God.  Second Corinthians 5:21 says it this way: “He who had no sin became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

This is Jesus, the subject of the anointing in our text today.  He is the Messiah, the sinless Son of God.  He is the Christ.  He is the Anointed One.  He is not just a man who was anointed in our text; no, He is the Christ.  That is what Christ means—the Anointed One.  He is the Messiah, which means the same thing: “the anointed one,” “the one who was set apart.”  It is not merely that Jesus was one who was anointed, but He is the Anointed One.  He was anointed for this task long ago, long before He came to the home of Simon the leper in Bethany.  His mission did not begin that day in Bethany.  His anointing did not begin that day in Bethany.  When we look back at His life, the three Magi prophesied about Him at His birth and came to worship Him (Matt. 2).  They knew He was the Anointed One before He was anointed at Bethany.  Indeed, before He was even conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, the angel of the Lord appeared to both His earthly father and His mother to set Him apart for this special work of atonement.  The angel said, “You are to give Him the name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).

Indeed, long before that, in Isaiah 53, written more than five hundred years before the birth of Christ, it spoke of Him this way: “He was despised and rejected by men. . . . Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. . . . He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:3–5).  This is clearly speaking of the atonement to be accomplished by God’s anointed Christ, more than five hundred years before Jesus was born.  He is the Anointed One.  Isaiah 53 continues: “He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12).  In case you are wondering who the transgressors are, they are us.  But He bore the sin of many, and He made intercession us.  And this is written hundreds of years before He entered time and accomplished this.

Our Anointed One goes back even farther than that.  More than 1,000 years before Jesus’s birth, the great King David declared in Psalm 2 that the nations would rage against the Lord and against His Anointed One (Ps. 2:2).  And we are told in verses 7 and 12 of that psalm that the Anointed One would be God’s own Son.  In fact, the trail goes back even farther than that.  The books of Deuteronomy and Numbers, written by Moses when he led the Israelites out of Egypt, contain clear references to the Messiah.

The whole Bible speaks about this Messiah, about this Christ who was to come, the Anointed One.  Even the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, speaks of this atonement, of our Anointed King, the Christ and the Messiah.  In Genesis 49:10, “The scepter will not depart from Judah . . . until He comes to whom it belongs”—that is Jesus Christ—“and the obedience of the nations is His.”  So we see this anointed Christ is spoken of even in Genesis 49.

In fact, all the way back to Genesis 3—at the very beginning of the Bible, at the very beginning of time, at the very beginning of creation—we see this promised Messiah, this Anointed One.  There, just after Adam and Eve sinned and irrevocably damaged their relationship and fellowship with God, we see the Anointed One.  This is the protoeuangelion, the first gospel.  After Adam and Eve had sinned, after all seems lost, God appears and he says to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel” (Gen.  3:15).  Yes, Satan strikes at the heel.  He always has and he still does.  But Christ crushed his head gloriously and victoriously on the cross.  The Anointed One paid for all our sin and ruined the devil’s plan of rebellion against God.  He ruined the devil’s plan of spiteful hatred towards God’s elect, His chosen people.

From the very dawn of history, we see our Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ, moving ever towards His anointed task.  This special anointing at Bethany is just the last anointing in the process.  But I must confess that I have been deceiving you somewhat.  The Anointed One is no product of time.  He was not anointed in Genesis 3 in response to the Fall, as though God somehow lost control of events and was scrambling to get back on top of things, as though God was caught off-guard and moved in reaction and anointed Him in reaction.  No, God knows all, God plans all, and God’s will is done.  You see, the Anointed One became the Anointed One in eternity past, before all time and before all creation in the eternal council.

First Peter 1 speaks of how God’s elect are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and then it makes this astonishing statement in verse 20: speaking of Christ, Peter says, “He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.”  “Before the creation of the world” is, by definition, before the Fall.  It is before man sinned.  It is before man broke his relationship with God.  And yet Christ was chosen, He was anointed, He was set apart before those events.  Ephesians 3:11 speaks of God’s eternal purpose, accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.  It is His eternal purpose, from eternity past to eternity future, to save a people for Himself.  Ephesians 1:4 says we were chosen in Him before the creation of the world.  We were foreknown, foreloved by God in eternity past (Rom. 8:28).  And Ephesians 1:5 says, “He predestined us to be adopted in Christ Jesus.”

So our Anointed One became the Anointed One not at Bethany, and not even in the garden of Eden, but in eternity past.  There God the Father made His salvation plan for His people.  Yes, man would fall, man would sin, and sin would enter the world through that one man.  But there would be another man, a unique man, a perfect man, a God-man: a Messiah.  There would be the Christ, the Anointed One.  He would come and enter time.  He would live in perfect obedience to the Father’s will.  Then He would offer Himself as a sacrifice for our sins—for the sins of all who love Him and who are called according to His purposes.  That is the job for which He was anointed in eternity past.

The Father sent Him in love for us.  But notice also that the Son agreed.  Our Anointed One agreed.  He was not sent against His will.  Indeed, He volunteered for the task.  In John 10:14–15 He says, “I am the good shepherd. . . .  and I lay down my life for the sheep.”  And in verse 18 He says, “I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”  He continues, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”  He knew that this was His mission.  In John 12:27, He said, “It was for this very reason I came into the world.”  That is the whole purpose.  This was the mission, to suffer and die in our behalf.  God the Father planned our salvation in eternity past; Jesus Christ, God the Son, agreed and accomplished it on our behalf in history; and God the Holy Spirit applies this blood-bought redemption to His elect people.  He continues to apply it even today, and all we can say is: “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!”

This Jesus of Nazareth is the Anointed One.  So perhaps you are convinced from my sermon so far that there is an Anointed One, but we don’t really know if Jesus is that Anointed One.  It is abundantly clear from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  First and foremost, Scripture says this explicitly.  The word of God is our only standard, so when the Scripture tells us something, that settles the matter.  In Matthew 3:17, as Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form as a dove, and God said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.”  In Acts 17:3, Paul says it as clear as can be:  “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.”  It doesn’t get any plainer than that.  Peter also said in Acts 4:12, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven by which men can be saved.”  This Jesus is the Christ.  Scripture clearly presents Him as the Christ.  The same Scripture that tells us that there is a Christ, an Anointed One, tells us that Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One.

Second, if that is not enough for you, Jesus Himself claimed to be the Son of God and He offered many miracles as proofs.  John 20:31 says that these signs, these miracles, were performed and recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ.

Third, Jesus said He would prove His claim to be the Anointed One, to be the Messiah, by His death and resurrection three days later (Luke 24:7).  In Matthew 16:21, He explicitly taught His disciples that He must suffer many things at the hands of the religious authorities in Jerusalem, that He must be killed, and on the third day that He must be raised to life.  That is a specific prediction ahead of time.  Jesus did not leave Himself any room at all.  If you were going to defraud people, you would say, “I am going to be raised in 100 years, or 200 years,” when none of those people would be around.  But He said He would die and be raised on the third day, and that is exactly what happened.  He was killed, and He was raised to life three days later.  His disciples saw Him brutally beaten, crucified, impaled with a spear so that blood and water rushed out of His side, and then they buried Him in a tomb.  There is no mistake that He died.

Moreover, there is no mistake that He rose again.  His disciples, these close confidants who knew Him so well, saw Him alive again many times, and so did many other people.  And those disciples died asserting this truth.  In fact, they died for asserting this truth.  They would not recant, even when facing painful and certain death.  This gives great weight to the veracity of their statements.  They would not recant those statements, even though they knew that refusing to recant meant that they would die.

Thus, Jesus is proved to be the Anointed Christ by His death and resurrection.  But He is also proved to be this Anointed Christ by fulfilling so many Old Testament prophecies.  His birth and His life fulfilled so many Old Testament prophecies made in advance that only a willfully blind person could deny that Jesus was the Anointed One spoken of in the Old Testament.  I am going to name a few, not all, of these prophecies.  The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), fulfilled in Matthew 2:1.  The Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14), fulfilled in Matthew 1:22.  He would come from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10), and He came from the tribe of Judah (Luke 3:33).  He would spend a season of His life in Egypt (Hos. 11:1), fulfilled in Matthew 2:14–15.  A massacre of children would happen at the Messiah’s birthplace (Jer. 31:15), and it happened (Matt. 2:16–18).  Notice, this is getting fairly specific now.  Many people could spend a season of their life in Egypt, but having a massacre in your birthplace?  A messenger would prepare the way for the Messiah.  The Messiah would be declared to be the Son of God.  The Messiah would be called a Nazarene (Jesus of Nazareth).  The Messiah would bring light to Galilee.  He would spend a lot of time in the backwaters of Galilee.  The Messiah would speak in parables.  The Messiah would be praised by little children.  The Messiah would be betrayed.  The price paid for the Messiah would be used to buy a potter’s field.  The Messiah would be falsely accused.  The Messiah would be silent before His accusers.  The Messiah would be spat upon and struck.  The Messiah would be crucified with criminals, yet buried with the rich.  The Messiah would be given vinegar to drink.  His hands and His feet would be pierced.  The Messiah would be mocked and ridiculed.  Soldiers would gamble for His garments.  His bones would not be broken, despite all the other torture He went through.  The Messiah would pray for His enemies.  Soldiers would pierce the Messiah’s side.  The Messiah would resurrect from the dead, and the Messiah would ascend into heaven.

These are all Old Testament prophecies, and they were all fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ with many, many eyewitnesses to account.  That is a whole lot of coincidences, if it is coincidental.  That is a whole lot of witnesses to be making things up if it is fraudulent.  In reality, it is undeniable.  There is an eternally Anointed One, a Messiah, a Christ, and it is equally undeniable that Jesus is the Anointed One.  He is the Savior of the world, the One sent by God for the people of God to redeem us from our sin and from the penalty of our sin, and to usher us into glory.  There is no question as to this truth.  The only real question is, what are you going to do about it?

There are only two options.  The first option is to cry out to Him for salvation.  Cry out to Him, “Have mercy on me, a sinner!” Confess Him and forsake your sins and be saved today.  Ask Him, “Pay for my sins.  You already paid for it, but extend that grace to me.”  It is amazing that God the Father planned it in eternity past, and that God the Son agreed in eternity past to suffer and die to pay for our sins.  It is amazing that this is a reality.  It is amazing that this offer of salvation is made available to all people.  You do not have to be a certain race, a certain color, or of a certain family in order to receive it.  You do not have to be rich.  You do not have to be educated.  You do not have to be anything else.  Romans 10:12–13 tell us, “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on Him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”

It is amazing.  God makes this offer available to all.  But that does not mean that all will receive it.  There is a second option.  You are free to reject this offer of salvation, this offer of grace.  And, tragically, foolishly, many will do just that.  The Bible tells us, “Many are called but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14).  You can choose eternal life, or you can choose eternal death (Deut. 30:19).  And for some reason—because of sin, because of enmity, because of the wickedness of man’s heart, because of total depravity, because we are dead in our trespasses and sins—many people will refuse to choose life.  Many are called but few are chosen.  Many, dead in their trespasses and sins, choose to remain dead.  Only those who are elect of God, whom He regenerates and makes alive by His Holy Spirit, will choose life.  They are the few.

How does God apply the redemption achieved by God the Son, the Anointed One, on the cross?  It all starts with preaching the word.  Romans 10:14–15 says, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?  And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can someone preach unless they are sent?”  You see the chain.  (GTB)  But you also see the good news.  Someone was sent to you by God.  Someone has preached to you.  You have heard of Jesus, and you can believe in Him today.  You can put your faith in Him today.  You can trust in Him alone today.  I already told you that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  The offer is open to all.  But it also means the offer is open to you personally as well.

So, I ask, what are you waiting for?  The eternally Anointed One has come.  The eternally Anointed One has been proclaimed to you.  The eternally Anointed One moves among you today as His word is preached.  Cry out to Him and be saved, eternally secure in Christ, forever.

2. The Anointing at Bethany

We are perhaps left to wonder why the Anointed One is anointed here at Bethany.  I already said that He is the Anointed One.  So why does He need to be anointed again?  Well, it is recorded in the Scriptures. It is especially preserved to be told “wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world” (v. 9).  So that gives us a clue that this is an important event.

The first reason it is important is that Jesus was being specially prepared for an important task, and for a task that was imminent.  The first lines of our text tells us, “The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two days away” (v. 1).   So His task is imminent.  He has been moving towards this from eternity past, but He has been moving toward it in time for all of His life, and now it is imminent.  It is only a few days away.  He is being specially anointed for that imminent task.

We do not do that much anointing in our culture.  But it was an important biblical practice.  The idea was to mark and specially set apart a person for a particular and critical task.  Kings were anointed to set them apart for their new task of ruling over God’s people in righteousness.  Think of King David in 1 Samuel 16.  He was anointed.  Even Saul in 1 Samuel 10 and Jehu in 1 Kings 19 were specially anointed for the tasks that were coming.

But not only kings were anointed.  Leviticus 8:12 records Aaron being anointed as priest over God’s people, a sacred marking in preparation for his sacred office.  And Leviticus 8:10 says, “Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the tabernacle and everything in it, and so consecrated them.”  The idea is that not just people, but even these sacred objects, were set apart for their sacred works.  Anointing is both a symbolic act to show that this person is specially set apart for God’s work, and it is also a grace-imparting act, refreshing and preparing the person for that difficult work to be done.

This was surely true in Jesus’ case.  The Anointed One was specially anointed by this faithful woman shortly before going to His unique task.  His crucifixion and His great suffering at God’s hand were only a day or two away, and He was about to do the most difficult thing ever done in all of history.  From eternity past to eternity future, nothing more difficult has been done.  And He knew it was coming.  He knew what it was.

Here, after the fact, we don’t even fully grasp the infinite suffering of Christ on the cross, but He knew it.  He grasped it beforehand as infinite God Himself.  He knew that this was coming, that He would suffer the full blast of God’s infinite wrath in our place.  He knew that before He would go to suffer God’s wrath, He would be sorely tempted by the devil again not to go and do it, but rather to avoid it.

This was a great strain on Jesus.  It was so much strain that He prayed, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground just a little bit later.  He even prayed that God might take the task away if possible.  But He also said, “Thy will be done.”  So, we can see that this was His eternal mission.  He  prayed that God would somehow take it away, if that were possible.  But it was not possible, and He went through with it.  But this shows the great strain that He was under and the great strain to come.  Jesus Christ needed infinite grace to meet this task and to avoid these temptations of the devil.  So He was specially anointed at Bethany to prepare Him as He traveled that last mile of His journey.

The second reason for this special anointing was to specially mark Him, to set Him apart for His special task, and to prepare His body for burial (v. 8).  Jesus was marked for death:  death on the cross, an atoning death, the most significant death in the history of the world, past or future.  He was specially called and set apart to bear that full wrath of God in our behalf, and so He was specially anointed, specially marked, specially set apart for that task.  Just as David was anointed for the difficult task of ruling God’s people, just as the temple and its articles were anointed for their special and sacred role in worship, in the same way Jesus was publicly marked this last time as the sacrificial lamb, the Passover lamb, the sacrifice whose shed blood would pay for sin once and for all.

Jesus was not like any other Passover sacrifice.  The Jews had been having Passover sacrifices for generations.  But Jesus was not just another Passover sacrifice.  Just like He was the Anointed One, He was also the Paschal sacrifice, the once-for-all sacrifice.  He would suffer the penalty in our behalf, and then His shed blood would turn away the wrath of God, just as the blood of the Passover lambs on the doorpost turned away the angel of death at the exodus.  But after Christ’s death, there would be no need for further sacrifice.  You see, the blood of all those Passover lambs, all those temple sacrifices, was simply symbolic and temporary.  It pointed the way of what was to come.  But Jesus’ shed blood was effectual.  It was permanent.  It was of infinite value, and so it could satisfy the infinite penalty.  Christ would turn away God’s wrath permanently and forever.

He was no ordinary lamb, and He was no ordinary sacrifice, so He experienced no ordinary anointing.  We read in our text that He was anointed with pure nard.  It was the best for the best.  It was extremely expensive.  It says in our text “three hundred denarii.”  It is difficult to track in today’s value.  Purchasing powers are a lot different than they were back then.  But best estimates are close to $30,000.  We can think of this perhaps as her life savings.  Whatever the exact number, it was a lavish and incredible gesture.  And yet it was the right gesture.  Some there objected, saying, “It could have been sold and used to help the poor.”  It says they rebuked the woman harshly.  They thought it was too grand a gesture.  But they missed the significance of what was happening right there in front of them.  Something more important was happening than a social movement.  The Christ was about to suffer God’s full wrath and to die.  He was anointed with the greatest anointing she could give, for He was the greatest sacrifice about to achieve the greatest gain for all mankind, a sacrifice of infinite worth that would achieve infinite value for us.

So I ask, what is a better use for $30,000—to temporarily relieve the suffering of the poor in Jerusalem, or to prepare the Christ, who was purchasing for them an eternal future, eternal security, eternal glory?  If there was any problem with this anointing, it was not that it was too much, but that it was not enough.  Nothing could have been enough.  Nothing we do can repay Jesus Christ for His atonement on the cross, which purchased our eternal salvation.  I do not say this to criticize this woman.  Quite the contrary.  Verse 8 says she did what she could, implying that she did the maximum that she could.  She took an alabaster jar, a very expensive vessel and broke it—an irreversible commitment.  She poured it out one hundred percent.  She held nothing back—a total commitment.  She poured the perfume on Jesus’ head as a thank offering—a very personal, a very intimate commitment.  Verse 6 says it was a beautiful act, a pleasing and refreshing act.  When we read this, we are reminded of Psalm 133, which speaks in the superlative of how good and pleasant it is to have precious oil poured on the head, running down the beard and upon the collar of his robes.

That is what this woman did for her Savior, for her Master.  You see, He saved her and paid for all her sins and called her to Himself for all eternity.  Now He was about to go and achieve that in time on the cross.  So I ask, what is a $30,000 jar of perfume in comparison?  It is nothing.  She did what she could, but it is the least that she could do.  And to her credit, in faith she did it.

From here on out, it would be all downhill for Jesus, in an earthly sense.  Soon, Judas would go out and betray Him.  One of Christ’s own, one of His intimate friends would go out and betray Him.  Jesus would host the emotionally conflicted Last Supper, where the betrayer sat there and dipped bread into the bowl with Him.  Later, Jesus would be tempted and suffer anguish in the garden.  He would be arrested by the mob, and that close disciple, the betrayer, would be leading the rabble to get Him.  Jesus would be mocked by the Sanhedrin.  He would be subjected to lies and slander.  He would be disowned three times by His other close companion Peter.  His close friend and staunch ally would abandon Him.  He would be subjected to grave injustice at the hands of Pilate.  He would be mocked.  He would be flogged.  He would be beaten.  He would be crucified and hung on a tree—a cursed death.  Worst of all, as I have alluded to, He would suffer the full wrath of God, and then He would die.

As Jesus was preparing for all this, this woman brought a last blessing—a last genuine gesture of genuine faith.  The pleasant anointing would be expensive nard.  It was all she could do for her Savior.  She gave her all to mark Him in fulfillment of the Old Testament and to refresh and bless Him before His last march to the cross.  This is why she is remembered in the Scriptures.  This is why Jesus declared, “Wherever the gospel is preached what she has done will be told in memory of her.”  She anointed the Anointed One for His appointed task.

Application

Let us look at a few points of application.  The first and most important application is to believe in the Anointed One.  Put your faith in Jesus Christ alone.  He is the only way to be saved (John 14:6).  He said so Himself.  He is not an Anointed One; He is the Anointed One.  And, notice, it is the Anointed One.  It is not the Anointed Twenty, or the Anointed Six, or even the Anointed Two.  It is the Anointed One.  He is the only way to be saved.

Praise God, that there is an Anointed One.  God did not owe us that, and rather than complain about why there is only one way to be saved, we should be praising God that there is a way at all.  God did not owe us a way to be saved.  What He owed us was wrath and judgment and justice.  And He justly provided a way for that wrath to be satisfied, poured out on the Sinless One, poured out on the Anointed One, poured out on very God, His own Son, Jesus Christ, the only one who could make full atonement for us.  Put your faith in that Anointed One and be saved today.  Cry out to Him today: “What must I do to be saved?”  “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).  I’ve said this several times.  Romans 10:13.  He will not turn you down.  “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Cry out to Him in faith and be regenerated, made alive, born again by the power of the Holy Spirit.  It is still available today, all by grace, all through faith in Jesus Christ.  You do not have to do anything to make atonement.  He already took care of it.  He did it all.  All you must do is confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, and you will be saved (Rom. 10:9).  Then go live that new life that He gave you.  He will respond in mercy if you cry out to Him to be saved.

Right now, if you have not confessed Him, you are His enemy.  You are living in sin and rebellion against Him.  But if you cry out to Him, He will receive you.  He will change you.  God promised this in Ezekiel 36.  He said He will give us a new heart, a heart of flesh, and He will put a new spirit in us.  He will move in us by that spirit, causing us to follow His decrees and to keep His commands.  That is a life of joyful obedience to God.  And it happens just like that.  We are freed from the power of sin.  We are free to live for God’s glory.  We are free to live in obedience to God a blessed life, the best life, and the Christian life.  Praise the Lord.  So I say, do it!  Confess Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, as your Lord and Savior, and be ushered into eternal life.

Also, in application, give of your best to the Master.  Be like this extraordinary woman in our text.  Give your best to God.  Give your most prized things to God.  Use them for God.  Use them for His mission.  This is going to mean different things to different people.  For her, it was an alabaster jar of pure nard, highly valued and highly expensive.  She did not withhold it.  For some, it may be your money.  For others, it may be your time.  For yet others, it may be your autonomy or your pride.  For still others, it will be that secret sin, the pleasure of sin for a season.  Whatever it is, put it on the altar.  Break open the jar and pour it out before the Lord.  Is it worth a year’s wages, or ten year’s wages, or a thousand year’s wages?  So what!  That is insignificant next to eternity.  Pour it out before the Lord.

And do it like her, permanently.  Remember, she broke the jar.  Fully.  One hundred percent poured out.  Freely.  No one asked her or told her or dragged her there to do it.  Let your life poured out for Christ be a public testimony to Him.  Some may criticize you.  They may rebuke you harshly.  Some may sneer at you.  Let them criticize.  Let them sneer.  Other people will see you and be blessed by you.  They will believe and be saved, and they will tell others.  They will tell others about you.  I came to Christ because I knew a person, and that person testified to me.  That person lived that life.

They will testify about you.  They will testify about themselves.  They will tell others about what God has done, and those others will believe and so on and so on.   I observed in preaching recently that everyone confessing Christ heard the gospel from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone all the way back to these twelve disciples.  Think of that.  You are saved by God’s election at bottom, but God used a chain of evangelists to get to you, all the way back in history 2,000 years, even to the few who stood in that room and who smelled the fragrance of that perfume poured out over His head.  We are connected in that seamless way all the way back to them and all the way back to her.

It was an expensive act, but it was surely worth it.  That extraordinary woman is now in glory with Jesus, and she is not regretting what she did.  She is glorying in Christ.  So whether it is a $30,000 bottle of perfume or a cold cup of water given to Christ’s persecuted, all are actions for Christ and are of eternal value and eternal significance.  Let us hold nothing back from God.  Let us pour out our lives for Jesus Christ just as she poured out that perfume over Him.  Let us pour out our very lives for Him.  Like the alabaster jar of perfume, it will not be enough.  But it is all we can do.  She did what she could.  Let us do what we can.

The final application: Let us remember what Christ has done on our behalf.  We were doomed.  We were enemies of God.  And yet He redeemed us.  He was anointed to suffer God’s wrath in our behalf in eternity past.  He was anointed again in the little village of Bethany.  He did not hold anything back.  He gave His all.  He did not shrink back, but He set His face like flint and forged ahead for us.  It is an amazing thing.  When we preach about it all the time, it can become familiar.  It can become commonplace.  But it is an amazing thing, and we should stop and consider it once in a while.  He poured out His all for His enemies.  He suffered the full wrath of God—the infinite wrath of God—for us, His enemies.  He agreed voluntarily to do this for us, His enemies.  And it was not for any gain to Himself.  He was already perfect in glory, so there was nothing to gain.  No, He did it simply because He loved us, though we were unremarkable and unlovable.  We were just as unremarkable and unlovable as everyone else.

Let us stop and take some time and meditate on this unbelievable act, on this amazing grace.  And may we give all the glory in our hearts, in our minds, in our actions, in our words, and in our worship.  May we give it all to the Anointed One.  Glory, glory, glory to the King of kings! Amen.