About Mark: A measure of Mark's reliability is his account of Judas. Mark's record of Jesus is not idealised into a myth, nor varnished into an epic. It tells the cold hard facts.
Jesus enlisted disciples. Disciples were people who gave their loyalty to Jesus. But not all who appeared to be loyal, were really so. This was the case with the first group of Christian disciples, and has been the case ever since.
The story of Judas, the man of betrayal, must be told wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world. So, as a positive counter-balance to the kiss of Judas, Mark places a story of a woman's authentic devotion (3-9). It too will also be told wherever the good news is preached. Mark inserts the story of true devotion between his notes about the plotters' search for a way to kill Jesus (1-2), and finding it (10-11).
Bible: Mark 14:1-11, The Plot to Kill Jesus
1 It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; 2 for they said, "Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people."
The Anointing at Bethany
3 While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. 4 But some were there who said to one another in anger, "Why was the ointment wasted in this way? 5 For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor." And they scolded her. 6 But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. 7 For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. 8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."
Judas Agrees to Betray Jesus
10 Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. 11 When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.
Comment: FOR LOVE OR MONEY?
This woman is one person at last who has taken seriously the predictions of Jesus' death. Quite plainly she had "anointed my body beforehand for burial" (14:8), and openly shown her devotion to Jesus, no matter what the cost!
But it is strange to anoint a person before he dies. Does she take this action now because she had the foresight to know that the burial would be unusual, and that if the anointing was not performed now, the act of costly devotion could never be performed? Later, when other women buy spices and go to anoint the body of Jesus (16:1) they do so in vain for Jesus had risen. Love is not always blind; it may also be far-sighted. And as yet few were really taking Jesus' predictions of death and resurrection seriously.
So while others "took opportunity to betray Jesus" (11), this woman took opportunity to believe in Jesus with whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. Jesus' acceptance of a woman's devotion seems to be the final trigger of Judas' rejection; yet throughout this part of Mark's Gospel it is the women followers who are the heroes and the men who are the cowards.
Discipleship today: Two opposing value systems are demonstrated here. The woman was devoted to Jesus and no expense was spared. Judas was devoted to money and even Jesus was not spared. John's Gospel adds further detail. John reports that the woman was Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, in whose home Jesus and the disciples usually stayed at Bethany (she also appears in Luke 10:38-42 and JohnChapter 11).
John explains too that Judas' concern for the poor was a cover-up. "He said this not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it" (John 12:6). In other words, the particular actions attributed to both the people featured in Mark's story were not aberrations, but expressions of their real manner of relating to Jesus. Time and circumstance comes when the reality of our attitudes to Jesus is revealed.
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