“1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” 6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” 9 Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, 11 for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him.
12 The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, ‘Hosanna! “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the King of Israel!”
14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written, 15 “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”
16 At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.
17 Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. 18 Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. 19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”
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There is a right way and a wrong way to interview for a job. The right way is to be interested in the work. The wrong way is just to act interested in the work to get the job. If you are actually interested in the line of work, that will come out in the questions you ask and the responses you give. If you aren’t, that will come out too; an attentive interviewer can tell the difference.
There is a right way and a wrong way to go on a date. The right way is to make it your business to get to know the other person. The wrong way is to try to make the other person like you; an attentive date can eventually tell the difference.
There is a right way and a wrong way to respond to Jesus. This passage show both and it is a diagnostic tool to uncover your response. If you see that you are responding rightly, praise God. His Spirit put that in you. If you see that you are responding wrongly, ask God to change you. Don’t just try to act differently; that will be just like trying to act interested during a job interview and that’s a lot of what passes for religion. Ask to be changed. Spiritual change happens by the Holy Spirit.
As we study God’s word and you see the ways in which people respond to Jesus, you will see a right way and a wrong way. Ask yourself which one describes your typical response to him. There is a right way and a wrong way to respond to Jesus. That’s the claim of this sermon.
We will study this in two points. First: the anointing. Second: the parade. We see the anointing in verses 1-11. We see the parade in verses 12-19.
First: the anointing. As we open chapter 12, everyone is looking for Jesus. The Sanhedrin is looking for him in order to arrest him. It’s almost time for Passover and the continually growing crowd is looking for him because the story about him resurrected Lazarus was spreading like a good sort of gossip. Everyone was looking for Jesus, but he was nowhere to be found. He and his disciples had stepped away from the public eye.
Chapter 12 makes his return. It starts with this dinner given as a thank you to Jesus for raising Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus was reclining at the table with Jesus. Lazarus’ sister Martha was busy working the tables. His other sister Mary is the focus of this section. She anointed Jesus’ feet. To get a picture of what this looked like, you need to understand what it means to recline at table, as verse 2 puts it. The Jews of that time didn’t sit at their tables the way we do. They reclined as this first slide shows.
You can see how this would give Mary easy access to Jesus’ feet.
Servants washed feet and feet needed to be washed because everyone walked everywhere in sandals. This was a humble job, but Mary went even further. She poured perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped up the excess with her hair. Jewish women never undid their hair in public. Mary was, in some ways, debasing herself. If you imagine yourself doing what she did for the person two pews in front of you or behind you, you can see how this might feel a bit awkward.
Mary did this as a way of showing Jesus how much he meant to her; “I’m willing to act like this to show you how great you are.” Mary used perfume that cost a year’s wages to show Jesus’ how much he was worth to her. This type of perfume was probably imported from Northern India. We don’t know how it came into Mary’s possession. Maybe her family was wealthy. Maybe her family and others in Bethany pooled resources to buy it as a way of thanking Jesus for resurrecting Lazarus. The point is that Mary used this absurdly expensive perfume to show Jesus what she thought of him. She wanted him to feel like a million bucks because she thought he was worth that and more. The apparent wastefulness was part of the point. You can’t go over the top to show someone what you think of them without going over the top.
That’s Mary’s response to Jesus. It was reckless in all the best ways. She had no problem humbling herself and even humiliating herself to make him look good. She was acting like David who danced his heart out for the Lord even though his wife said he looked like a fool. It’s worth considering whether you are willing to look like a fool for Christ. Love songs are full of men professing their willingness to play the fool for their woman. “When a man loves a woman, spends his very last dime, trying to hold on to what he needs. He’d give up all his comforts and sleep out in the rain if she said that's the way it ought to be.” That man loves his woman more than his pride. It’s worth considering whether you love Jesus more than your pride.
Judas didn’t. Judas couldn’t even see that the apparent wastefulness was part of the point. The other gospels make clear that he wasn’t alone in misunderstanding this situation. Matthew tells us that ‘when the disciples saw [Mary doing this], they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked.’ John focuses in on only Judas probably to provide a one-to-one contrast with Mary. He wants you to ask yourself whether you tend to act more like Mary or more like Judas when you consider Jesus.
Judas couldn’t see the point of this apparent wastefulness. He couldn’t see it not simply because he didn’t value Jesus highly enough, but also because he valued himself too highly; “as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.” Judas’ response was about himself. It was all about what this event had to do with him. If he considered what it had to do with Mary, he would have seen her understandable gratitude; Jesus had just resurrected her brother. If he considered what it had to do with Jesus, he would have been confronted by the fact that Jesus was, in fact, worthy of such extravagant appreciation. Judas didn’t consider Mary or Jesus. Judas thought about Judas.
Jesus knew that and rebuked him; verse 7, “Leave her alone.” Jesus knew that this was about Mary and about himself and had nothing to do with Judas. Imagine a little boy bringing a drawing to his mother. “It’s for you,” he says. “It’s a drawing of you and me.” His sister looks the drawing and scoffs, “your hands aren’t that big; that doesn’t look anything like mom.” What’s going on inside that mother when she hears those words? Frustration and bewilderment. She is frustrated because her daughter has offended her son for giving her a gift. She is bewildered because this sweet drawing has everything to do with her and her son and absolutely nothing to do with her daughter so unless her daughter has something nice about it to say about it, she better keep quiet; verse 7, “Leave her alone.” That’s a good reminder when we see others giving their all to Jesus in singing, in serving, and in so much more, and think of throwing our two cents in rather than giving ourselves whole heartedly to Jesus.
Now both Judas and Mary are still remembered today for how they responded to Jesus. We can’t talk about Judas without mentioning how little he valued Jesus as seen in his act of betrayal and Mary is remembered for this over-the-top show of honor. As Jesus himself said, “wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
Jesus delighted in this extreme show of devotion. He knew it was a sign that she had her heart in the right place because her heart was given over to him. What does Jesus see within you? Does he see an almost reckless willingness to show him how you value him, or does he see something much more calculating—something that’s really all about you; something much more like what he saw in Judas?
Jesus took great delight in Mary’s excessive affection; he also thought about it in terms of his own death, which was doubtlessly running through his mind quite a bit by this time; verse 7, “it was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
It was quite normal to spend good deal on funerals for loved ones in those days. Mary simply did that before Jesus died. We talk about how wonderful it would be to attend your own funeral while you were still alive; Mary gave Jesus that opportunity, and he appreciated it. Think of that: Jesus appreciates what we do to honor him.
This dinner brought other responses to Jesus as well. The first was curiosity; verse 9, “Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.” That’s understandable. Wouldn’t you want to see someone who had been raised from the dead? Wouldn’t want to see the person who did the raising? The second response was far more troubling; verse 10, “So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him.”
The religious authorities had made their thoughts on Jesus clear: good people didn’t have anything to do with Jesus. The people’s fear of the religious leaders, however, was now outweighed by their curiosity about Jesus. They were interested in this miracle, and so the religious leaders decided to destroy the evidence of this miracle. They decided to kill Lazarus because Lazarus had become a walking commercial for Jesus. Now take a step back and think about the insanity of trying to kill a man whom God had resurrected. Hatred always produces all sorts of insane responses. There are all sorts of responses to Jesus. Some are hateful. Some are curious. Some are calculating. Some are extravagantly honoring. There are other responses as well. Which one describes yours? Which one would Jesus say describes you?
We now come to another round of responses in our second point: the parade. John assumes that his readers know all about this parade because he assumes that his readers have read the other gospels. John wrote his gospel as a sort of companion to theirs. This explains why his account of the triumphal entry itself is very short. He puts the focus not on the parade itself but on the people’s responses; verse 12, “The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him.”
Jerusalem was crowded with people by this point. Josephus estimates that a Passover a couple decades later attracted at least 2.7 million people to the city. His estimate could be exaggerated, but either way the city was certainly packed to overflowing and enough of the peopel had heard enough about Jesus to want to see him.
They took palm branches because that was not only a national symbol of Israel; it was a nationalistic symbol. There’s a difference and you can see it north of town. There is a house with an American flag and a Gadsden flag. The Gadsden flag has the coiled snake on it and reads “Don’t Tread on Me.” The stars and stripes is the national symbol; the Gadsden flag is a nationalistic symbol. It implies a readiness to fight for your interests. That’s what was going on with those palm branches. Ever since they the Maccabean victories over foreign oppressors, these branches had been symbols of liberation.
The word “Hosanna” was also about liberation. It comes from two Hebrew words: “save” and “please.” ‘They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “save us, please!”’ This word “Hosanna” and the phrase “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”, which the people were shouting, both came from Psalm 118 which was a psalm about the coming Messiah; this and the rest of the Hallel psalms were recited every Passover. So what you have here is a Psalm about the Messiah recited every Passover and a crowd gathering for the Passover shouting this Psalm during this parade because they believed Jesus was the Messiah. That’s the next phrase the people were shouting; verse 13, “Blessed is the King of Israel!” When you remember that there might have been more than 2 million Jews in Jerusalem where Jesus was heading, you can see why DA Carson would say, “doubtless the scene was fraught with potential explosiveness. Jesus could have begun an armed revolt then and there.”
Jesus didn’t begin a revolt. Instead he chose to ride a donkey; verse 14, ‘Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written, “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” Those words come from Zechariah 9 and are about the gentleness of the king. The words that follow in Zechariah are about peace, not revolt; “I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations.”
Jesus wanted to make clear that he wasn’t nationalistic. He came for the whole world—peace to the nations. The king of Israel was inviting all nations to the God of Israel. It’s no mistake that after our passage, here in John 12, we see Greeks coming to see Jesus. It’s no mistake that two verses after, “see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt,” in Zechariah 9, we read about sons of Greece. It’s no mistake that we see the Pharisees shaking their heads in disgust in verse 19 saying, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!” It’s no mistake that there are people all over the world studying this passage today to know Jesus better. That was and is God’s plan. Hopefully you are part of it.
The crowd didn’t understand all of that. The disciples didn’t understand all of that yet; verse 16, “At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.”
The disciples only saw Jesus for who he was after their expectations were crushed by his death. That’s how it goes for us too. We all have expectations of Jesus and before we can see him for who he is, these expectations must be crushed. As Oswald Chambers put it, “At the beginning of our life with Jesus Christ, we were sure we knew all there was to know about following him. It was a delight to forsake everything else and to throw ourselves before him in a fearless statement of love, but now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is far ahead of us and is beginning to seem different and unfamiliar.”
Before you can see Jesus for who he is, your expectations of who he should be must be disappointed. That Palm Sunday crowd shouted in hopes of the kingdom coming and Calvin hit out of the park to see that and say, “we daily ask from God that His kingdom may come, but scarcely one man in a hundred earnestly desires it.” This isn’t merely a story of a past event. This describes life today. This shows not only how people did respond to Jesus. It shows how people do respond to Jesus.
How do you respond to Jesus? Do you respond like the crowd—do you put your own expectations on Jesus and judge accordingly? Do you respond like the Pharisees—do you look at Jesus and find yourself unable to see what the fuss is all about? Do you respond like the disciples—willing to have your expectations of Jesus crushed to know Jesus for who he is? Do you respond like Judas—are you calculating when it comes to Christ because youa re living as if life is all about you? Do you respond like Mary—do you value Jesus more than you value your pride?
That last response describes worship. In worship, you value an object more than you value your pride. That’s why worship is often described in terms of bowing. Here it is described in terms of over-the-top expressions. It is described in terms of perhaps embarrassing affection, but now ask yourself, do you think Mary cared what anyone thought of her as she poured that perfume on Jesus feet? Do you think she cared what Judas thought about it? Do you think she cared what anyone thought of her wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair? Do you think she cares what I think?
“When the music fades and all is stripped away, and I simply come longing just to bring something that’s of worth that will bless your heart. I’ll bring You more than a song for a song in itself is not what You have required. You search much deeper within through the way things appear you’re looking into my heart. I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about you; it’s all about you, Jesus. I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it when it’s all about you; it’s all about you, Jesus.” What do you do in this sanctuary? Is what you do all about Jesus? What do you do with your life? There is a right way and a wrong way to respond to Jesus. Amen.