Book of John — Session 12: A Year's Wages in Perfume

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Session 12 of 21Book of John

A Year's Wages in Perfume

Chapter 12; Anointing, palms, and the Greeks who come seeking

Where this chapter sits

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Right now: Crucifixion and Resurrection (AD 30)

Setting: Bethany and Jerusalem

By Bea Zalel

John 12

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Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the hometown of Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.
So they hosted a dinner for Jesus there. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with Him.
Then Mary took about a pint of expensive perfume, made of pure nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet and wiped them with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was going to betray Him, asked,
"Why wasn't this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"
Judas 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 take from what was put into it.
"Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "She has kept this perfume in preparation for the day of My burial.
The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me."
Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews learned that Jesus was there. And they came not only because of Him, but also to see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.
So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well,
for on account of him many of the Jews were deserting them and believing in Jesus.
The next day the great crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.
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!"
Finding a young donkey, Jesus sat on it, as it is written:
"Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion. See, your King is coming, seated on the colt of a donkey."
At first His disciples did not understand these things, but after Jesus was glorified they remembered what had been done to Him, and they realized that these very things had also been written about Him.
Meanwhile, many people who had been with Jesus when He called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to testify.
That is also why the crowd went out to meet Him, because they heard that He had performed this sign.
Then the Pharisees said to one another, "You can see that this is doing you no good. Look how the whole world has gone after Him!"
Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the feast.
They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and requested of him, "Sir, we want to see Jesus."
Philip relayed this appeal to Andrew, and both of them went and told Jesus.
But Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, My servant will be as well. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.
Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? No, it is for this purpose that I have come to this hour.
Father, glorify Your name!" Then a voice came from heaven: "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again."
The crowd standing there heard it and said that it had thundered. Others said that an angel had spoken to Him.
In response, Jesus said, "This voice was not for My benefit, but yours.
Now judgment is upon this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out.
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw everyone to Myself."
He said this to indicate the kind of death He was going to die.
The crowd replied, "We have heard from the Law that the Christ will remain forever. So how can You say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?"
Then Jesus told them, "For a little while longer, the Light will be among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.
While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of light." After Jesus had spoken these things, He went away and was hidden from them.
Although Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still did not believe in Him.
This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet: "Lord, who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"
For this reason they were unable to believe. For again, Isaiah says:
"He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they cannot see with their eyes, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them."
Isaiah said these things because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about Him.
Nevertheless, many of the leaders believed in Him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue.
For they loved praise from men more than praise from God.
Then Jesus cried out, "Whoever believes in Me does not believe in Me alone, but in the One who sent Me.
And whoever sees Me sees the One who sent Me.
I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in Me should remain in darkness.
As for anyone who hears My words and does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I have not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
There is a judge for the one who rejects Me and does not receive My words: The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.
I have not spoken on My own, but the Father who sent Me has commanded Me what to say and how to say it.
And I know that His command leads to eternal life. So I speak exactly what the Father has told Me to say."

Inline text: Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. Compare with the John 12 chapter in your preferred translation via the link above.

Theme

When Mary breaks open her jar in verse 3, John specifies "nardou pistikes," pure nard, imported from the Himalayan foothills through the Indian-Ocean spice trade. Judas's accounting in verse 5 puts the value at three hundred denarii. Matthew 20:2 sets the going rate for a Galilean day laborer at one denarius per day's work. So three hundred denarii was roughly a year of wages for a working family, with sabbaths and feast days subtracted from the count. This is not a generous gesture. It is an economic earthquake. A pound of poured-out nard, in a small house, would have saturated the air for hours. It would have clung to the recipient's hair and clothing for days. The aroma would have followed Jesus into the next week, through the upper room and into the courtyard of the high priest. Only the soldiers stripping him at Golgotha would finally have ended its career. A Jewish reader hears the scent as a burial preparation, since John explicitly frames it that way in verse 7. A Gentile reader hears the same scent as the kind of perfume used in elite Roman banquets, where wealthy guests were sometimes anointed with imported oils. Both hear excess.

Verse 6 names Judas as the keeper of the common purse and a thief, a detail only John preserves. His outraged question, "why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor," is exposed as cover. Jesus's reply in verse 8, "the poor you will always have with you," has carried more misuse than almost any sentence of his. It is often quoted to shrug off responsibility for the destitute. The original audience would not have heard it that way. They would have heard the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 15:11 instantly: "there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, you shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor." Jesus is citing the front half of a verse whose back half is a permanent command. His hearers would have completed it the way an English speaker completes "a stitch in time." It is a reminder of duty, not a relief from it. Carson notes that Jesus is also drawing a temporal distinction. The woman has done what only the present hour allows, while obedience to Deuteronomy 15 is a lifetime project.

The next morning Jesus rides into Jerusalem with the symbols of an insurrection. The crowd waves palm branches. Palms were a Maccabean nationalist symbol, again rooted in the Jewish revolt against the Greek empire of Antiochus IV. 1 Maccabees 13:51 records Simon Maccabeus's triumphal procession into the Akra with palms after the Seleucid garrison surrendered. The crowd shouts "Hosanna," Psalm 118:25, which means "save us." This is not a generic praise word. It is a political plea with two centuries of revolutionary memory packed into it. A Roman officer watching from the Antonia Fortress would have noted the procession in his report as a potential insurrection forming. Yet the visual signaling cuts hard against the political reading. Jesus rides not a warhorse but a young donkey, deliberately fulfilling Zechariah 9:9, the prophecy of a king who comes "humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a donkey." He is a king of peace whose victory will be God's, not his own army's. The Pharisees, watching the same crowd, mutter in verse 19 "the world has gone after him." Their phrasing is more accurate than they know. Verse 20 immediately introduces the world they meant.

"Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks," verse 20 says. They ask Philip, "sir, we would like to see Jesus." Greek-speaking Gentile God-fearers, men and women who had attached themselves to the synagogue without becoming full proselytes, had come up to Jerusalem for Passover. Now they wanted an audience with the Galilean teacher. Philip tells Andrew, Andrew brings Philip to Jesus and Jesus's answer in verse 23 is the line the whole gospel has been waiting for: "the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." In chapters 2, 7 and 8, John has repeated like a refrain that Jesus's hour had not yet come. Now, the moment Gentiles begin seeking the king, the king turns toward the cross. The structural signal is unmistakable. The nations have started to gather, so the time of the sign has arrived. Wright notes that John has built the architecture of the whole gospel so that the Greek inquiry is the trigger. The rest of the book is the answer to their request. They wanted to see Jesus. They will, in chapter 19, on a cross.

Supporting cross-references

Deuteronomy 15:11 →Zechariah 9:9 →Psalm 118:25-26 →Isaiah 53:1 →Matthew 20:2 →1 Maccabees 13:51 →

Discussion questions

A year's wages, in one jar, poured out in less than a minute and Jesus accepts it without protest. What kind of devotion is sober about its cost and still pours? When in your own life have you given something that did not balance on a spreadsheet?
"The poor you will always have with you" was a Deuteronomy citation. The audience completed the verse in their heads. What changes for you when you hear it as the first half of a command to open your hand rather than as permission to close it?
The crowd waved palms and shouted "save us" with two hundred years of revolutionary memory in their voices. Jesus answered the political crowd by riding a young donkey. Have you ever asked God for a deliverance he answered by going a different direction? How did you feel about it afterward?
John structures the whole gospel so that the Greeks' simple request, "we would like to see Jesus," is the trigger for the hour. What does it tell you about the gospel that the moment outsiders began to seek the king was the moment the king turned toward his death?

A Year's Wages in Perfume

John 12

Theme

Discussion questions

Further reading