Day 79 | They Made Ready
January 21, 2015 - WEEK TWELVE
James Tissot, The Ointment of the Magdalene, Brooklyn Museum, Purchased by public subscription.
DAILY READING
Matthew 26:1-19
Mark 14:1-16
Luke 22:1-13
For Younger Disciples
CONSIDER AS YOU READ
- Are you ever critical of how others spend their money (or use their oil)?
- In saying “ye have the poor always with you,” was Christ justifying our avoiding or ignoring the needs of the poor?
- Might Christ direct someone to your home to prepare for His coming?
SUPPLEMENTAL READING
[T]he feast was chiefly memorable, not for the number of Jews who thronged to witness it, and so to gaze at once on the Prophet of Nazareth and on the man whom He had raised from the dead, but from one memorable incident which occurred in the course of it, and which was the immediate beginning of the dark and dreadful end.
For as she sat there in the presence of her beloved and rescued brother, and her yet more deeply worshipped Lord, the feelings of Mary could no longer be restrained. She was not occupied like her sister in the active ministrations of the feast, but she sat and thought and gazed until the fire burned, and she felt impelled to some outward sign of her love, her gratitude, her adoration. So she arose and fetched an alabaster vase of Indian spikenard, and came softly behind Jesus where He sat, and broke the alabaster in her hands, and poured the genuine precious perfume first over His head, then over His feet, and then unconscious of every presence save His alone she “wiped those feet with the long tresses of her hair, while the atmosphere of the whole house was filled with the delicious fragrance. It was an act of devoted sacrifice, of exquisite self—abandonment ; and the poor Galileeans who followed Jesus, so little accustomed to any luxury, so fully alive to the costly nature of the gift, might well have been amazed that it should have all been lavished on the rich luxury of one brief moment. None but the most spiritual-hearted there could feel that the delicate odour which breathed through the perfumed house might be to God a sweet-smelling savour; that even this was infinitely too little to satisfy the love of her who gave, or the dignity of Him to whom the gift was given (Frederic W. Farrar, Life of Christ, (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1883, 326–327).
ADDITIONAL MEDIA
FOR YOUNGER DISCIPLES
QUESTIONS FOR YOUNGER DISCIPLES
- Can you point to the place on this map where Jesus had the last supper?
- What was the first thing Jesus did after he entered Jerusalem? Is service a good way to start any journey or face any challenge?