Mark 14:8-9

THE GIFT AND ITS MOTIVE

‘She is come aforehand to anoint My body to the burying.’

Mark 14:8

It is difficult to suppose that Mary had any very distinct intention when she poured out her costly ointment upon Christ. She could hardly have had a special focus; and yet this is exactly what Christ gave it. He determined an end and fixed a motive. And in thus localising and concentrating the motive, it is evident that Christ immensely elevated the whole gift and deed.

I. How does He do now?—Exactly the same. You do some large act of kindness—as exceeding large for you as that woman’s was for her—to some one. Christ does not look on the largeness, though He loves it—at least, He does not gauge the gift by that, but by the motive which prompted it, which He loves much more. You did it with a vague wish and intention to be kind, and to do something pleasing to God; but He makes it much more; He allocates it, He gives it a point and a purpose, He causes it to work a thing you never thought of. You were good to His servant who was weary. He, remembering Sychar, sweetly applies it to His own weariness, and is Himself refreshed. You minister to a fellow-creature’s infirmities—He receives the ministrations as done to Himself.

II. Christ using the gift.—And you, you who do your large-hearted acts—and forget them almost before they are done—you little conceive what Christ may be working with that act, or what may be the part it takes in the sublimest histories, or how Christ, in His wonderful appropriation of them, mingles them with His sufferings and blends them into His glory.

—Rev. James Vaughan.