Mark 14:1-9 After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread… It is on crushed grain that man is fed; it is by bruised plants that he is restored to health. It was by broken pitchers that Gideon triumphed; it was from a wasted barrel and empty cruse that the prophet was sustained; it was on boards and broken pieces of the ship that Paul and his companions were saved. It was amid the fragments of broken humanity that the promise of the higher life was given; though not a bone of Him was broken, yet it is by the broken life of Christ that His people shall live eternally; it was by the scattering of the Jews that the Gentiles were brought in; it was by the bruised and torn bodies of the saints that the truth was so made to triumph that it became a saying, that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." It is by this broken box, that throughout the wide world it is proclaimed how blessed and glorious a thing it is to do a whole thing for Christ. When the true story of all things shall be known, then will it appear how precious in God's sight, how powerful in His hands, were many broken things. Broken earthly hopes will be found to have been necessary to the bringing in of the better hope which endures forever. Broken bodily constitutions will be found to have been needful in some cases to the attainment of that land where the body shall be weary and sore no more; broken earthly fortunes, to the winning of the wealth beyond the reach of rust and moth and thief; broken earthly honour, to the being crowned with the diadem which fadeth not away. Yes! even for what we have to accomplish here, it often needs that we should be broken up into personal helplessness ere we can accomplish anything; that the excellency of the power may be not of man but of God. It is along a channel marred, and, as we should say, of no worth, that the precious ointment flows. Therefore, when any of God's people are broken and marred, let them bethink themselves of this shattered box, and how from it there flowed forth that ointment which anointed Jesus for His burial, and how it gave materials for that story which every gospel should tell. (P. B. Power.) Parallel Verses KJV: After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. |
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