Mark 14:1-9 After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread… If relics were needed for the instruction of the Church of God, we can well understand how among the choicest of them would be found the remnants of this alabaster box. This broken vessel would not only be a monument of love, but a preacher with varied eloquence; at once pathetic and practical, tender and even stern; appealing to sentiment, and yet thundering against mere sentimentality; its jagged edges preaching "fact" in this world which men are always telling us is a world of fact; and saying, "Religion is fact — fact from God to man, and back from man to God again." It may be that, as we studied these poor fragments of the past, our minds might pass from the stem teachings of those jagged edges to the sweet scent which diffused itself therefrom; and so, impalpable and invisible as that scent, sweet-savoured thoughts might steal into the secret recesses of our being, and we might be won to more decided action for our Lord. We can understand the broken vessel being carried into the exchange, the counting house, and the shop, and one man shrinking from it as he heard its story, and another pouring out his gold as its depth and power struck deep into his soul. We can picture it to ourselves on the table of the philosopher, as with his midnight lamp beside it, he sits contemplating it with his hands spread over his temples, and rises from his cold, unsanctified study, unable to understand why the woman did this deed, and why anyone should now be called to do the like; and we can imagine it now arresting with its broken form, now beguiling with even the remembrance of its perfume, some strong intellect, which longs to know the reality of things, and bows before the majesty and substance of true love as offered and accepted here. We can understand how it would make a missionary of this one, whose deeds would be known to all, and of another for Christ's sake a lone midnight watcher of the sick, whose deeds would be known to none — from the light of love shining from this broken vessel, as the lamps shone from the broken pitchers of Gideon, we can see thousands fleeing, as the bats and owls before the morning sun; and others, opening and expanding as the flowers into bloom and scent. Were relics needed for the conversion of man from his selfishness, his half-heartedness, his ignorance of the power of love, first above all things we would carry through the world the cross of Calvary and its thorny crown, and next to them this alabaster box. (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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