The Anointment of Jesus by Mary of Bethany [pp. 484-511]

THE ANOINTMENT OF JESUS
performned the intended obsequies on his living body. She
came aforehand to anoint his body for burial.
This change of plan, though all but certain, for Jesus said she
had kept the perfume against the day of his burial, though she
actually used it before that day, is not essential to our argument; nothing else depends on it, no other argument falls with it.
It is enough that the very original idea now carried out of performing these obsequies on her Lord before he died was at
some time adopted in view of the impossibility of performing
them after he was dead.
Consistently with our view, MIary takes (or, perhaps, makes by
means of this supper) an early opportunity to pay her long
contemplated honors on the body of her Lord soon after his
arrival, uncertain how soon his approaching crucifixion might
occur.
To understand Mary's solicitude to pay suitable burial honors
to the body of her Lord, we must bear in mind that the instinct.;
common to all mankind to honor the remains of the dead, comparatively feeble in our utilitarian age, was intense in her age
and country. Witness the distressn of Mary MAlagdalen at
missing the body of Jesus which she had come to anoint.~ Not
to apply spices or ointment as the manner of the Jewns was to
bury,P probably seemed to a Jewess very much as it would seem
to us to see the body of a dear friend thrust uncoffined into the
mud, or pass to the dissecting room, or to the turkey-buzzards.
With our ideas and usages the presumption would be against
any one's intention to have a man's funeral before he was dead.
But this was not a funeral, it was only a substitute for an impossible funeral. Most of our preparations for burial are only
possible after death. So embalming in the Egyptian sense
could only be performed on a dead body. Anointing was the oneO
of the usual expressions of respect for the dead, that could be
performed as this was, before death. So we can imagine the
hand of affection now covering a living friend with flowers in
view of his expected death by wreck or battle, as the same hand
would adorn his corpse if it could be recovered.
The expense and display at our funerals, much of it from
mere fashion or from ostentation, or a tribute extorted in our
'John 20: 1, 13, 15. oMark 16:1, PJohn 19: 40. Luke 23: 56; 24:
1. Mark 16:1. 2 Chroi. 16: 14.
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