It was six days before Passover and Jesus was back in Bethany with Lazarus (whom He hadrose from the dead) and his family for supper. The picture that is painted here is incredible to ponder. Lazarus, who was dead but Jesus rose to life is reclined at the table next to Jesus who is sitting back and enjoying the company. Martha was there serving and Mary came up to Jesus with a pound of perfume and began to anoint His feet with the perfume, wiping it with her hair. This perfume was expensive, some theologians beleive that to buy this expensive perfume Mary had to have spent her life savings on it. She gave all that she had to get this perfume to anoint Jesus with because she loved Jesus so much and wanted to bless Him and shower Him with her love. Her heart was postured on Jesus and nothing else mattered, especially finances. This is how we should be, we should have our hearts postured on wanting to worship and love Jesus regardless of the cost.

            Judas didn’t like this at all, he saw the expensive perfume being poured on Jesus’ feet and instead of seeing the beauty in how much Mary loved Jesus, Judas saw wasted money. Judas didn’t se this is an act of love and worship rather a waste of money, yet he tried to make it sound like his motives were good. Rather than being honest he lied and said that the money would have better served the poor rather than expensive perfume to dump on Jesus’ feet.  When the enemy tries to put a nasty thought in your head he will try to make it seem good by manipulating and twisting the motives. The truth was, Judas didn’t care about the poor, he was in charge of the money and had been steeling from it and he wanted the perfume to be sold so that the money could go to them and he would be able to steel from it. He wanted to benefit from it, he didn’t care about the poor and he didn’t care to see Jesus being adored by Mary, he was completely filled with greed.

            Jesus told Judas to leave her alone so that she may keep the rest of the oil for the day of His burial. He said that they will always have the poor but He will not be there forever. Jesus could read Judas’ mind and knew his motives yet didn’t call him out on it, instead He prophesied what was to come and none of them seemed to understand that at that moment.

            A large group of Jews had heard that Jesus was there and that He had rose Lazarus from the dead so they came to see for themselves. The chief priests knew this and plotted to kill Lazarus as well, because as long as Lazarus was alive he was leading people to Jesus and more and more Jews were walking away from the traditions and teaching of the Jewish leaders. The chief priests wanted the Jews to forget about the miracle so they’d keep following the Jewish leaders but as long as Lazarus was there it was a constant reminder of what Jesus had done.

            The next day, when the large crowd who had come to the Passover feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took branches of palm trees in homage to Him as King and went out to meet Him. They began shouting praises to Him; Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it to fulfill prophecy. The disciples were unsure why He sat on the donkey but once they saw Him on a donkey and people praising Him with the palms they remembered the scripture. The people who were with Jesus when He raised Lazarus’ from the tomb went and told everyone the testimony and it caused more and more people to come see Jesus. This only angered the Pharisees even more. The Pharisees were so terrified of losing their following and their power.  There could have been some whose hearts were in the right places, unfortunately they were overshadowed by the ones who were seeking to kill and murder to “protect” their religion.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! This is an incredible day to give extra thanks and praise to God and all that He has done for you. Begin reminding yourself all that God has done in your life, meditate on His goodness and bring that heart posture to this Thanksgiving day to give thanks to Him and to share your testimony with others so they too can see how great our God is.