Congregation Shema Yisrael

While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.” Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” -Matthew 26:6-13

Who is this person? What was she doing with what, by today’s standards, would be thousands of dollars worth of perfume in an alabaster jar? How did she happen to just show up in Simon’s place? Why did she pour all that expensive perfume on Yeshua’s (Jesus’s) head and why did he not only approve, but say that this woman’s story would be told by everyone who spread the Good News of salvation through the Mashiach (Christ)? Obviously, the Master’s disciples disapproved of her actions, but Yeshua himself thought what she had done was “a beautiful thing”. Did she know she was doing a beautiful thing? Most importantly, is her story still told today by those of us to spread the good news? No? Why not?

We all have our favorite stories and favorite people in the Bible. Maybe it’s Moses and the parting of the Reed Sea or David slaying Goliath. I’m particularly fond of the very end of the book of Exodus when the Divine Presence descends upon the freshly minted Tabernacle in all His Awesome Glory. Is anyone’s favorite person the girl with the alabaster jar? Maybe, but not that I’ve heard of. When I was reading Matthew yesterday, I read this passage and started thinking. I remember reading the passage before, but didn’t really put much thought into it. This time, Yeshua’s words tugged at me:

When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.

Of all the Bible studies I’ve attended and all the sermons I’ve heard, I can’t recall anyone even giving this woman and what she did for Yeshua a passing nod. It was obviously very important to Yeshua that her story be passed on. Why isn’t it important to us? We like to think we’re telling what is vital to know about salvation, about faith, about God, and about Messiah to those we encounter. Why isn’t this woman’s story also related? Why are we failing to do what Yeshua expected in not telling her tale? Maybe it’s because we don’t understand it.

Think about it. Do you really know why her pouring perfume on Yeshua’s head was such a big deal? I’ve read a number of commentaries online, but they all tend to be overly symbolic and don’t particularly deal with the “nuts and bolts” of what happened. I also remember hearing a teaching once that said people would spend large sums of money to purchase the materials for their own burial after death, which included perfumes and spices for the body. We know that spices were used on the Master after his death from passages such as the following:

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation (for Passover) and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. -John 19:38-42

Mark 15:45-16:1 and Luke 23:54-3 relate the other Gospel versions of the story. There’s only one thing wrong. Nothing in Jewish history that I can find says that spices and perfumes were ever used in ancient Jewish burial rites. The following answer was related in response to a question on the topic:

I must confess that I have not heard this, and I suspect it does not come from Jewish tradition. Our custom (going back thousands of years) is to thoroughly wash the body of the deceased, cover with a simple linen shroud and bury in the ground – with no use of embalming or spices. The idea is not to retard the decay of the body (as for instance the ancient Egyptians did), but rather to help it speedily return to the earth.
—
Menachem Brody
Elon Moreh
Israel

I reviewed a number of other sources, and they all said about the same thing. A body is washed, cleaned, and wrapped in fresh, white, linen, but nothing else is applied that would interfere with the natural decaying of the body. The only Jewish source I found that might even hint at why perfumes and spices might have once been used come from this:

In Jerusalem, the custom is to leave the deceased on his bed for half an hour and then lower him to the floor…completely undressed and covered with a white sheet…When they lower him to the floor, they recite Isaiah 2:5, Psalms 50:1, Isaiah 57:2 and Genesis 3:19, followed by Psalm 23, which includes: “…You anointed my head with oil”.

The custom is to remove all the clothes of the deceased, even if the death occurs on the Sabbath. This applies in both summer and winter (even though the purpose of removing the clothes is to prevent the body from decaying, and decay is less likely in winter). If there is no way to undress him except by tearing his clothes, and there is danger that the body might become odorous (if the clothes are not removed), one is permitted to ask a non-Jew to tear them…
Mourning in Halachah
Author: Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg
Publisher: Artscroll; 1st edition (July 1991)
Hardcover: 504 pages

Both the mention of anointing the head (of the dead) with oil, at least symbolically as indicated in Psalm 23, and the issue of slowing decay until the body can receive a proper burial may have played some part relating to the use of perfumes and spices in the burial of the dead in 1st Century Israel. Of course, these are just guesses on my part and an attempt to reconcile the current understanding of ancient Jewish burial practices with the Gospel account of the burial of Yeshua.

Why was the act of the girl with the alabaster jar so unique and precious to the Master that he commanded the story be told in her memory whenever the Good News of Salvation is told? Despite the various explanations available on the web, I still can’t be sure. It obviously was important to Yeshua that her story be preserved and, while it is sustained in the Gospel record, we rarely teach about her or recount her story among ourselves (let alone when we speak to non-believers). Of course, there’s this:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” -Matthew 25:34-46

The girl with the alabaster jar did these things for Yeshua and more so. She saw he was dying and his body was lacking the preparation for burial. How she knew this, the Bible doesn’t explain, but Yeshua knew. She was a living example of how a person, broken hearted for many reasons, not the least of which was her abundance of sins, nevertheless, can extend herself and everything she had in this world, to help comfort the Master in the final days of his life among us. Even if she didn’t know the kind of death he would suffer, he did. He cherished her gift to him so much that he said, “Yes! I tell you that throughout the whole world, wherever this Good News is proclaimed, what she has done will be told in her memory.”

If we are proclaiming the Good News but not recounting her kindness to a soon to be crucified Yeshua, shouldn’t we start now; shouldn’t we remember the girl with the alabaster jar? If we do, maybe we’ll have a better “memory” for those things we can do for people who are hungry, thirsty, poor…and dying.