Page 17 17 or troubled as she was before. Why? Because Martha is serving in resurrection. Something has changed. You see, you cannot be around Jesus Christ for very long without changing. His presence changes us. In Bethany, we are transformed by the Lord. We are changed by His resurrection life. And those things that bound us before are broken. Five months ago, Martha was serving in her flesh. But now she serves in resurrection. She is not worried, troubled, or distracted at all. She is serving her Lord without complaint, without the need to be noticed or exonerated. And she’s not worried about what others are doing or not doing. Her service is in proportion to her fellowship, and she is free. Mary is also acting according to character. For the third time, she is at the Lord’s feet. Now step back from this story and ask yourself what is going on. This is a family feasting in the presence of Jesus Christ. They are supping with Him and He with them. What a beautiful picture of the church. Please notice that in addition to the Twelve, it was only four people with whom Jesus spent the last six days of His life. It was only four people who made a home for Him when He was rejected everywhere else: Mary, Martha, Lazarus and Simon. This is an indictment against the megachurch mentality. Bethany was not large. It was a tiny village. The population was probably no more than 1,000. And that is the place that your Lord chose to make His home. What a witness to the fact that God is more concerned with quality than He is with quantity. The Worth of Christ I want you to see the table. The Twelve are there. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are there. Simon is there. And Jesus is there. They are all reclining at the table, sharing a meal with one another. Mary has with her a sealed flask of precious perfume. It’s nard from India. Extremely expensive. She breaks open the seal and pours out the perfume upon the Lord’s head as though He were a king. As the perfume drips down His body and reaches His feet, she anoints His feet with the perfume as though she were a slave and He were her master. Jesus interprets the act as preparation for His burial. She is anointing Him as one would a corpse. (Anointing a dead body with perfume was done to prepare it for burial. The perfume would cover up the smell of the decaying corpse. Kings were anointed for burial by having perfume poured upon them from the head down. This is what Mary did for Jesus. It was as if she understood that the Lord wouldn’t be with them much longer without realizing that she understood.) Let’s look at the value of this perfume.