The Women

When we do an expository study of the Bible, from time to time we need to take a step backward and look at the big picture. Mark 13 describes the destruction of the temple and the end of the age.  But what (or who) was happening on either side of this prophecy? Two remarkable women.

In Mark 12, we looked at the story of the widow who gave only two small coins to the treasury and yet Jesus says that she gave more than all the others.  In Mark 14, we learned of the woman who anoints Jesus with costly oil.  What might these two women have in common? Selfless, unabashed love,

The widow, in the elaborately adorned (yet doomed) temple, a world of men and money, gives with the full faith that the Lord will provide. Her money is where her heart is.  Her money follows her heart. Jesus sees her and consequently we see her and learn more about Jesus Himself.

In Mark 14, in the home of a (presumably healed) leper, not in the temple, not on top of a mountain, and not at the hands of a priest or prophet, but at the hands of an unnamed woman, Jesus is anointed for burial. The woman pours a year's wages of nard upon his head with (we can only imagine) tender love. Jesus defends her and admonishes the naysayers around the table and we learn again that  the economy of the Kingdom of God is not the economy of this world.  

May we have eyes to see, Lord, what you would have us to see.