Mary the sister of Lazarus has a rare and distinct legacy in scripture that we often seem to overlook. I've been paying more attention to it this week. Marion a few months back bought me a New American standard Life Application Bible and I've been using it to get some history on this woman. See Jesus said something spectacular about her. On one hand he predicts the Bible as lasting for years and years and on the other he creates a legacy most people who I have heard preach the gospel seem to skim or miss completely. Matthew 26:6-13 " Now when Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at the table. But the disciples were indignant when they saw this and said 'Why this waste? For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.' But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, 'Why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed to me. For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have me. For when she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.'"
Both of my Bibles I have looked at the NASB and NLT reference this same event and woman to being none other than Mary the sister of Lazarus and Martha. This woman has sat at the feet of Jesus listening to him teach and absorbed the things he has said. This was in my Life Application Bible and I think it is beautiful. "Our last glimpse of Mary shows her to have become a woman of thoughtful and worshipful action. Again she was at Jesus' feet washing them with perfume and wiping them with her hair. She seemed to understand even better than the disciples, why Jesus was going to die. Jesus said her act of worship would be told everywhere, along with the gospel, as an example of costly service." She anointed him with perfume that cost roughly a year's wages.
Another thing I want you to see is through Mary, there was a prediction by Jesus that God's word would last. See he said in Matthew 26:13 "Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her." In that statement he cemented her place in history and in scripture. His statement also matched up with this in Isaiah 40:8 "The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever." 1 Peter 1:24-25 mirrors this. This woman had an amazing life and legacy. She got to sit at Jesus' feet, see her brother raised from the dead and then anoint Jesus' feet and head. She had the right idea she wanted to be closer to Jesus.
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There is a line in this next song I believe is so appropriate here. It says "True love will come and we'll fall at his feet." referring to Jesus when we see him in Heaven we will get that same view Mary got.
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