The Plot, the Anointing, and the Entry

Give you greetings in Jesus' name this morning. I invite you to turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter 11.

And the title of my message this morning is "The Plot, the Anointing, and the Entry." And we're looking at John 11:45 to John 12:19, and I want to read this passage. "Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary and had seen the things Jesus did believed in him. But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things Jesus did. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, 'What shall we do? For this man works many signs.

If we let him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.' And one of them, Caiaphas, being a high priest that year, said to them, 'You know nothing at all. Nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people and not that the whole nation should perish.'

Now, this he did not say on his own authority, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but also that he would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad.

Then from that day on they plotted to put him to death. Therefore Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there into the country near the wilderness to a city called Ephraim, and there remained with his disciples.

And the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went from the country up to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. Then they saw Jesus and spoke among themselves as they stood in the temple, 'What do you think, that he will not come for the feast?' Now both the chief priest and the Pharisees had given a command that if anyone knew where he was, he should report it, that they might seize him. Then six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was, who had been dead, whom he had raised from the dead. And there they made him a supper, and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with him.

Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. But one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray him, said, 'Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?' This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the money box and used to take what was put in it. But Jesus said, 'Let her alone. She has kept this for the day of my burial. For the poor you have with you always, but me you do not have always.'

Now a great many of the Jews knew that he was there, and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. But the chief priest plotted to put Lazarus to death also, because in account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus.

The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him and cried, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.' And then Jesus, when he found a young donkey, sat on it, as it was written, 'Fear not, daughters of Zion. Behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.' His disciples did not understand these things at first. But when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done these things to him. Therefore the people who were with him when he called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness.

For this reason the people also met him, because they had heard that he had done this sign. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, 'You see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.'" Okay, the first thing I want to look at is the plot. Verses 45 to 57 in chapter 11, and also there are some references to it in chapter 12 when they're plotting not only to do Jesus in, but they're also plotting to take Lazarus out.

And I want you to notice something here in this chapter. It refers to the Jews. Many of the Jews had come to Mary. And later on in chapter 12 it uses a similar story. Now a great many of the Jews knew that he was there, and so they went to Bethany to see him. In John's Gospel this term "the Jews" is used kind of in an interesting sort of way.

It can simply mean the people of Judea, the Israelites, what we would refer to today even as Jews. It can be used sort of that in that generic sense. And it seems in this particular sense to be used in that general kind of generic sense, the Jews, those who had a covenant relationship with God based on the Old Covenant.

But there also sometimes seems to be times when John uses this term "the Jews" in a more narrow sense to talk about those who are in opposition to Jesus. And that seems to be kind of a way of referring to the Sadducee Party, to the Pharisees, actually to the people who are in control of the political and religious structures of Judea at this particular point in time.

This has led and some of the things that John says about these people, they're plotting to kill Jesus, they're plotting to do nasty things, they don't believe. And this has caused some people over the ages to accuse John of being an anti-Semitic. Because he's and to trace "Christians' anti-Semitism," which if you look at Christendom in the Middle Ages and even up into our modern time, and it seems to be raising its ugly head again in certain parts of the world, including our own, some people trace it back to what John is saying here. I think that is a stretch, to put it mildly.

And as we can see here, John is using the Jews simply here in kind of a generic sense to talk about Jews. And there's a party among the Jews who are opposing Jesus too. But even as we go to Acts and so on, we see the preaching of the Gospel in the first chapters of Acts, who are the first believers? They are Jews. Who does Paul go to when he enters into any city? He goes to the synagogue first and preaches the Gospel to them. And they hear. And some of them hear it, and some of it respond to it, and some reject it. But as Paul said, there will be a remnant of both the Jews and the Gentiles who believe.

And so the two categories that we're looking at here are not when we're looking at when it's talking about the Gospel and its impact on it, we're not talking about the Jews being outside and the Gentiles being inside. We're talking about those who believe, whoever they are. Okay? In fact, John talks here when I'll come back to that here. But so we have this plot afoot. Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead at Bethany, just a few miles away from Jerusalem, the seat of political and religious power. Okay? While he was up there in Galilee, okay, but now he's down there right in their backyard. And this is something that's very disturbing to them. All right?

They can't I mean, if you remember earlier they had questioned his miracle working. Sometimes they accused him of performing miracles by the power of Belzebub, and he refuted that. Sometimes they could kind of sloth it away and come up with explanations one way or another as to what was really going on. But here was a man dead and buried and stinketh.

And Jesus raised him from the dead. And people can see Lazarus walking around, a man that people knew had died. And many believed in him. Many of the Jews believed in him. This is a point of consternation to the ruling authorities. And why are they worried? Well, they understand in their own history, in their own prophecies and so on, that this promise of a coming Messiah, this promise of one who is going to set things at right. And of course, one of the things that they're most concerned about and that they're most anticipate is the fact that they are a people who are being oppressed by a foreign conqueror, by the Romans. The Romans at this particular point basically control the whole region around the Mediterranean Sea.

It's a major empire. It's a ruthless empire. It's a brutal empire, but it's also an empire that brings some order to society. And one of the things that the Romans are very clear about, that they will not brook, and that is rebellion.

Rebellion. And any hint and whisper of rebellion is ruthlessly put down. And the Jews have experienced this already a number of different times. There were these rebellions that every once in a while cropped up against the Roman rule. And the Roman military, the legions, put it down very ruthlessly and crucified any of the participants who were involved in it. And as we all know, crucifixion is a really nasty, painful way to die.

And so these Jewish leaders are concerned. If Jesus gains too much popularity and there's too much, in a sense, Messianic anticipation that God is going to, through him, restore the kingdom to Israel, this could be the beginnings a rebellion could erupt. And the Romans would move in. And there's kind of been this brokered sort of arrangement between the ruling elite among the Jews and the Romans, "You guys keep the peace. You keep order. Make sure the taxes are paid. And we'll basically allow you to run your own affairs.

But if you don't keep the peace and if the taxes don't get paid, we're moving in." And I think that is what the chief priest and the Pharisees, who make up the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the Jews at this particular time, are terribly frightened about. And I can't think we can underestimate the fact that they are scared witless. And when people are scared, when they're frightened, they can do and justify some very wicked things to defend themselves. And so they're having this debate. They're talking among themselves about this. And Caiaphas, the chief priest who was from the priestly family, he had up to this time been high priest for about 18 years. And it's interesting because the high priest was chosen from this priestly family that went back to the Maccabees.

And we'll talk about that a little bit later on and make a reference to that a little bit later on. But it was actually the Roman government who had the final say among the priestly family who was going to be the high priest. His father Annas had at one point been the high priest. And he still is there, seems to almost be kind of a power behind the throne.

And Caiaphas, in the midst of this debate, this discussion, kind of abruptly enters into it or abruptly says, "You know nothing at all. You know nothing at all. Now, how would you like to be in a group of people and somebody told you, 'You know nothing at all'?"

Josephus says about the Sadducees that they are even among themselves rather boorish in their behavior. And in their intercourse with their peers are as rude as to aliens. There's an arrogance here among the Sadducees. And this is an arrogance that I think often is typical of elites who are in control and who have this sense of, how shall we say, entitlement. These people are the ultimate entitled ones.

And Caiaphas certainly feels that way. He says, "You know nothing at all." And then he says to them, "Consider this." Basically, he says, "It'd be better if we get rid of this guy than have a rebellion break out because of him and the Romans move in and take away our place, our control, our governance, our being in the driver's seat, and take away our nation." And of course, in 70 AD, that happened.

Okay? There was a rebellion. And the Romans moved in. They besieged Jerusalem. And they took it out. And they dispersed the people in Judea all over the Roman world. Okay?

So in a sense, this fear was a legitimate fear. And so they're willing to do something expedient, in this particular case, to protect their own place and their own nation. All right?

This is an interesting thing.

This is essentially utilitarian ethics. Utilitarian ethics says that you do the right thing to do is what is the best thing for the most people. Okay? And you can do some really interesting things with that. Okay? And there was a thought experiment that Michael Sandel presented to some of his students. And of course, he teaches at Harvard on ethics. And he said, "Using the whole idea of utilitarian ethics, would it be acceptable for you to take a perfectly healthy person and harvest his organs so that, let's say, five or six other people could live?"

All right? Now, according to utilitarian ethics, isn't that something that is better? It's helping more people? One person has to sacrifice so that five or six or maybe more persons can live? Okay? The problem with utilitarian ethics, it does not recognize that there are things that are intrinsically evil and things that are intrinsically bad.

And to kill an innocent man is a bad thing. It's a wrong thing to do. All right?

But nonetheless, Caiaphas is suggesting that this is what they do. Now, John has the Gospel writer has an interesting perspective on this prophecy. Okay? He said that he didn't say this on his own. And apparently, there was this belief that the high priest in his priestly office had the wherewithal or was given sometimes the ability to prophesy something.

And so John takes this thing that Caiaphas has said. And he says, "Now, this he did not say in his own authority, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation." That's for the Jewish people. "And not only for the nation, but also that he would gather together in one the children of God who are scattered abroad."

And so there we see the fact that Jesus is not only going to die for us, for the Jews, but he's going to die for all. Okay? He's going to die for the Gentiles too. And his death, okay, his death is going to bring in a gathering of God's people. And it's going to establish a new covenant order.

And it's going to be the means by which God has created a new covenant people made of all those who are scattered abroad, not only the Jews, but from others. As Paul said, "A remnant from the Jews and a remnant from the Gentiles will be brought together into one people." All right?

The consequence of this plot, which became known because apparently the Pharisees, as John tells us here, let it be known that they wanted to know if Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem because they wanted to seize him. They wanted to arrest him. So it became known that they were out for him. And so Jesus and his disciples went away from Bethany and from Jerusalem, about 15 miles away, up into the wilderness and to a city called Ephraim.

And there they waited for several days. And the people in Jerusalem who are coming into Jerusalem from all areas, and they're not you have to remember that they're not only coming from Judea and Galilee, but they're coming from the whole dispersion where Jews have been dispersed to over the course of the last since the Babylonian captivity.

They're coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. They come several days before to perform the rituals of purification so that they can properly observe the Passover. They're coming to find the lambs that they need. Okay? They're coming to find the places that they need to be so they can observe and celebrate the Passover. And remember, what is the Passover?

What is the Passover? It's the celebration of God's great act of deliverance of the Jewish people from the captivity of Egypt, from the oppression of Egypt, from the slavery of Egypt. It's a pivotal event that they are reminded about every year as they celebrate the Passover. And here they are under the foot of a new oppressor.

And I think they cry out, "How long, O Lord? How long will this last?" And I think there's this heightened expectation. As it says here, they're wondering, "Is Jesus going to come to Jerusalem during the Passover? Is this man who's been performing signs and miracles and whom many people are believing in him and think that he is the Messiah, could this be the beginning, the entrance of the Messianic kingdom and the Romans being thrown off and the glory being restored to Israel?"

In a sense, could this be a new exodus? That's the anticipation that is there. And the Pharisees and the Sadducees are scared witless because of this.

All right?

Six days before the Passover, Jesus comes to Bethany. And of course, Bethany is where Lazarus is. Bethany is where Martha and Mary are, okay, this brother and his sisters. And he meets there in Lazarus. He come to Bethany.

And there they made him a supper. Now, Matthew and Luke's Gospel tells us that this supper was actually held in the home of Simon the Leper. All right? And here we have Martha. I mean, apparently, Lazarus and Martha and Mary, of course, were invited to this supper. Lazarus is sitting at the table. What is Martha doing? Martha is in the kitchen helping to get the meal ready. This is so Martha-like.

Okay? We all know what it's like. If you're invited to somebody's house, what happens? Well, we men go into the living room and we visit while the women are in the kitchen finishing up anything that needs to be finished up, right? Isn't that kind of what happens here?

And I think it's a similar sort of thing that happens here. Martha is in that kitchen doing her Martha thing. All right? But then Mary comes in to the room, to the place where the tables are, where Lazarus is sitting, Jesus is sitting, Jesus' disciples are there, and probably other guests too.

All right? And Mary took a pound of very costly oil, a spikenart. And Judas, when he complains about her and what she did, he says, "This could have been sold for 300 denarii." A denarii was a day's wage.

Now, if you allow for Sabbaths, okay, and other Jewish days of rest and celebration and so on, that's a year's wage. That's a year's wage. So she's holding in her hand a year's wage. Think about what do you consider to be a year's wage? Now, this is not this is a year's wage of a working man, you know, of a laborer. Okay? So let's say $30,000.

Okay? $30,000, maybe.

This is a lot this is a very expensive thing. All right? It was typically used to anoint the body when somebody was buried. It has a very strong smell, a very aromic smell, a very sweet smell. And one of the purposes of anointing the body, it wasn't used to preserve the body. It was used to cover up the smell of a decaying corpse.

All right? So it's used in burial. She brings this in. She pours it on the feet of Jesus and wipes his feet with her hair. Now, I think that we should understand that Jewish women in this period in time were very much like our women. What did they do? They put their hair up and they covered their heads.

All right? And you know, we are very careful. I think our sisters are very careful not to appear out in public with their hair down and with their heads uncovered. Because why? Well, Paul teaches us that that is a shameful thing to do. All right? And there's a similar kind of reticence, a similar kind of sense of shame about doing something. But one of the things I think that we see here is that, I mean, this is unusual. This is a very unusual thing to have done.

All right? And I think it was a shocking thing to have done. And I think in some ways, maybe some people were actually embarrassed by it because it was so shocking and untoward and everything like this. But both the anointing with this costly fragrance and wiping his feet was an act of devotion, of love, and utter surrender to who Jesus is.

Vainly we offer each ample oblation.

Richer by fault how's it go? Vainly we offer each ample oblation.

Richer is the heart's devotion and the prayers of the poor.

The thing I take away from this is Mary was willing to do something costly and embarrassing because she loved Jesus. What costly and embarrassing thing are we willing to do because we love Jesus?

That's the question for all of us.

Judas objects to this. His objection, at least his stay's objection, is that this could have been sold and the money given to the proceeds of the poor. And if you think about it, yes, 300 denarii, say $30,000 maybe, that would be quite a thing about a money distributed to the poor, wouldn't it?

All right? But John knows, and I think John I don't know if John knows this now, but in retrospect, as he looked at what was happening to Judas inwardly and so on, and as things came out, he notices here, he describes him, of course, as the one who would betray him. And he said this not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the money box and used to take what was put in it.

You remember what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and I have not love, it propheth me nothing." Okay? We can do acts of charity. We can do it from mixed motives. We can do it to be seen of men as the Scripture warns us against and so on.

But Judas' real concern was not his stated concern. And then look at Jesus' response to this, "Let her alone. She has kept this for the day of my burial." This is he's being anointed in anticipation of his death and of his burial.

And I think that's very interesting because, again, when you anoint a dead body with this costly ointment, you're doing it to cover up the stink. Jesus' body never stank because it never decayed because after three days, he rose from the dead.

He did not need any costly oil to cover up the stink in the grave.

Jesus says, "For the poor you have with you always, but me you do not have always. I will not always be physically present here with you." The poor you always have. All right? But I think the other thing that it does tell us is, first of all, not that we should neglect the poor because we're instructed elsewhere that God has great regard for the poor and that we are to care for the poor and for those who are needy and so on. It's to be our concern and so on. And that concern is ever with us. We will never get to the place where we have fixed that problem because of the sin and inequity and the wickedness of the world and the selfishness and the greed and other factors that move into that.

And so there's always going to be the need for us to help the poor. It's a never-ending task. All right?

But as Corinthians tells us, we can do it, but if we don't have love, it doesn't prophethes nothing. And I think primarily not only love for each other, but love for God. Are we willing to do the costly and embarrassing thing out of love for Jesus?

And what is that for you?

Then we have this little thing where it talks about the many Jews knew that he was there in Bethany. They came not for Jesus' sake only, but because they'd heard Lazarus had been raised from the dead, and they wanted to see for themselves, is he really alive? And again, this causes the rulers to think, "Okay, we not only have to take Jesus out, we have to take Lazarus out because Lazarus is proof of these signs that he's done that's going to cause people to follow after him. It's going to possibly foment a revolt against the Roman government. Let's get rid of Lazarus because if he's gone, if he's gone, then we can deny that it ever happened."

So this takes us then to the entry into Jerusalem.

And there is a great multitude there, not only the people from Jerusalem, but people from the surrounding countryside, from all over the world coming to Jerusalem for the Passover. And they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. Now, this account is also in Matthew and also in Luke, and there's some additional details there, which I'm not going to trace over too much here.

I kind of want to stick to it. But

it says in verse 13 that the people took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him. Now, why the palm trees? There is a Jewish celebration that is connected to palm trees, taking branches of palm trees. It's Hanukkah.

Okay? It's the celebration that commemorates the purification of the temple by the Maccabees after the Greeks had desecrated it. All right? And you can find this in 2 Maccabees, chapter 10, probably not a book that most of you read for leisure or otherwise, but it's interesting.

I'm going to read this part of this to you. Now, Maccabees and those who were with him, the Lord going before them, obtained the temple and the city. They destroyed the altars that had been built by the foreigners in the marketplace and also the shrines, and they purified the temple. They made another altar, and upon striking a fire with flintstones and taking some fire from these, they offered up sacrifices and incense on it and lit the lamps and then performed the presentation of the loaves after a span of two years. And after doing these things, they fell upon their bellies, and they besought the Lord, pledging to never again fall away to such evil. But instead, if ever they should, sin by him with gentleness and not to be handed over to blasphemers and barbarous Gentiles.

Now, it happened on the day in which the temple was defiled by the foreigners. On the same day, the purification of the temple was made, the 25th of the same month, Chisleuth. And they observed with cheer eight days in the manner of the Feast of Tabernacles, remembering how a little before, during the Feast of Tabernacles, they were grazing on the mountains and in the caves like wild animals. Therefore, holding ivory-riefed wands and branches with white ripe fruit and still also date palm fronds, they were thankful to the one who helped to cleanse his own place. And with a common ordinance and vote, they decreated to the entire nation of the Judeans to observe ten days every year.

One of the things I think we have to always keep in mind when we're looking at the New Testament, particularly these gospel accounts, and we see the things that people are doing it, they are doing it against the backdrop of their whole historical experience, their commemorations. There are all these associations with things.

Just like Passover is this association with the Exodus and of deliverance and so on, here we see Jesus coming into the temple. And just as the Jews in a couple of centuries before had cleansed the temple and had celebrated it by a procession with wands of olive of laurel, with boughs of fruit, and with date palm fronds, waving these things around and going before in joy and expectation, we see the same thing happening here.

This is a joyous, happy, exhilarating experience. Jesus is coming into Jerusalem. And these people are expecting something. And notice what they say, "Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel." That's a quotation from Psalm 18, "Save now," which is what Hosanna means, "Save now, I pray, O Lord. O Lord, I pray, send new prosperity. Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord." And then further from Zechariah, it says, "And when Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, sat on it, and it is written, 'Fear not, daughters of Zion. Behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.'" And in Zechariah 9, it says, "Rejoice greatly, O daughters of Zion.

Shout, O daughters of Jerusalem, behold, your King is coming to you. He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem. The battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations. His dominion in it shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth."

Leslie Neubigen, a missionary in India for many, many years, made the comment one time, probably did it more than once, that the difference between Jesus and Muhammad, our Christianity and Islam, is this. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to his death, to die for the world.

Muhammad rode into Mecca on a warhorse as a conqueror. Now, Neubigen actually got his facts a little bit messed up there because Muhammad didn't ride into Mecca on the back of a horse. He rode in on the back of a camel.

All right?

But I think that his overall point is quite good. Okay? Because according to Muslim mythology, Muhammad approached Mecca to conquer it with an army of 10,000 persons. And the common thing from what I understand is that camels and the dead were used by armies to transport men and materials and weapons and so on. And once they actually got to the place of battle, they would either dismount and fight on foot, or they would get their horses who had been coming along but were not carrying burdens or were arrested and they could so on. Muhammad offered the people of Mecca, "If you allow me to come in, I promise I won't kill you."

Well, if you have a 10,000 army on your doorstep, you're probably going to give in. And so they gave in. And so he didn't take his warhorse, which was there, and get on it and go into Mecca on his warhorse. But he went in on his camel as a conqueror.

It was the threat of force.

With Jesus, there's no threat of force. And that is the difference between Jesus and Muhammad. Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for many. Muhammad came with force and violence to impose what he saw as the will of God on people.

Now, in one of the other gospels, it mentions that the Pharisees are quite upset about what's happening here. And they tell Jesus, they say, "Tell the repuke these people. Tell them to stop this." And Jesus said, "If they don't cry out, the stones themselves will cry out."

And so Jesus here was accepting what they said. But he was not accepting what they meant because I think they were hoping and wishing and seeing, "This is the Messiah that's coming who's going to set things right. He's going to kick the Romans out, and he's going to establish the kingdom of Israel again." This is their expectation.

They were thinking primarily of a political salvation. They were primarily thinking of a national salvation. And you know, today, we have people who are doing that still. When we think about our whole political struggles and so on in this country, I mean, there are people who rightly see that there are some things rather messed up. And what do they want to do?

They want to use the political powers and forces and so on to impose what they see as being God's will, to bring in his kingdom here in the United States, and then sometimes to equate it with the United States.

That's really wrong. And that's not what Jesus is about. He's here to bring his kingdom. And it's made up of those who, like these Jews here, because they saw what Jesus did and they saw what they heard what he had to say, they believed. They put their trust in him.

All right? And he calls us to do the same thing today.

As it says, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord." And that's what Zechariah prophesied. God has broken the horses and the chariots and the war bows and has said to us, "Peace. Peace to you who are near and peace to you who are far off." As Paul tells us, he has broken down that middle wall partition that has separated the Jews from the Gentiles and has brought them both into his kingdom, into his church, and into his community to be one people.

And the amazing thing here is even his disciples who are probably caught up in this whole thing and probably thinking, "Okay, now he's going to do it. We're going to see this." It didn't, of course, happen. As we see, as we go through the rest of John, we're going to see some disconsternation. We're going to see some bafflement on their part. We're going to see Peter taking out this sword and trying to swipe and swiping off the high priest servant's ear.

A response to Jesus says, "You know, nope, that's not what it's about, Peter." Okay?

But Jesus told them later on in John here that, "After I leave you, I will leave you a comforter. And he will bring to remembrance all the things that I have taught you." And all of a sudden, it will become crystal clear. You'll be able to put the dots together.

You'll be able to make sense of some of this stuff that just baffled you. You're going to be putting away some of your ideas, and you're going to see what God's whole redemptive plan was there to accomplish. And so this John, in retrospect, looks back at this and says, "Ah, we get it now, Jesus. We get what you were about and what your purpose was and what everything was happening here. Yes, you are the one who has brought salvation.

You are the Lord. You've come in God's name and Yahweh's name. You are the King who sits at the right hand of the Father in majesty, ruling and governing his people. He is the Messiah, our prophet, priest, and king."

And just as this here, he calls forth for response. We can be like the Pharisees who are concerned about their own agenda, their own concerns, their own safety and whatever.

Or we can be like Mary who is willing to give something costly and willing to be embarrassed for their love for Jesus, for her love for Jesus.

As the hymn says, "What will you do with Jesus? Neutral you cannot be. Someday he will be asking, 'What will you do?' We will be asking him, 'What will you do with me?'" Is there any response to the message?