Palm Sunday: Can you believe that? - Part I - John, 12:1-11
John 12:1-11 · Vern Peterman · Apr 1, 2007
Holidays
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926022351884

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We've completed this last Sunday, taking a four week look at beholding the Lord through his word. One of the things I just noticed, and I suppose I'd noticed it before, but it came to mind, is we have out on the sign out in front these kind of a theme in quotes, focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ through his word. And that's precisely what we're looking at this last month. Today we'll be looking at a Palm Sunday theme next Sunday resurrection and then on the 15th beginning a series studying the book of Galatians All right.

Let's take a look at the passage here this morning Here's John 12 one that Wayne started off reading for us Jesus therefore six days before the Passover came to Bethany where Lazarus was Whom Jesus had raised from the dead and Here is Bethany, which is a town just to the east of Jerusalem. And there's a couple of shots there, Bethany as it stands now. And it actually is fairly ancient looking. And just to get ourselves oriented, here's a picture looking over from Jerusalem towards the east.

And so here's Jerusalem in the center in the foreground, as it stands now. Here's the Temple Mount, which now has the Dome of the Rock. But on that mount was once the temple that was where Jesus spoke and met with the disciples. Here's the Mount of Olives that Jesus talked to the disciples from. just days later and a couple months later would ascend to the heavens. Here's the Dead Sea off in the distance. That's quite a shot, isn't it? So here's Jerusalem to the Dead Sea all in one view, looking off to the east.

Here's Bethphage, which is another small town just to the backside of the Mount of Olives. And here's Bethany. This is the town where the events that we're looking at today take place. From Bethany to Jerusalem is a little less than two miles. So get an idea, it didn't take that long to walk between them. And imagine just coming over the crest of the Mount of Olives and looking there at the temple. It was quite a sight. Here we are looking at the old road into Bethany. And this would have been likely some of the very same roads that our Lord walked with his disciples going to and from here.

Now you have, and it's also on page one of your handout, if you're visiting with us here, you'll notice that there's a number on the lower right-hand corner. That number corresponds to the page number on your handout so that you can track with us on those where there is a slide on your handout to correspond. Okay? What we want to do is look at this week before our Lord was crucified and buried and resurrected. And we're going to be going through what's called the traditional chronology. There are those who would argue for some tweaks to that, but we'll proceed through this.

The Friday before this week was probably the time spent with Zacchaeus and Jericho, maybe the last of that time. He may have stayed with Zacchaeus for a little while and Friday would have been the last day he would have made the trip up then to Bethany. He would have raised Lazarus and Bethany on this Saturday, which, by the way, would have had him working according to the Pharisees' definition, working by raising Lazarus on that day.

The triumphal entry, and I have spoken at other times saying I think that's a misnomer, it's a little hard to call it triumphal when Jesus is sobbing, great sobs, but the triumphal entry on the Sunday here before, He drove out the money changers there on Monday. On Tuesday would be the Olivet Discourse, that is the time when he went over to the Mount of Olives and looking there at Jerusalem, told them what would be happening in the times to come. On Wednesday, he went into the temple and taught and spoke.

On Thursday would have been the day of the Last Supper according to the traditional chronology. This would have been, we've used the picture before, a handoff time when he would have brought forward about 1400 years of tradition in the Passover and at that time begun what we'll observe this morning, the Lord's Table. And then on Friday would have been the crucifixion and his burial. On Saturday excuse me, the crucifixion and burial continuing, and then Saturday in the grave, and then Sunday morning the resurrection.

So that's kind of the sequence. What we're looking at here is this time on this Saturday before this week that's sometimes called his Passion Week. This is where John 12 1 picks up. Jesus ate and stayed at Bethany that evening. And from the day Christ raised Lazarus until Christ's own body would be in the grave, and spend that day there would be one week. And that's spelled out on your handout. The day Christ raised Lazarus, that takes us here to this passage, and we're going to quickly visit that.

John 11, 43 and 44, when He had said these things, that's Christ, He cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. You've got to talk loud or you're going to talk through the rocks, right? The man who had died came forth, that's Lazarus, bound hand and foot with wrappings. This is a little tough. And his face was wrapped around with cloth.

Jesus said, unbind him and let him go and get him some coffee, because he's, anyway. All right. This is, by the way, this is in Bethany, and this is quite likely, and it is marked, the actual grave from which he would come out. And this would have been an artist rendering what that would have been like to imagine. Here's this guy. He's dead four days. And he comes out all bound up looking mummy-like.

And imagine first seeing Lazarus as he comes forth. Interesting resurrection in the New Testament. There are four of them that we have recorded. Two of them were Jesus raised someone to this life, to this kind of life. Isn't that interesting? Resurrected them, but back to this kind of life. Imagine dying twice. Now, the second one of those is the one Lazarus we're talking about, and then two are recorded in Acts, one for Peter and one for Paul. All four of those were a resurrection back to this life.

Christ was not raised back to this life, but to a new kind of life, okay? Kainos in the Greek. new kind of life that is the resurrection that all of us who are believers here this morning will experience a new kind of life by the Lord's doing because we are in Christ now verse 2 here's how John lays it out so they made him a supper there and Martha was serving but Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him Here is probably about how it looked with more people present. The picture we'll be looking at, the artist rendering, will be like this because it shows the particular players that come into it, so we'll use this.

There would be Christ there just left of center, and then Lazarus sitting, pondering off slightly to the right there, and then Martha serving. Martha, Mary, the Mary that we're talking about this morning, not the mother of Jesus or not Mary Magdalene, but Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. One of the things to point out is how do you keep track of all these Marys? A study of the various burial markings throughout the Jerusalem area, one in five female names is Mary. So they have a lot to keep track of.

All right. Now, so here's Mary at the feet of Jesus as we read this passage here. Mary took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. By the way, that's pure nard, not pure nerd. Just so you're sure on that.

The perfume that Mary had used here was actually about three quarters of a pound, and we look real carefully. That's a lot of perfume. You ever seen bottles of perfume? I don't know if you can find them three quarters of a pound. So this is a lot of perfume. It is very costly.

It's made from a nard plant. Sometimes you'll see the term spike nard, and that's actually because of the shape of the root, kind of like here's a spike. and it's imported from the mountains of northern India. So it's coming, especially for in those days, what would be quite a distance. Some of the other Gospels revealed that this was an alabaster jar. It's not present here, but we'll show that as well. Here's a picture of the spike nard or nard plant as it shows up. It's not large, so you can imagine it takes quite a few of these to make three quarters of a pound of perfume.

It is very costly. Why is it costly? Because there's no FedEx to get it there quick, okay? None of that happens, so you have to get there by donkey, even maybe a fast donkey. But nonetheless, you're going to get it there by some slower means than just flying it in.

All right. Some of the terms we'll look at here, this pure nard of course we've looked at, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. Now, for Mary to wipe Jesus' feet with her hair would have been against at least three cultural norms, okay? So, here's your cultural norms. Alright. Now, against three cultural norms, alright?

The first one, for a woman to just hang around with men while they're eating. In that New Testament culture, if women were present while men were eating, it was there to serve and make sure that they got food, but not to eat with them. So that was one thing, for her to hang around Jesus and just be with Him during that time while the men were eating. That was contrary to the cultural standards of the day. Now, two more cultural norms. Alright?

Washing or anointing of a rabbi's feet was not something even a male disciple could be asked to do. Typically, a rabbi would have a number of male disciples that would follow the rabbi, and they would quite often do various things to serve the rabbi. However, it was against Jewish tradition for the rabbi to ask for any of even the male disciples to wash His feet. A servant could do that, and that was it.

For Mary to do it, that was out of bounds. Just from that standpoint. And Jesus was considered, even called by the Jews, a rabbi. Alright, here's one more cultural norm. A decent woman was not to let her hair down among many other men than her husband. Now as you can tell, I've let my hair down for a long time. And it's let me down too. By the way, I've decided not to grow my bangs out. Okay. But a decent woman, a decent woman was not to let her hair down in public, and just not to happen at all, only with her husband. So, these three cultural norms, at least, were broken.

Mary was definitely going against customs to do this here. Why was she doing such a thing, and why is it okay? I mean, this is rather shocking stuff. Here's Christ. with Mary at her feet breaking all these cultural norms. Well, why was it okay? Cultural norms here. Alright. Jesus wasn't simply one to just abide by what's cultural. Let's just do what's cultural. Was He? Though Christ didn't just overtly go around breaking customs for the sake of breaking customs, He also wasn't one to be bound by them.

And we can see that particularly an example is speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, contrary to several Jewish customs. One is Jews don't go into the land of the Samaritans. That's number one. Number two, talk to a woman in public, midday. Thirdly, she was a woman of ill repute. There were several things that were contrary to Jewish customs. That didn't bother Christ. He had something to tell this lady and to talk to her about that was a higher priority than Jewish customs.

I think we can look at that similar thing here. The other thing to look at here is that Mary's brother had just died four days ago. Imagine sitting at the table and your brother, you've been spending four days mourning, is doing what? He's eating with Jesus! This guy that was dead, for her, you brought my brother back. This is astounding. I am sitting here watching while my Lord is eating with my brother who was dead for the last four days.

And we've been mourning him. I think I'll break some customs for that. What Jesus had done was way, way beyond anything customary. Was it customary to go around raising people from the dead? Absolutely not. This blew out any standards of custom. Completely. Yes. What she did, was it against customs? Oh, absolutely. Was it the right thing to do? Oh yeah.

So here, now we have but. Judas Iscariot. But is a good word to put in front there. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, who was intending to betray him, said, Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and given to poor people? He's ticked. Judas, as we see in Scripture, has a subversive intent. It's revealed here in this verse and in other places as well, of course. He has a covert motive, and that is revealed in this next verse.

However, he doesn't speak about the three broken customs. That's not his point. In a way, his priority stands out. If he were to speak out, you know, this is not customary. She needs to get out of here. You're serving men here. You've got to get out of here. You know, say something. No, he doesn't do that. What does he do? He speaks in an attempt to protect that box from which he pilfers. He wants to defend the sanctity of that box because he's got to protect his means of extra spending money.

The sum of money was 300 denarii, approximately a year's wages for a typical laborer. That's expensive. She had probably spent a good portion of anything she'd saved up for this alabaster container full of the perfume. Why wasn't this perfume not sold for 300 denarii, a year's wages, and given to poor people? Well, all kinds of people could make use of this. That was what he came across with here.

The money for this nard, not nerd, though quite substantial, was not from Judas' money box, but Mary's own savings. Mary didn't take the money out of the money box. It was her own to spend, not Judas'. At least that's what Judas didn't understand. Judas actually had no basis for a complaint. It wasn't the money box money to begin with. It was hers. She could do what she wished.

That would be true even if his motives were pure. And we know, because of John's insight and the insight of other writers in the New Testament, his motives were not pure. Now he said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief. That's pretty blatant, isn't it?

As he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it. Apparently this was something revealed after the time. None of the other apostles seemed to understand that this was the case, but it became apparent later. So here within a few days, what's Judas going to do? His deeply seeded motivation that would cause him to be blind to what was happening right then and there, that deeply seeded motivation would be borne out by his betraying Christ.

What for? For money. Thirty pieces of silver. That's what he sold out for before the week was out. Jesus, however, steps up like this. Let her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial, which he knows is less than a week away. For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

Interesting, Deuteronomy 15.11 seems to reinforce our Lord's point. Even there in the Mosaic Law, it says, for the poor will never cease to be in the land. You will have the poor with you. You've got Moses stating that fact.

But I am only here for a time, he's saying. A very small window, as a matter of fact. What they would find out is I'm only here for less than a week. Days that you can count on your hand will go by. And I will be crucified. Judas could have continued on with this Exhortation. He could have started into these customs things. Besides, he could have said, she broke this custom, and this custom, and this custom. Jesus cuts him off.

It's not about money for the poor, but about the worshiping and honoring of our Lord. That's the issue. Christ is always the priority issue, isn't he? People get distracted by a great many things. In the middle of pivotal situations, people will lose track of the fact that Christ is the pivotal issue always. If we talk about creation, Christ is the pivotal issue. If we talk about our salvation, Christ is the pivotal issue. If we talk about the new creation and where you and I are going to spend eternity, Christ is the pivotal issue. Christ is always the pivotal issue, and Judas had lost sight of that entirely.

Now, verse 9 spells this out. The large crowd of the Jews then learned 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. We have pictured a crowd. This is a feeding of the 5,000 closer to the Sea of Galilee. But it was just to show that it's quite common for Jesus during this time of his ministry to have large crowds, and this time would be no exception.

Think about it though, in this area around Jerusalem, when they would have the Jewish feasts and festivals like the Passover, The population in and around Jerusalem would roughly triple. Isn't that amazing? Imagine what this would be like. Let's give you some figures. Denver area's greater population, you know, of the greater Denver is approaching 3 million people in this area. Okay. Imagine if for a short period of time, it was suddenly 9 million. Okay. Ooh, wow. Okay. Might happen next year. Anyway. Residents in this area would be expected to entertain a great many guests.

They didn't have La Quinta. La Quinta is not Spanish for a Jewish hotel. So they didn't have places that you could stay all the time. So it was simply expected, if you live in or near Jerusalem, you're going to be having a lot of guests. That's just going to happen. So here in this area, and Bethany was less than two miles away, that's a pretty easy walk. In fact, it's a fairly enjoyable walk. So it would be common to have people around there.

Admittedly, even if a person's motivations were quite genuine, imagine, hey, here's this guy Lazarus, he's been dead for four days. It's not going to be on CNN, and you're not going to post it on YouTube, okay? But here's this guy Lazarus, he's been dead for four days. Wouldn't you be kind of curious to see the guy? Even if you were a genuine believer, that would be very interesting, right? And so a great many people, they're there anyway, are going to be quite drawn to see him. Now we get to the, well, I won't call it the good part, but it's juicy. Verses 10 and 11 here. But the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death also. Because on account of him, many of the Jews were going away and were, shocking thing of shocking things, believing in Jesus. Ah! They thought it was terrible.

Now, we've got a little side light here. There's an additional handout, a supplemental handout on your right as you exit this room. Feel free to avail yourself if you run out. Just give me a holler. It's called John the Apostle's Unique Connection to the Sanhedrin or the High Jewish Council. John gives particular insights. He, for example, is the singular gospel author to mention Nicodemus, which he does several times. Anyway, feel free to take advantage of that. We won't go into that now.

But the one thing we will point out here, these leaders, these chief priests, These were supposed to be Israel's holiest of holy. These men are the examples. And our Lord says of Nicodemus, one of the chief priests, who did secretly, after he found out that it was costly, follow the Lord. One of the chief priests calls him, are you the teacher of Israel? These are the ones who are high prime examples, and yet what are they doing? They say, we've got a cause that's so important, we're for us. All for one and one for all and we're for us.

It was so important that they could put aside the Mosaic Law and kill somebody if that put their purposes ahead. It was a very selfish view of things. This Mosaic Law, which they held very dearly, would be entirely set aside if it meant that we've got to preserve our place of power and prestige. They were also unbelievably unbelieving. Unbelievably unbelieving.

What do I mean by that? Instead of seeing the meaning of the miracle, they'd rather murder the miracle. How about that? Here is Lazarus. He's been dead for four days. A whole bunch of people have seen it. There were all kinds of witnesses right in the Jerusalem area. Right there you could ask them. Here were people testifying left and right who had seen the facts before and afterwards. Lazarus is alive. How did that happen? Jesus raised him. They saw that happen too. And yet instead of saying, wow, this is phenomenal stuff. I guess we better believe in Jesus.

What do they say? Kill the guy. Kill the miracle. Isn't that astounding? It is unbelievably unbelieving. The things that Jesus said and did, did indeed bring a great many people to that point of belief. There's Jesus. There's Lazarus. Lazarus was dead. I know it. He was in there for four days. I know it. The tomb was sealed up. I saw Jesus command him to come out. I saw Lazarus walk out.

When you get enough people that have seen that kind of thing, you've got to be either impacted or completely blind, one way or the other. I've got a couple of questions here. Would killing Lazarus actually stop all these people from believing? If you had seen Jesus call Lazarus, whom you may even have been involved in burying, out from the grave four days later, still all wrapped up and begging for a cup of coffee, if you had seen Lazarus come out like that, would killing him change your belief? No! Of course not. These guys were really, really blind.

Would killing of Jesus Christ actually keep people from believing in Him? Would it work? Hey, John wrote this book, this one we're studying here, as we looked at previously in our studies. But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name. It is precisely His death, burial, and resurrection in which you must believe in order to be saved. Killing Him is not going to stop people from believing. It is precisely what they must believe in His death and burial and resurrection.

Think about this account we've just read through. We've gone over it quickly. How did the various parties and peoples here respond to Jesus Christ and His resurrection of Lazarus? Focal point, here's the town where it happened. People that are eating, right there, have witnessed this thing. Mary has seen her brother die, and dead, and buried. She knows that he was in the tomb. She, along with a great many others, saw Jesus resurrect him. There he was, eating.

How are people going to respond to this? Can't deny it, there are all kinds of witnesses, and they're all right there. Lazarus, with others, joined in fellowship with Christ. Now what are you going to do when you've just been raised from the dead? Aside from my jokingly begging for coffee. How do I wake up out of this? Right? But Lazarus fellowshiped with the Lord.

He sat at table with Him. Martha served the Lord and those who were fellowshipping with Him. Mary worshipped our Lord both personally and also sacrificially. A great sacrifice. It didn't matter what the social pressures were, customs. No. Worship the Lord. Here's Judas. How did he respond? He openly opposed Mary's lavish worship of our Lord, concealing his motives, his selfish intent, his intent in a matter of days to betray our Lord.

Personal financial gain no matter what. Isn't that amazing? It doesn't matter. That trumps everything else. That is what calls the shots. How does this affect my pocketbook and my ability to spend money? The crowd They were obviously drawn to this miracle. I mean, who wouldn't be? That would be something astounding to see. The crowd included those who came to believe. Think of it. You'd either have to be blind or believe. One of those two. You're going to believe it, or you're going to be blind to it. And we've seen examples of both in this account. There were a great many who believed.

Here are the chief priests, and this is the astounding part. These are the ones who are unbelievably unbelieving. It didn't matter that this was a miraculous resurrection. It didn't matter that there were witnesses to the death and to the resurrection at Jesus Christ's calling four days after his death. How are they responding? Angry! that these people were being drawn into belief in Christ. Jealous that people would be drawn to Jesus instead of to them. The chief priests were completely blind to the miracles Christ had performed, Lazarus included. They even sought to reverse a miracle by killing Lazarus. Oh, let me assure you, by natural means, of course. They're into natural stuff.

Today, like Lazarus, we can fellowship with our Lord. Isn't that neat? He's seated and we're there with Him. We can fellowship with our Lord, the One with whom we're seated. Remember in our study of 1 John just a couple of weeks back, what we have seen and heard and proclaimed to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We have that opportunity for fellowship, just like Lazarus did and the others that were there that evening. We can serve the Lord. We have the opportunity to do that by serving His body, the Church, in ways that each of us are gifted through the Holy Spirit.

There's a passage, 1 Peter 4, 9-11, on page 4 of your handout there. The first part of that in verse 10, as each one has received a special gift, employed in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. You see, we have a giftedness to serve that is from God, by God's gracious gifting. That last note, by the way, is not on your handout. And then, the second part, verse 11, whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies. We have an empowerment to serve which is from God. It's by God's intent and design.

We can worship Christ even if that means setting aside cultural pressures or the cost to ourselves for doing so. Isn't that what Mary did? She said, I don't care what the cultural pressures are. I don't care what our customs are. I'm going to worship our Lord. I'm going to worship Him. And the cultural norms are so far down the list of priorities, I wouldn't even consider it. How could I? She thought, here I am. I have an opportunity to be with the Lord who raised my brother from the dead after four days. How could I do anything but worship Him? Each of us is called to present ourselves as a living sacrifice. She made a sacrifice that cost a lot of bucks. She had to set aside the cultural norms. We ourselves are called to present ourselves as a living sacrifice. You want something costly? Your life.

Here's this 1 Peter passage in the last part. Who gets the credit? So that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. A person can look at Christ and at those who believe and only ask themselves, what's in it for me? What's in it for me? What do I get out of this? One can look at his or her relationships to Christ and this body and still measure its value only by money. What's the bottom line? One can be drawn by Christ, along with a great many other people. You could be very impressed by what Christ did. You could say, wow, that's really astounding. The things that He said, you could be impressed by who He is. In the end, the bottom line is not Where's the money? The bottom line is, do I believe in Him? Do I believe it? Notice that the very thing that the chief priests were focusing on, they wanted to get rid of Lazarus, but they also wanted to get rid of Christ. And at least they thought, within a matter of days, that they had succeeded.

But here is the gospel. For I delivered to you as of first importance, top priority, What I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Oh yeah, we got him! Yeah! The chief priest said. Died for our sins, yours and mine, that he was buried and was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

That's the gospel. That simple. Right there on page four of your handbown. That's the gospel. Do you believe it? In Acts 16, The Philippian jailer who had his sword drawn is saying, hey, here's your last chance, man. I'm ready to take it out. I'm ready to take myself out of this whole scene. What must I do to be saved? Paul boiled it down. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Him. Him. One can even be physically among those who look at what Christ has done and who He is and yet still see Christ as getting in the way of what they want to do.

Have you ever seen that? Ever noticed that? You can be among people right next to them and still be startled, stunned, to find that their ultimate measure of things is, is this in the way of what I want to do? Nancy and I knew a lady from some years back who had been clearly, and in multiple times, presented with the gospel. She had it presented so clearly that she knew exactly what it was. And yet she said that she would stand outside the door, close, but never entering in, because she would not believe it, because being a believer might get in the way of what she wanted to do. Isn't that astounding? There are those who will take that position.

Those of that mindset actually think they're going to accomplish something, but the problem is they don't place any value on the new life Christ has given to others and can give to them. It's possible for a person while living on this planet to conclude that deciding what to do with Jesus just isn't all that important. Nah, maybe later. That could be a real serious mistake, couldn't it?

We've read about some people who miscalculated at this first coming of Christ here, as we've seen this morning. And a great many more people will have miscalculated by the time the Lord comes again. A great many. Including our friend that knowingly stands even today outside the door. Knowing the gospel and knowing its consequences. So what does God have in mind? If we work our way backwards through this passage, we read that there were many who came and saw and believed.

We saw that one insightful woman worshipped Christ. She says, I get the point. He is worthy of my worship no matter what the cost. He is worthy of my worship no matter how many cultural norms I've got to break. We saw another woman recognized and put into practice the value in serving the Lord and others.

And we started out this passage seeing that those who spent time in fellowship with the Savior, in simple fellowship with Him. John said, as we read before, that what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, the One who brings life, the sole source of life. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage here, what astounding messages, what shocking truths, and in the end, the ultimate decision, do I believe it? Even for those of us who long ago answered the question in the positive, yes I believe, even have that issue now, do I believe it so as to have fellowship with Him? Do I believe it so as to have fellowship with Him, with whom I'm seated, even as I walk this planet? Thank you, Lord, for the marvelous insights from this passage. In Jesus' name, Amen.