Matthew 26:1-13

In Matthew 26, we begin Jesus’s “Passion”: the events immediately surrounding his suffering and death on the cross.  These are his final 48 hours on earth before he gives up his life for humanity.  In the course of his mistreatment, he will be called “Messiah,” “Son of God,” and “King of the Jews.”

In Matthew 26:1-13, we see 2 extreme reactions to Jesus: extreme hatred and extreme love.

Matthew 26:1-5 Extreme hatred: the chief priests and elders plot Jesus’s death

At this time, the high priest was appointed by the Roman rulers.  Caiaphas was high priest from A.D. 18 to 36, an unusually long time considering that the average tenure of a high priest was around 4 years at this point in Jewish history.  This suggests that Caiaphas was very good at navigating the politics of dealing with the Romans and keeping the peace (Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2, pp. 361-362).

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis said that Jesus hasn’t given us the option of being neutral about him:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.”  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to. (Lewis, pp. 55-56, at the end of the chapter entitled “The Shocking Alternative”)

The chief priests and elder have made their choice.

What does Jesus say is going to happen to happen?

Jesus again states the specific manner by which they will kill him – crucifixion – and says that he will be “handed over” – a passive phrase that suggests that no one is truly in control of him; rather, God is in ultimate control and allowing all of it to happen (The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, par. 147, p. 669).

This term “handed over” will appears frequently in the passages ahead.  Jesus has already used it in 17:22 and 20:18 to describe what is about to happen to him.  He will be “handed over” multiple times before his death: he will be handed over to the chief priests in 26:45 and to Pilate in 27:2; he will be handed over to be crucified in 27:26; and his body will be handed over to Joseph of Arimathea in 27:58).

What is this “Passover” that was about to be celebrated?

This is the annual Jewish festival celebrating God’s saving action in the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.

Who is involved in the conspiracy against Jesus?

The chief priests and the elders are the parties to this plot.  They are the religious and political leaders and powerbrokers of the society.

Notice that the people who seek Jesus’s death are not the Pharisees and scribes, even though they frequently clashed with him.  Jesus’s death was not an act of “the Jews” as some amorphous collective.  The Pharisees – the Jews most focused on a living a holy life – were not part of this plot except those Pharisees and scribes who also were leaders.  Jesus was executed by the scheming of the political and religious leaders, who saw him as too great a threat to their fragile hold on all they held dear.

What do the chief priests and elders want to do, and what holds them back?

How can a person reach a such an extreme stage of hate that they want to have Jesus killed?

When you get focused on protecting what you have, what holds you back from doing wrong?

Matthew 26:6-13 Extreme devotion: the anointing of Jesus at Bethany

Where is Jesus when this happens?

Recall that Bethany is a village on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, where Jesus has been staying each night.  Luke and John tell us that Bethany is where Martha, Mary, and Lazarus lived.

In John 11:45-53, the man is Lazarus and the woman is his sister Mary.  Here in Matthew and also in Mark 14:3-9 the woman is not named.  Luke 7:36-56 tells the story of a penitent woman who anointed Jesus’s feet at the home of Simon the leper.  In the other accounts she is not identified as a penitient woman.  In Luke and John, the woman anoints Jesus’s feet, but in Matthew and Mark she anoints his head.  The differences in details suggest that there may have been 2 events where Jesus was anointed – probably Matthew, Mark, and John describing one event and Luke describing the other – but that some of the details may have become blurred or merged as the Christian community recalled the stories.

The word for leprosy could refer to any of a variety of skin diseases, but having any of those diseases required that a person be separated from the rest of society to protect against the spread of the disease.  Therefore, Simon was probably healed by Jesus at some earlier time.

What does the woman do?

Mark 14:5 says that the ointment could have been sold for more than 300 days’ wages – in our day that might be $18,000 to $36,000.  She used costly ointment and spread it extravagantly.

Why do you think she does this?

How does the woman’s action affirm Jesus’s identity as the Messiah?

“Messiah” means “Anointed One.”  In the Bible, anointing was a way of signifying that God had chosen someone – for example, to be a king as when Samuel anointed Saul and later David.  The woman may not have been making an intentional statement about Jesus’s identity as the Messiah – she may have just been expressing her extreme appreciation of him by giving him the most precious thing she owned – but the action does have messianic overtones.

How do the disciples react to what the woman did?

Notice that the disciples seem to be responding reasonably to Jesus’s clear and repeated concern for the poor.  Jesus addresses that concern.

How does Jesus describe the woman’s action in verse 10?

She has done a good thing for him.

We will talk about Jesus’s comment about the poor in a few minutes.  Stay focused on the woman for now.  What is the significant of Jesus saying that she did it “for me”?

Does Jesus’s reaction give you any guidance in trying to judge when an extravagant action might be appropriate?

The woman’s action was an act of love, coming from her heart.  The disciples’ reaction was an act of practicality, coming from reason.  How can we choose wisely in trying to decide when to listen to the heart and when to listen to practical reason?

Don’t settle for a glib “always listen to your heart.”  Listening to your heart always seems to work out in Disney movies, but in real life people’s lives have sometimes been shipwrecked by uncritically listening to their heart: rash marriages, bankruptcy, unnecessary dangers, and even death have followed those who fail to tame and guide the yearnings of their heart.  Yet, excessive reliance on reason can sometimes lead to loneliness, missed opportunities, and a cold and joyless existence.  How can we choose wisely when to listen to our extravagant hearts and when to listen to our practical and utilitarian minds?

How does a person reach a stage of such extravagant love toward Jesus?

The woman proactively seized the opportunity to honor Jesus while she could.  If she had waited, the opportunity would have been lost.  Are there times when we need to act while we can, to do some service for God, because we might not have the chance later?  What does this tell you?

Have you ever had a time where, out of love for God, you took an action that was extravagant or exceptionally generous or unusually self-giving?  How did it feel to be doing that, and what happened?

Is there anything you feel God calling you to do right now, out of love for him, that might be beyond the norm?  How might you test that feeling to see if it is genuinely from God?

Now let’s focus on verse 11.  What does Jesus say in verse 11?

The actual phrasing in the Greek does not say that you will always have the poor with you.  Some translations get this wrong.  The Greek word “have” is in the present tense – you [currently] always have the poor with you (the NRSV gets this translation right).  It is not a prediction about the future, nor is it an excuse for not trying to reduce poverty.  Why do you think it was true in Jesus’s time that they always had poor people among them?

What kinds of societal structures were common in Jesus’s time that contributed to the fact that poverty was common?

Why do you think it is true in our present time that we always have poor people among us?

Are there societal structures in our time that contribute to the presence of poverty in our midst?

Jesus is drawing on Deuteronomy 15:11, which commands God’s people to help the poor: “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’” (NRSV).  How important is it to God that we care for the needy, and why do you think he cares?

This passage does not support the view that poverty is inevitable and therefore we should accept it.  First, Deuteronomy tells us to do more than just accept it – it tells us to open our hand to the poor and needy.  Second, the Gospel of Mark has an additional sentence that Matthew left out when he shortened the story.  In Mark 14:7, Jesus tells us that we can do good to the poor whenever we want.

In Mark 14:7, Jesus says that you can do good to the poor whenever you want.  How much of a priority do you think we should place on meeting the needs of the poor?

Do you think Jesus would be comfortable with a world where Christians just accepted the existence of poverty and didn’t do much about it?  Explain.

What do you think we should be doing about poverty in our time – individually, through nonprofit organizations, through governments, and in other ways?

In Matthew 26:12, what does Jesus say the woman has done for him?  What do you think this means?

What does Jesus say about the woman in verse 13?

What does the example of this woman say to you about your interactions with Jesus?

Can you draw any additional conclusions about this passage when you recall that in the previous passage Jesus said that what we do for the “least” among us we do for him?

If what we do to those in need we do to Jesus, how might we “anoint” Jesus by the way we treat the least among us?

Throughout history, women’s stories have seldom received as much attention as men’s stories and often have not been preserved at all.  How does Jesus affirm/elevate women in verse 13 and throughout this story?

How might we help affirm the value of what women do in our society?

Take a step back and consider this:

Jesus affirms that this particular act by this particular woman has lasting value. Not all acts of extravagance have such value.  What matters is what has value in God’s eyes, not the world’s eyes.

What can you do because of your love for Jesus that will have lasting value in the eyes of God?