Critical People
“Some of those at the table were indignant. ‘Why waste such expensive perfume?’ they asked. ‘It could have been sold for a year’s wages and the money given to the poor!’ So they scolded her harshly” (Mark 14:4-5).
Sometimes the people who complain the most actually do the very least, and the people who are aiming accusations at you are revealing something about themselves. The thing they’re accusing you of actually may be something they’re guilty of themselves.
After all, it was Judas who sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, yet he complained when Mary anointed Jesus with a jar of expensive perfume at a dinner in Bethany. Now, this probably was a family heirloom. The Bible tells us that it was worth a year’s wages (see John 12:5).
Just a few drops from a bottle like that would be sufficient. But Mary poured all of it on Jesus and filled the entire house with its fragrance. But the point wasn’t how much the perfume cost. It was how much Mary’s act of devotion cost her. She gave the most precious thing she owned to Jesus.
Judas, however, knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. He calculated it and declared it was a waste. And it did seem like a waste, but it was no waste at all.
From the outside, Judas looked thrifty, careful, and spiritual. And Mary looked frivolous, wasteful, and silly. But the very opposite was true, because John’s gospel gives us this detail: “This [Judas] said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it” (John 12:6).
In reality, Judas was evil, greedy, and wicked, while Mary was thoughtful, godly, and committed. So things are not always as they appear.
That’s why we need to be careful if we’re always emphasizing a certain sin in someone else’s life. We may be telling people more about ourselves than we want to reveal.
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