“Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.”
John 12:3 KJV
Mary picked up an alabaster jar filled with nearly a liter of extremely rare and costly perfume—the purest extract of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet. Then she wiped them dry with her long hair. And the fragrance of the costly oil filled the house. Nard is an extremely expensive perfume taken from the root and spike of the nard plant found in northern India. The Shulamite spoke this in the Song of Solomon, “As the king surrounded me at his table, the sweet fragrance of spikenard awakened the night.. spikenard so sweet”. This fragrance, usually associated with a king, was found upon Jesus’s feet with a nail. It is possible they would all have smelled the fragrance of this costly perfume. It is also possible that this rare and expensive perfume taken could have been her family’s treasure or her inheritance. John recorded in the revelation he wrote in the island of Patmos, “… the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures saw the Lamb..and they fell facedown at the feet of the Lamb…and their prayers were like bowls full of sweet fragrant incense—the prayers of God’s holy lovers.” Let’s worship the Lamb with the costly incense of our prayers. Amen!
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