Worship Service on Sunday, March 30, 2025
The anointing oil in the Old Testament also refers to, as holy anointing oil, was used to consecrate and sanctify priests, altars, and other objects within the tabernacle, and later the temple, as we read in our scripture today. Anointing oil in the Bible was customarily made from olive oil and other things which were abundant in ancient Israel.
Anointing oils in scriptures were used in the Old Testament for pouring on the head of the high priest and his descendants and sprinkling the tabernacle and its furnishings to mark them as holy and set apart to the Lord. Three times in scripture it is called holy anointing oil. The Jews were strictly forbidden from reproducing it for personal use. The recipe for anointing oil is found in Exodus 30:23-25. “Take also for yourself the finest of spices, a flowing myrrh, 500 shekels of a fragrant cinnamon, half as much, 250, and a fragrant cane, 250 and of cassine, 500, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and of olive oil, a hen, you shall make of these a holy anointing oil, a perfume mixture, the work of a perfumer, it shall be a holy anointing oil.”
So in this verse, a shekel, was a silver coin and a unit of weight used in ancient Israel and the Middle East. So a shekel, 500 whatever a shekel weighed. A hin refers to an ancient Hebrew unit of liquid measure roughly equivalent to about 1.5 US gallons or 5.7 liters. So that’s a lot of perfume when you stop to think about it.
They made gallons of perfume. This text emphasizes that the oil is holy and should not be used for ordinary purposes or replicated by anyone other than the priests. It outlines the instructions for making and using the anointing oil and emphasizes its sacred nature and the consequences of misuse. Oil was initially used for priests in the tabernacle, as I said earlier. However, the practice of anointing was later extended to kings, 1 Samuel 10:1 – “Then Samuel took the flask of oil, poured it on his head, kissed him and said, has not the Lord anointed you a ruler over his inheritance?”
This was when Samuel was anointing Saul to become king. The oil itself or its ingredients didn’t have any supernatural power. Rather, the strictness of the guidelines for creating the oil was a test of obedience of the Israelites and a demonstration of the absolute holiness of God. As we read today in James, anointing with oil was part of praying for the sick, with the prayer of faith being the key to healing, not the oil. The oil was just a symbol. The prayer is what did the healing. There is nothing in scripture that commands or even suggests that we should use similar oil today, but neither is there anything to forbid it.
So if you want to use oil to anoint, go ahead. We Christians have the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth and anoints us continually with his grace and comfort. Sometimes oil can symbolize the Holy Spirit, and anointing can be associated with the first reception of the Holy Spirit, 1 John 2-20. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. In our scripture lesson today, we read about Mary of Bethany, who was the sister of Martha and Lazarus. The oil Mary used to anoint Jesus’ feet was pure nard, an expensive fragrant perfume made from the root of the nard plant.
The story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet is recounted in all four Gospels, though with slight variations in details. The oil nard or spike nard, was a highly valued perfume in ancient times, derived from the root of the nard plant native to India. Mary broke an alabaster jar of the perfume. The alabaster jar or box is a small, often perfume-filled container made of white marble-like stone, so it was very expensive. Then she proceeded to pour it on Jesus’ feet, then wipe them with her hair. Judas, one of the disciples, criticized Mary for wasting the expensive perfume, suggesting it could have been sold and the money given to the poor.
Jesus responded, defending Mary’s actions, saying that she had done a beautiful thing and that the perfume was meant for the day of his burial. Jesus told Judas that Mary had honored him and that the poor will always be with him, but he will not always be with them. The anointing by Mary is seen as a preparation for Jesus’ burial as soon as he would soon be crucified. Now, Mary undoing her hair and using it as a towel to wipe Jesus’ feet was probably the greatest act of humility she could have shown. She was demonstrating how deeply she loved and how greatly she valued Jesus.
Mary’s act of breaking the alabaster box and pouring the ointment is seen as a symbolic act of sacrifice, demonstrating her willingness to give her most valuable possession to show her love and devotion to Jesus. In Luke’s account, Mary’s actions are interpreted as a sign of her repentance and recognition for her sins. It is understood that Mary was known as a sinful woman, in other words, a prostitute, and her actions showed her now acceptance of Jesus as her savior. This story also emphasizes the importance of giving our best and our all to God. The alabaster box and its contents serve as a metaphor for the believers offering to Christ encouraging Christians to offer their lives and resources in service to the Lord.
The breaking of the alabaster box can be seen as a metaphor for breaking away from materialism and embracing spiritual riches. So like Mary’s coming to repentance and acknowledging Christ as her Lord, we come to the tale of two Georges. George Verwer, and I guess that’s how you pronounce his name, born to Dutch immigrants, was raised in New Jersey. George’s family attended a Reformed Church of America. George just attended church to socialize. As a child, he had a reputation for being in trouble, most notably setting and creating a fire in Bergen County Forest and getting caught by the police breaking into neighbors’ homes.
As a result of these incidents, Dorothea Clack gave him the Gospel of John and prayed that he would convert to Christianity. Dorothea was an American housewife living in New Jersey. In the 1950s, Dorothea began to pray faithfully for the students in her local high school. She asked God to touch the world through the lives of these young people, and God answered her prayers through George. George later said that Dorothea put him on her Holy Ghost hit list. In 1953, George went to Jack Werkson’s meeting. Jack was an American youth evangelist and founder of the Word of Life Ministries, which operates Christian camps, conference centers, and Bible institutes.
After listening to Billy Graham speak at the meeting in Madison Square Garden, George became a Christian at the age of 16. Within a year, about 200 of his classmates from Ramsey High School became Christians. After his conversion, George started evangelizing on foreign soil. He started with the distribution of the Gospel of John in Mexico in 1957, along with two friends, Walter and Dale. They called this operation Send the Light. After graduation, he went and lived in Spain. Once while taking Bibles into Russia, George was arrested and accused of being a spy. He was deported back to Spain.
And in Spain, after a time of prayer, in 1961, he started OM, Operation Mobilization. In 1963, the mission sent 2000 missionaries to Europe. O.M. went on to become one of the largest mission organizations of the 20th century, sending out thousands each year. At the time of George’s death on April 14, 2023, At age 84, the mission had more than 3,000 workers from 134 countries, working in 147 countries, and nearly 300 other mission agencies had been established as a result of contact with OM, Operation Mobilization.
We come now to another George, George Foreman. as you have learned in the last couple of weeks that passed away. George Foreman had a troubled childhood, so he took up amateur boxing and won a gold medal in the heavyweight division at the 1968 Summer Olympics. George Foreman was a two-time World Heavyweight Championship. Ten years after his retirement, He announced the comeback and in 1994, at the age of 45, won the unified WBA, IBF, and lineal heavyweight championship titles by knocking out a 26-year-old Michael Moore. At age 46, he was the oldest world heavyweight champion in history. Foreman was the oldest to ever win the world heavyweight boxing championship of major honors and the second oldest in any weight class after Bernard Hopkins.
He was also known as a successful entrepreneur and known for his promotion of George Foreman Grill. Following what he referred as a born-again experience, Forman became an ordained Christian minister. George Forman talks about his life, his faith, and how it helps him to stay grounded in his everyday life. This is a quote from George. I used to believe in my big fists, and when I would get these knockouts, I thought I could beat the whole world. Come to find out, There was something that could beat me and that was death itself. God saved me and gave me another chance to live.
That faith in God kept me all these years, keeping me on the right road. I couldn’t do anything without God. I know that now. Beforehand, I wasn’t aware of that, but now, and not only just in boxing and selling of grills, but my whole life is built around my faith in God. My mom would talk about religion all the time, but as I got older, I thought it was just a habit of poor people always talking about God and about Jesus. I didn’t really believe it until one night in Puerto Rico, I had this experience.
It was after a boxing match. I was dead and alive again. All of a sudden, Jesus Christ came alive in me and God has been my keeper ever since. Wow. Is that amazing? Much like the story of Mary, both Georges came to know Christ and gave their life to Christ through the Holy Spirit. They allowed the Lord in and turned their lives around. and dedicated their lives to sharing the gospel.
The story of Mary and the alabaster box and the oil should inspire us Christians to live lives marked by extravagant love and worship. We are called to offer our best to God and to recognize the true value of spiritual things. The biblical story of Mary and the modern day story of the Georges should remind us to recognize our needs for forgiveness and to always seek God’s grace and mercy. So think about it. How do we honor God with our lives? What is the oil we anoint his feet with? Is it some cheap perfume or is it expensive perfume? We ourselves can’t become broken like the box before our holy God and surrender to his sacrifice over our sins. We can have true freedom in that unhindered release of control. That’s a tough one, to release our control to God.
I’m gonna leave you with this. The courage we get from God doesn’t always roar. Sometimes the courage is a little voice at the end of the day that says, I’ll try again tomorrow. Amen.
