Originally penned and posted in January 2011.

The weekend before His Passion, Jesus went and stayed with His friend Lazarus (whom He had raised from the dead) and Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary. Mary brought out a very expensive flask of ointment for the dead and applied it to Jesus’ feet with her hair. The whole house was filled with the sweet smell of that ointment. And guess who gets all mouthy about this? Yep. Judas Iscariot – who already was planning to sell out Jesus, and had been planning on cashing in on Him since the miracle of the loaves and fishes a few days earlier. Specifically, when Jesus told the people that they must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, and kept repeating it over and over and over again to be sure that everyone understood that He meant it literally, Judas (with urging from satan) decided that Our Lord was nuts and started planning to betray Him and profit from it. That whole episode is in John chapter 6. Read it.

Back to Lazarus’ house in John 12. Judas gets all holier-than-thou and complains that the flask of ointment could have been sold for 300 pence and “given to the poor”. Does this not sound like the godless Marxist liberals of today who are so quick to tell everyone else what they should be doing with their money and assets, all in the name of the poor, of course?

Then, an absolutely delightful verse – verse 6:

“Now he said this, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the purse, carried the things therein.”

Um, hello? The Holy Spirit is talking to us. Are we listening? That verse should make the hair on your arms stand up. Is this not a PERFECT mapping to our contemporary situation? You have a “disciple” who doesn’t really believe in Jesus or what He says – he just pretends to because he thinks he can gain power and wealth by associating with Jesus for now. He’s just working the “Jesus angle”. But everything he is doing behind the scenes is working in direct opposition to Our Lord. Now, this “disciple” starts trying to appear pious and devout by pontificating that all wealth and resources should, by definition, be redistributed to “the poor”. But in truth, he is just a thief.

Dude. Can this be any more obvious?

Now here is the key passage from Jesus Himself:

“Jesus therefore said: Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of My burial. For the poor you have always with you; but Me you have not always.”

First of all, Jesus says, “Let her alone.” (Sinite illam.)

Judas has appointed himself the arbiter of wealth and asset distribution and has decided that Mary’s flask of ointment (or the cash value thereof) should have gone to the poor. And Jesus says, “Let her alone.”

It is hers to do with as she (and her family) sees fit, and they have seen fit to use it to anoint their beloved Jesus.

Judas, sit down and shut your proto-Marxist piehole. THWAP!