Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, to the home where Lazarus sat alive at the table after being raised from the dead. Martha served. Mary did something far more startling. Missionary Daniel Akuokoh opened John 12 and called the church to the same devotion Mary showed that night: give God your best, and give Him your all.
The Scripture records:
“Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. 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. Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.” (John 12:1-8)
Foot washing was ordinary in that culture. A guest arriving at the door would have dusty feet washed, often by the lowest servant in the house, and then be welcomed to the table. Mary was not a servant. She washed His feet at the table, not at the door. She used her own hair. Mark’s parallel account adds that she broke an alabaster box of very precious ointment and poured it on Him. What would drive a person to act so far outside custom? Missionary Akuokoh pointed back to John 11. Jesus had raised her brother. Mary had seen His power, His wisdom, and the truth that He is the Son of God. Overwhelmed, she wanted Christ to know He had her best and He had her all.
From that scene he drew four lessons about surrender.
Mary’s Surrender Was Complete
John 12:3 says she took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. She could have used cloth. She used her hair. No part of herself was held back.
Mark 14:3 adds another detail: “And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.” She did not ease the lid open and set the precious box aside. She broke it. The box itself was valuable. She treated it as nothing compared with Christ.
Jesus’ verdict is recorded in Mark 14:8: “She hath done what she could.” That is complete surrender.
Missionary Akuokoh asked the church to imagine the opposite from God’s side. What if the Lord had looked at our sin and decided His Son was too great a cost? He would have had every right, and every one of us would be headed for a sinner’s hell. Instead, we serve a God who keeps His promises and does not shortchange His people. He gave His best. He gave His all.
If the alabaster box pictures our surrender, the broken pieces lying before Christ say, “This is yours. Do with it what You will.” The moment we try to gather those pieces and glue the box back together so we can take our lives into our own hands again, the value is already gone. A life taken back from God is not more valuable. It is less. The best value of a life is found when it is given entirely to Christ.
Mary’s Surrender Was Costly
Judas objected: “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” (John 12:5). Spikenard came from the Himalayan regions of Nepal and India. It had travelled a long, hard road to Israel. One pence was about a day’s wage. Three hundred pence was close to a year’s salary. Mary had not bought that ointment on impulse. She had saved.
Would most people today hand over the equivalent of seventy or eighty thousand dollars for a single flask of perfume? Mary was not calculating the cost in the presence of Jesus. She broke the box and poured it out.
Judas talked about the poor, but John 12:6 tells the truth: “This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.” His concern was the money.
Surrender still costs. It costs time. It costs relationships. It costs money. It costs a life. Missionary Akuokoh recalled a preacher’s story of a man who had nothing to drop in the offering plate. He asked the usher to set the plate on the floor and then stepped into it. He had no money that day, so he gave himself. God wants the heart first. When He has the person, He has everything that belongs to that person.
Scripture joins cost to love. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) A life was laid down. The Son was given. The motive in both cases was love. If we say we love God, we must be willing to give Him our lives, costly as that is.
Mary’s Surrender Was Criticized
No one in the room is recorded as congratulating Mary. Judas criticized her openly. Others likely sat in silent disapproval. She did not stop.
Missionary Akuokoh told his own story. At seventeen he held a scholarship to study architectural engineering, the path he had prepared for through high school. He had also promised his youth pastor one week of Bible camp. In the first service of that camp in July 2014, he knew the Lord was calling him to missions in Ghana. He fought the call for three days. He could not win. On 3 July 2014 he surrendered.
The storm at home was immediate. His parents were not happy. A family friend who was a pastor was brought in to talk him out of Bible college. His grandmother called from Ghana. Relatives in New York called. The message from every direction was the same: this is a horrible decision. He did not let the criticism decide the matter. Had he done so, he said, who would have led Amos to Christ? Who would have led Amos’s wife? Who would have started Gospelite Independent Baptist Church? Those souls would have been on his hands, and he would not even have known it.
Mary did not need the approval of the room. She needed the approval of Christ. “She hath done what she could.” That was enough. When a believer surrenders fully to God, criticism will come. The only verdict that finally matters is the Lord’s.
Mary’s Surrender Was Commemorated
Mark 14:8-9 records Jesus’ promise:
“She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.”
The promise was kept. Matthew, Mark, and John all carry the account. Mary’s act is still told wherever the gospel is preached.
God sees the cost and the criticism. He does not forget those who give Him their best and their all. He will exalt them in His time.
Missionary Akuokoh pointed to his younger brother Noel. The family began attending church together in 2005 and 2006. After a few years Noel and other siblings stopped. Years later, after Bible college and near the end of deputation, the Lord began to work. Noel found assurance of salvation, grew faithful in church, and then called to say the Lord had called him to preach. The man who once looked rough now stands as a sharp servant of the Lord. Both a pastor and Noel himself said that if his older brother had not been an example, Noel would not be where he is. Full surrender, even under criticism, becomes a memorial that reaches other lives.
Conclusion
Mary’s gift looked simple. It was a flask of ointment and a woman’s hair on the feet of Jesus. From that act the church is shown what surrender must be: complete, costly, criticized, and commemorated.
Missionary Akuokoh closed with words from the hymn “Our Best”:
Hear ye the Master’s call, “Give Me thy best!”
For, be it great or small, that is His test.
Do then the best you can, not for reward,
Not for the praise of men, but for the Lord.
Every work for Jesus will be blest,
But He asks from everyone his best.
Our talents may be few, these may be small,
But unto Him is due our best, our all.
The question left with the congregation was plain. Are we giving Him our best? Are we giving Him our all? He deserves nothing less. He has been a great God and a great provider. The least His people can do is place the broken box at His feet and leave it there.
