#mark 14:3

[human-perspective]

"While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head."

Mark 14:3 NIV 

[daowil]

**Scripture never explicitly says "Simon was healed."** But the strong implication is there.

The Gospels refer to him as **"Simon the leper"** (Mark 14:3, Matthew 26:6). The most natural reading is that this was his former identity — he *had been* a leper. A few reasons scholars see it this way:

1. **He's hosting a dinner.** Under Jewish law, an active leper was ceremonially unclean and couldn't live in community, let alone host a meal. The fact that he's hosting Jesus in Bethany means he was no longer considered a leper.

2. **No explanation needed.** Mark and Matthew don't stop to tell the healing story — they just call him "Simon the leper" as a way of identifying him, the same way we might say "Simon the fisherman" or "Mary Magdalene (from Magdala)." The original audience likely already knew who he was and that he'd been healed.

3. **Some traditions identify him as the leper from Mark 1:40-45** — the man Jesus healed early in his ministry who then spread the news everywhere. If that's the same Simon, then his healing is directly recorded (Mark 1:40-42). But that's a tradition, not something the text definitively states.

So in short: **Scripture assumes his healing rather than narrating it.** The name "Simon the leper" points backward to what Jesus had already done for him.

[flutesanddrums]

It just didn't break...

My jar didn't break today.

I took it to The Master's feet as I wept through bloodshot eyes and muffled criticism. I cried at His feet and washed his perfect skin with my imperfect hair. I wailed inside because the audible sounds of the chains hugging my heart would pierce through eardrums too soft to bear the beat. I stayed there, prepared and intentional, with the most expensive perfume I could afford to buy since the last time I was in this position. It was time to break the jar again and once more, perfume His feet with the sweet scent of a thousand princesses- but I couldn't. It just wouldn't break.

I knelt there, confused; even worse, embarrassed. There was no way He would look on me now. My usual sacrifice had become too usual. My time was up. My tears were not real enough or maybe my strength left with the last sin. I waited for the ground to yawn and swallow me in the air I had contaminated with my incompetency. I just knew that His feet would be the last good thing I would see and that this, this would be the first of many more consequences for my filth; my unrighteousness.

Then, as if by accident I dared to look up at the face of Him whose feet I was unworthy to touch. I dared to try just one more time. I dared to ignore the jar and hope that sacrifice was not nearly as important as love. I dared to call Him Father and even braver, I dared to cry out loud.

I died that day.

And every day ever since.

"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die" -Deitrich Bonhoeffer

-Jess

[Reference from Mark 14]