Something Jesus Never Had

Mark 14.8,9 8 "...She has done what she could; she has anointed My body beforehand for the burial. 9 Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.” NASB

One thing to always remember: Jesus, in His earthly ministry never had a particle of arrogance in His entire being. Jesus is God and He knew that while on earth, and He knows it now. Of all the humans who ever set foot on this globe, our Lord never was arrogant – He was always self-aware and always submitted to God the Father. Jesus knew all of these things.

Judas on the other hand was arrogant; he was selfish, petty and small. Judas never understood our Lord and when the right moment presented itself, Judas bailed – he betrayed all he knew and what he believed, and secretly arranged to have Jesus arrested. When Jesus made His statement about the woman and the perfume Judas saw it as arrogance and self-aggrandizement. Something about Jesus rubbed him wrong and he let it get to him.

A careful systematic reading of Scripture is necessary every day…or as routine and as customary as one can make it. It needs to be more than hit or miss. It needs to be devotional, thoughtful, and meditative; and a part of normal everyday living. If we don’t we’ll miss the fact that Jesus was never ever arrogant – He was on a mission from His Father to help mankind to truly know who God is and what He is up to in each and every life on earth. And that is why reading the Scripture devotionally is so vital: it helps us to come to know who Jesus (was)/is and why He (is)/came.

The difficulty of knowing God is believing God: that He loves us unconditionally and desires for us to live out our earthly life for Him. That’s hard to swallow. Judas had an entirely different agenda and it became clearer and clearer that his devotion to Jesus wasn’t real. Sure, after the betrayal he had some remorse but he never got it that God loved him and desired a personal relationship with him. Many do not believe God for the same reasons.

And now we see what Judas’s real problem was: he was arrogant. He made up his mind that he was only going to accept Jesus according to his own terms and not the Lord’s. He wasn’t going to submit to Jesus leadership and he increasingly doubted Who Jesus really was and what He was up to. Judas couldn’t believe because he made up his mind that he wouldn’t believe. I daresay he even committed suicide because he was more afraid of what people would think about his actions; not because he was sorry. Judas was arrogant.

As we have talked recently, true belief requires a God-given strength to hang on and overcome the preconceived notions of who we think the Lord is – and a subsequent vulnerability to accept His purpose in and for our lives. One thing the arrogant ain’t, is vulnerable; he’ll never go there; it’s far too risky. The children of God are called to humility for a very good reason: the alternative is to call Jesus arrogant and self-aggrandizing, and full of baloney for making the statements He did about the woman, the perfume, the gospel, and her memory…