One event, four witnesses
The Anointing at Bethany
In Bethany a woman pours costly ointment on Jesus, and He receives it as a preparation for His burial. Matthew, Mark, and John all record this anointing shortly before the passion; John names the woman as Mary and the objector as Judas.
“Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,”Matthew 26:6
“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.”Mark 14:3
“Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.”John 12:1
The event
The event. Six days before the Passover, in Bethany, at a supper, a woman brings an alabaster box of very precious ointment, spikenard of great value, and anoints Jesus. In Matthew and Mark she breaks the box and pours it on His head; in John it is Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who anoints His feet and wipes them with her hair, filling the house with the fragrance. Some present are indignant at the waste, reckoning the ointment worth about three hundred pence, which could have been sold for the poor. John identifies the objector as Judas Iscariot and notes that he cared not for the poor but was a thief who kept the money bag. Jesus defends the woman: she has done a good work; the poor are always present, but He will not always be with them; she has anointed His body beforehand for burial. He declares that wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, this that she has done will be told as a memorial of her. The extravagant act, poured out in love, is honored by Jesus as a prophetic preparation for His death.
Read side by side: what is the same, what differs
Read side by side: what is the same, what differs. Matthew, Mark, and John agree on the essentials: at Bethany, near the passion, a woman anoints Jesus with very costly ointment, objectors complain of the waste and invoke the poor, and Jesus defends her and connects the anointing to His burial. The differences are of detail and identification. John names the woman as Mary of Bethany and specifies that she anointed Jesus' feet and wiped them with her hair, while Matthew and Mark, not naming her, describe the ointment poured on His head. Both may be true of one lavish act, or the narrators emphasize different parts of it; anointing both head and feet with an abundance of ointment is entirely possible. John alone identifies Judas as the objector and exposes his hypocrisy, where Matthew and Mark speak more generally of some who were indignant, or of the disciples. It is important not to confuse this anointing with the separate episode in Luke 7, where a sinful woman anoints Jesus' feet earlier in His ministry in the house of a Pharisee named Simon; that is a different event with a different woman, setting, and lesson, and Scripture does not identify Mary of Bethany as that woman. Some readers have blended the accounts, but the texts keep them distinct. Here at Bethany the honored act is a preparation for burial, and all three Gospels agree on that meaning.
What it shows of Christ
What it shows of Christ. Jesus receives the costly gift not as self-indulgence but as love rightly lavished on Him, and He reads it as a prophetic preparation for His burial, for He is walking knowingly toward death. He defends the woman against those who would reduce devotion to mere utility, teaching that there is a time for extravagant love poured out on Him that the calculating heart cannot understand. He honors her forever, promising that her deed will be told wherever the gospel goes, and so it is. John's naming of Mary shows the same devoted heart that sat at His feet to hear His word now pouring out her treasure upon Him, and John's exposure of Judas sets true love beside false piety and hidden greed. Christ, who is soon to give His own body for the world, receives this anointing as fitting for the King on His way to be buried, revealing both His impending death and the worth of wholehearted love offered to Him.
Questions people ask
Is the anointing at Bethany the same as the sinful woman who anointed Jesus in Luke 7?
No; they are distinct events. Luke 7 tells of a sinful woman anointing Jesus' feet earlier in His ministry, in the house of a Pharisee named Simon, and the lesson is forgiveness. The anointing at Bethany happens near the passion, in the home associated with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and points to Jesus' burial. Scripture does not identify Mary of Bethany as the sinful woman, and the two should not be conflated.
Did the woman anoint Jesus' head or His feet?
John says Mary anointed His feet and wiped them with her hair; Matthew and Mark describe the ointment poured on His head. Both can be true of one lavish act, or the narrators emphasize different parts of it, since anointing both head and feet with an abundance of costly ointment is entirely possible. All three agree it was a costly anointing that Jesus received as preparation for His burial.