She has done a good deed to Me.

Matthew 25:31-26:13 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; ³³ and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; ³⁶ naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’³⁷ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?³⁸ And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ³⁹ When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’⁴⁰ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

⁴¹ “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴² for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; ⁴³ I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ ⁴⁵ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ ⁴⁶ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

26 When Jesus had finished all these words, He said to His disciples,² “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be handed over for crucifixion.”

³ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people were gathered together in the court of the high priest, named Caiaphas; ⁴ and they plotted together to seize Jesus by stealth and kill Him. ⁵ But they were saying, “Not during the festival, otherwise a riot might occur among the people.”

⁶ Now when Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper, ⁷ a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at the table. ⁸ But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, “Why this waste? ⁹ For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.” ¹⁰ But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed to Me. ¹¹ For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have Me. ¹² For when she poured this perfume on My body, she did it to prepare Me for burial.¹³ Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.”

In today’s text Jesus says:   “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”  

It is important that we understand all of what Jesus says. He says the righteous will go into eternal life. Here is the thing we need to understand, doing good things does not make us righteous. Not doing good things does make us unrighteous. James 4:17 says:  To one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.  But, as Ephesians 2:8-9 says:  By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God ; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.   Our good works do not save us, nor does doing good alone, make us righteous. Isaiah 64:6 says:  All of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.   All of our righteous deeds cannot save us, even if we do the good things described in the text, it is not our deeds that lead us to eternal life. John 3:16 says: God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  It is believing in Christ that leads to eternal life. Going back to Ephesians 2:8-9 and adding verse 10 it says: By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.  The good that we do does not result in our salvation or righteousness. It is a result of our salvation by grace, through faith in Christ. The good that we do is the walking and working out of our faith. It is the evidence that we are the workmanship of Christ, changed; redeemed by the cross. It is the righteous walking out of our faith which leads to eternal life.  

In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus says: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”  If we try to love others without first loving God, our love and compassion will not save us. We must first and foremost love God with our whole heart, soul and mind. We must believe in the love He showed for us. God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)  In today’s text it says:  When Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper,  a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at the table. But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, “Why this waste?  For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed to Me.  For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have Me. For when she poured this perfume on My body, she did it to prepare Me for burial. Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.”  The actual identity of the woman is not given to us in scripture. There are theories as to who she was and what type of woman she may have been. But what we see from this portion of scripture is that first and foremost, we are to love and worship God and Christ. More important than providing for the poor, was this woman’s sacrifice of worship and love for Jesus. Jesus says: You always have the poor with you.  It is true, no matter how much we do and how much we give we will never overcome every need; all the poverty and all the hunger of the poor in the world. As much as we are called and encouraged by today’s text to visit those who are in prison and those who are sick; as much as we should show kindness to strangers, we will never eliminate every need. First and foremost, before we can love and serve others, we must love and worship God and Christ with our whole heart, soul and mind. Believing in God’s love demonstrated in the cross, we can then love others as we ourselves are loved.

May we walk in response to God’s love and the words of Paul from Romans 12:  Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect…Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith;  if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching;  or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.  Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love…  Amen