“She has done a beautiful thing”
“She has done a beautiful thing to me.” – Matthew 26:10
This was the hardest day to write about this week. The most difficult moment to understand. I sit with these two acts — the pouring and the betrayal — and try to untangle them. It feels like this is a pivot point, a hinge - something incredibly important, startling - and yet almost indecipherable.
One act is wordless. One is calculated. Both are costly.
The woman (and who she is shifts between each gospel), enters a space not meant for her. This soft, reverent act is nestled between the sharp violent, schemes of men.
She pours out the perfume. She touches death. This is an act of prophecy — she hears what Jesus has told them, she knows that he will die — and instead of resisting it, she prepares for it. She accepts it. She honours it.
Judas on the other hand seeks out his earthly reward, his prize for betrayal.
She anoints the one who is about to be broken. Judas breaks the one who was just anointed.
This is the threshold - the story turns, right here. On a jar and a handful of coins, we enter the Passion.
“Wherever the gospel is preached…
what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
(Matthew 26:13)
Art Journaling Exercise: Folded reflections.
What are you treasuring that reflects the world we live in? What are the treasures you have that reflect God? What might generosity look like, folded into your life?
Fold a piece of paper in half, make the crease firm. Allow the crease to be more than a line - let it be a hinge, a crossroads, a place of choice.
Where the fold meets, write a single line or stream of words - whatever flows. A prayer, a list, a cry, a question, a manifesto. Let it name the tension. “what is valuable?” “Where do I give without expectation of return?” “Where does worth lie?” “What am I willing to give to God?”
On the left side, draw riches, material wealth, treasured items, transactional objects. Coins, silver, gold, gems, banknotes, luxury, achievement, ostentation. Let it shimmer, shine - use metallic ink, foil, collage - make it beautiful, even seductive.
Leave the right side blank for now. This is the side for quiet offerings. Begin a list - a gentle, growing record of times you give something without return, when you offer up to God, for acts of generosity that you do without expectation of reward. Time offered in love, apology with no guarantee, creativity without credit, listening with no answer, forgiveness that costs something, faithfulness that nobody sees.
Then reflect:
What shines in the worlds eyes, but leaves me empty?
What do I give without being seen - and how might God be holding it?
Do I always expect a reward for Godly behaviour?
Study Questions:
Read this episode in all four gospels, what do you notice in each version? Why do you think it was recorded in all four books? Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, Luke 7:36-50, John 12:1-8
When do acts of worship that can appear wasteful actually reflect the holiness of God?
Jesus calls the act “beautiful” - what does this mean?
Journal Notes:
This story is placed carefully between two violent acts: the plot to kill Jesus (vv. 3–5) and Judas’s decision to betray him (vv.14–16).
The woman enters the scene in between — uninvited, unnamed, and unspoken.
She anoints Jesus not as a political saviour, not as a public king, but as one who is about to die.
And she does it before anyone else will admit what’s coming.
In Jesus’ time, perfumed oils were incredibly valuable. The jar described in Matthew was likely made of alabaster, a soft stone used to contain only the finest ointments — often imported, sealed, and used in burial rites or as dowries.
In a deeply honour–shame culture, where purity laws governed religious and social behaviour, this woman walks into a room full of men, touches a rabbi, and breaks open something irreversible.
Her actions challenge:
Gender norms — women were not typically permitted to teach, speak, or act publicly in male religious spaces.
Economic logic — she destroys something of immense financial worth, and for no clear reason.
Ritual expectation — anointing was usually done to kings or the dead, not dinner guests.
Jesus says, “She has prepared me for burial” — a shocking moment, as he had just predicted his death, but no one else wanted to hear it. She, silently, acts on it. Her gesture is both prophetic and priestly.
Judas’s offer to the chief priests — “What will you give me?” — initiates one of the most infamous acts in Scripture.
The sum he receives — 30 silver coins — is no random number. According to Exodus 21:32, it was the compensation for a slave who had been killed. A chilling devaluation of Jesus' life.
Judas engages in a transaction, where the woman engages in an offering.
Jesus had just taught in Matthew 25 about feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, visiting the imprisoned — very public, very visible acts of service. And now, in Matthew 26, this woman does something that doesn’t feed anyone. She doesn't help “the least of these” — she anoints a dying man.
And yet — Jesus calls it beautiful.
