ST. STEPHEN'S GATE, THE ENTRANCE TO THE VIA DOLOROSA

through which gate Jesus passed on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and out of which he went to Gethsemane

From Gethsemane to the Walls of Jerusalem.

FOURTH QUARTER.

HOLY WEEK IN THE LIFE OF CHRIST.

LESSON I.- October 4.

CHRIST ANOINTED FOR BURIAL. Mark 14: I-II.

THE TEACHER AND HIS CLASS.

In such lessons as the beautiful story we are to teach to-day, the teacher should take a lesson from that great preacher, Bishop Phillips Brooks. Rev. W. C. Bitting once asked him how he made his sermons, and his reply was, "I cannot make a sermon. I receive messages from God through the Bible, nature, history, current events, human beings, and my own soul. When I

receive one of these messages, I turn my heart into a garden of the Lord, and plant the message in it. I brood over it with my mind, pray about it, and most of all try to live it. By and by it grows, and blooms, and when the time comes for me to preach, I simply walk into that garden of the Lord and pluck one of the blooming plants and take it with me into the pulpit and ask the people to enjoy its beauty and fragrance with me."

PLAN OF THE LESSON. SUBJECT: The Story of Mary of Bethany, and her Alabaster Box.⚫

I. THE CONSPIRACY, vs. 1, 2.
II. JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES ENTER-
TAINED AT BETHANY, v. 3.

III. MARY THE HEROINE OF BETHANY,
AND HER IMMORTAL DEED, v. 3.

IV. THE MONEY BAG OF JUDAS versus
THE ALABASTER BOX OF MARY, VS.
4, 5.

V. MARY VINDICATED BY JESUS, vs. 6–9. VI. THE CONTRAST-JUDAS, vs. 10, 11. MODERN APPLICATIONS.

AFTER 1

LEARN BY HEART.

1 Cor. 13: 1-3, 13.

THE TEACHER'S LIBRARY.

Dr. J. R. Miller's Mary of Bethany; Jacox's Side Lights on Scripture, "Mary and Martha "; Ruskin's Bible References, p. 134,

66

on Judas, and p. 183 on "The Poor Ye
Always Have"; Professor Ely's Social Law
of Service, especially the last part of Chap.
"The Gifts of Love"; Trench's West-
4,
minster Sermons, The Prodigalities of
Love"; The Faith that Makes Faithful,
P. 17.
THE LESSON IN LITERATURE.
Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture,
"The Lamp of Sacrifice"; Tennyson's
In Memoriam XXXII.,
homes of silent prayer"; Trench's poems,
Her eyes are
Dig channels for the streams of love";
Margaret Preston's Poems, Ante Mortem."
Alabaster Boxes, a leaflet, 5 cents a dozen
(M. S. Munson, 77 Bible House, N. Y.).

66

66

66

of the

I. Now after two days was the feast of the passover and unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him with subtilty, and put him to death.

by craft,

kill him:

1 Matt. 26: 2; Luke 22: 1; John 11: 55; 13: 1.

The Eternal Fragrance of a Beautiful Deed in a Wicked World.

I. The Conspiracy, vs. 1, 2; Matt. 26:1-5; Luke 22:1, 2. Jesus had completed his day-long labors on Tuesday to convince the rulers that he was the Messiah, and thus save the nation; and that evening he had gone to Bethany on the Mount of Olives. Our Tuesday evening was, by Jewish reckoning, the beginning of Wednesday.

After two days, Wednesday (from sunset of Tuesday to sunset of Wednesday), and Thursday (from sunset of Wednesday to sunset of Thursday). After sunset Thursday, that is the beginning of Friday, was the feast of the Passover which is also called the feast of unleavened bread because during the Passover week only bread that was unleavened could be used. It was on this Thursday evening, the beginning of Friday, that Jesus ate the Passover with his disciples, and instituted the Lord's supper.

The nearness of the Passover is mentioned to show why it was proposed to delay their plans to kill Jesus. Sought how they might take him by craft, by stratagem, in some underhand, secret, tricky way, and put him to death. This had been determined on before.

But

2. for they said, Not

the people.

1

3. And while he was

box

being in Beth'ă-ny in the house of Si'mon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster of ointment of precious; and it "spikenard very Prosty and she brake the cruse, and poured over his head. costly;

1 Matt. 26: 6; John 12: 1, 3; Luke 7:37.

cruse

a Or, pistic nard, or, liquid nard.

Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar, which would bring the Roman authorities down on them. For there were great multitudes of Jews not only from Galilee, but from every part of the world, present in Jerusalem. Hence they proposed to leave Jesus unmolested during the seven days of the feast, and after that to kill him, when the great number of his Galilean friends and sympathizers had returned to their homes. II. Jesus and his Disciples Entertained by Friends at Bethany, v. 3. This story of the dinner at Bethany is placed by John on the previous Saturday evening, i.e. six days before the Passover. It is altogether probable that John gives the true time, and that Mark and Matthew, who do not say when it occurred, relate the story here because at that supper was an occurrence which had decided Judas to betray Jesus, and led to the events which immediately follow in the narrative.

PICTURE THE SCENE. 1. The House belonged to Simon the leper, apparently one of the leading men of the village, who had been a leper, but had been cured of his leprosy by Jesus, "and yet men called him Simon the leper still. You see how old names,

like old reputations, stick. There would be many who could never talk of Simon, but they would add, 'Of course, you have heard that he was a leper once?' And yet I think that Simon loved his name. Rev. G. H. Morrison.

2. The Guests. Jesus was the guest of honor, and his disciples were with him. Next to them the central figures were, the Bethany family, - Lazarus whom Jesus had raised from the dead, as Simon had been cured of leprosy, Mary who had once sat at the feet of Jesus to learn of him, Martha "who seems to have had the entire supervision of the feast." "But it was a public tribute, and others bore a part in it, as was often the case, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, at least looking on and listening to the conversation. There is something remarkably attractive in a gathering around the table of such guests, much more than "a feast of reason and flow of soul." Eating together may transfigure the physical by the spiritual, and the mealtimes of the family be times of special blessing. Such intercourse makes a true family a training school for saints, a university-extension course for mind, morals, and spirit.

3. In this scene we look upon a low, Eastern table, surrounded on three sides by couches or cushioned divans, "on which each guest reclines, with his feet stretching back towards the ground," so that it was easy for Mary to anoint the feet.

THE BANQUET OF THE WISE. This gathering at Bethany was more important than that of the Greek writer Athenæus who represents a number of the most eminent men of the time, gathered as guests in the house of a learned man of Rome, at a banquet prolonged for several days. He calls it "The Banquet of the Wise," and the learned guests pour forth an unbroken stream of quotations, extracts from the great Alexandrian Library of Egypt.

There came unto

III. Mary, the Heroine of Bethany, and her Immortal Deed, v. 3. him a woman. This woman was Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (John 12: 3). Having an alabaster box, rather, a cruse or flask. 66 Literally, an alabaster, just as we call a drinking vessel made of glass, a glass." These alabasters were usually made of " the Oriental or onyx alabaster, with long, narrow necks, which could easily be broken. But the shape and material varied." This flask was large enough to hold a pound, the Greek litra 11 oz. avoirdupois.

=

Of ointment of spikenard, literally, "ointment of pistic nard," "pistic" meaning either " genuine" or "liquid." It was pure nard, like Attar of Roses, unadulterated, in full strength.