Mary's devotion

“While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came to Him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on His head as He was reclining at the table.” Matthew 26:6-7
There are several accounts of Jesus being anointed by women, but they are not all the same. Note that this is a later time and different place to the woman who wept and kissed Jesus’ feet and poured perfume on them in Luke 7:37-38. It is probably the same account as John 12:3, where we are told it is Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus.
This act was not merely symbolic of her affection for the Lord. In those times, the dowry system was widely used, and wealth was often converted into costly but small things, that could be stored – such as perfume. Thus, the perfume that Mary poured over Jesus, from head to foot, was probably her dowry. Without it, her chances of being married were slim to none. She gave her marital prospects up for Jesus as an act of complete devotion to Him. The disciples did not see it this way at all. They thought that she was making a big show, and questioned why the perfume was not sold for the high price that it was worth and the money given to the poor. They didn’t realise what Mary knew: that the Lord was of much, much higher worth than the perfume.
The smell of the perfume was most probably still upon Jesus’ body as He hung on the cross a few days later, and as His body was laid in the tomb. But the smell of her devotion, carries to us today, as we read in the Scriptures of what she did. Indeed, as Jesus said: “I tell you the truth: wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her” (Matt. 26:13).