The moment the fragrance spreads through the room, the hidden calculations within human hearts are also revealed. Just as Dostoevsky's novels open the darkest chambers of the human soul, the scene in Matthew 26 places love and betrayal close to the same table. A sermon by Pastor David Jang, founder of Olivet University in the United States, leads us to reflect on the woman in Bethany who broke the alabaster jar and on the betrayal of Judas side by side, inviting us to meditate on how the gospel awakens faith and repentance within us. One person, standing before the grace she had received, offered what was most precious to her; another, standing before the same Lord, calculated thirty pieces of silver.
The reason this contrast lingers in the heart is that love and betrayal do not belong to worlds far removed from one another. Both people were near Jesus, and both had seen the path of the Lord. Yet nearness itself did not guarantee the depth of love. For that reason, this passage does not stop at explaining an event from the past. It quietly asks what our faith today considers precious, and what it calls waste.
Gospel Grace Poured Out Like Fragrant Perfume
In Bethany, a woman brought very expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus' head. The disciples became indignant, saying that it could have been sold and the money given to the poor. But Jesus said that she had done a beautiful thing for Him. What appeared, in the eyes of the world, to be a momentary waste became, in the eyes of the Lord, an act of love to be remembered wherever the gospel is preached. This is the first reversal in the scene.
Pastor David Jang explains through this event that love cannot be fully described in the language of efficiency. The value of the perfume could be determined in the marketplace, but the heart of the woman could not be read with a price tag. What she broke was not merely an alabaster jar, but the long-held heart that tried to protect itself through calculation. When the grace one has received is overwhelmingly great, a person can no longer live by profit and loss alone.
This is also why Jesus said that what this woman had done would be told wherever the gospel was preached. Her devotion was like a small shadow cast in advance of the Lord's love as He walked toward the cross. Before the path on which the Lord would give Himself completely, she did not withhold what was most precious to her. Love opens the door of self-preservation and empties itself before grace.
In that sense, the perfume is both the name of a material possession and the direction of the heart. Love may appear to lose itself, but in grace it actually recovers the deepest self.
This flow of the passage also touches the heart of God revealed in the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the returning son. The searching and the celebration that may seem excessive according to human ideas of fairness become, in Jesus, the face of the Father's love. Love is not a reward given after calculating who deserves it. It is grace that comes first, searches first, and embraces to the end. Therefore, the fragrance of the alabaster jar testifies silently not only to one woman's gratitude, but also to the kind of world the gospel opens.
When Calculation Puts Faith on Trial
The words of the disciples seemed right on the surface. The suggestion to help the poor sounded just, and the judgment that the perfume should have been sold seemed realistic. Yet the passage shows that words that sound right do not always arise from the center of love. At times, faith may cling to a proper cause while missing the heart of the Lord.
The theological insight of this sermon is that it does not simply set love and justice against each other. Love is not sentimentality that ignores justice; rather, it is the deep root that enables justice to move toward life. The disciples spoke of the poor, but they failed to see the woman's love. In that moment, their discernment became not an instrument serving grace, but a standard by which love was judged.
We stand before the same question. Why give that much? Is there not a more reasonable way? Is such devotion really necessary? Discernment is needed, but when it comes before love, faith becomes cold and rigid. The moment we begin to call love waste, our hearts may already be drifting away from the language of the cross.
True love does not deny order. But when order moves away from the path that gives life to people, love brings that order back to the center of the gospel. Jesus stopped the disciples' judgment as they looked at the woman's action, not because He took lightly the responsibility to care for the poor. Rather, it was because even the holiest words can become cold criticism when responsibility is spoken of without seeing the source of love.
This tension is repeated in the life of the church and community. When we see someone's time, possessions, and tearful service, we sometimes calculate the cost before we recognize the value. But in the woman's action, the Lord saw not waste, but deep love preparing Him for burial. Even when people look at the same event, depending on what they see, one person may speak of the price of the perfume, while another may see the heart directed toward the Lord.
Betrayal Is a Warning to Repent, and It Does Not Come from Far Away
After the fragrance of the alabaster jar spreads, the Gospel immediately speaks of Judas' betrayal. Judas, one of the Twelve, goes to the chief priests and asks what they will give him if he hands Jesus over to them. After receiving thirty pieces of silver, he enters the path of betrayal. What makes this scene frightening is that Judas was not someone who had been far away from the beginning. He was near. He heard the Word. He saw the ministry of the Lord.
Pastor David Jang's sermon does not view Judas' tragedy merely as an incident of greed. It shines light on the darkness within human beings, who can learn love from the closest place and still turn away from that love. When love grows cold, even a small gain can appear greater than the Lord. Even someone familiar with the language of faith can begin to regard the way of the gospel as inefficient. Betrayal is not a stone that suddenly falls from nowhere; it quietly grows in a heart that has replaced love with calculation.
Judas later realized that he had betrayed innocent blood, but that realization did not lead him back into the Lord's embrace through repentance. Here, the passage gives us not only fear but also the grace of watchfulness. Memories of having believed for a long time, pride in having been close, and familiar words of piety do not automatically guard the heart. That is why repentance is not a door of condemnation, but a path that enables us to stand again within love.
The fact that Peter's failure and Judas' despair move toward different endings also makes us pause. The deeper issue is not merely that one falls, but where one returns after falling. A heart that has lost love may carry guilt and yet be unable to stand before the door of grace. Therefore, biblical meditation leads us not to point a finger at Judas first, but to see first the calculation and desire growing within ourselves.
The Hopeful Question Left by the Grace of the Cross
Even so, the gospel does not end in the darkness of Judas. Betrayal could not destroy the love of Jesus, and the cross became God's way of embracing even human sin and treachery. By giving Himself, the Lord revealed that love is stronger than calculation, grace is deeper than failure, and hope endures longer than despair.
Pastor David Jang's biblical meditation ultimately places us between two figures. On one side stands the woman who broke what was most precious to her because of the love she had received. On the other side stands the disciple who regarded love as waste and handed over his Teacher. The distance between these two is not merely in the past of history; it exists within the heart today. Every day, before our time, possessions, talents, relationships, and stubborn self-will, we choose which direction we are leaning toward.
Breaking the alabaster jar does not necessarily mean making only a grand decision. Invisible service, quiet forgiveness, stubbornness laid down before the Lord, and small acts of joyful obedience for the gospel can also become perfume. In the ledger of the world, such things may appear as costs that disappear. But before the eyes of the Lord, they remain as the fragrance of love.
Before the grace of the cross, obedience becomes not a forced duty but a response of love. The woman did not break the alabaster jar because someone commanded her to do so. She gave because she could no longer hide the love she had received. Faith is the same. Obedience toward the Lord is the event in which a person who has first been loved finally opens the deepest place of life.
The way of love is not completed by a single emotion. What we offer today may feel costly again tomorrow, and yesterday's obedience may tremble before today's calculations. That is why faith is the daily act of bringing ourselves before the cross. There, we hear again the truth that the Lord first gave Himself, and we receive courage to break one small alabaster jar.
This choice does not come only in special religious moments. In a word spoken within the home, in a small concession within the community, and in service that accepts loss, we pass through the same crossroads. When embracing someone disrupts our own plans, the story of the alabaster jar comes alive again as the Word for today.
What is the alabaster jar in our hands today? And before we break it, what voice do we hear first within us: the confession of love, or the old calculation that asks, "Why this waste?"
Dr. David Jang has proclaimed the gospel in various regions of the world through field missions and digital media ministry, and as the fruit of that ministry, many people devoted to the Great Commission have been raised up. Based on this missionary vision, Olivet first began as a small church school for missionary training. Later, in order to provide more systematic theological education and cultivate missionary leaders, Olivet Theological College and Seminary was established in Los Angeles and Seoul in 2000.
As the school grew, Dr. Jang officially founded Olivet University in San Francisco in 2004. In the diverse and dynamic environment of San Francisco, Olivet expanded its educational fields beyond theology to include music, journalism, art and design, and technology. The university also strengthened its educational capacity by recruiting faculty members, including Dr. William Wagner, and in 2005 moved to the former UC Berkeley Downtown Extension campus, further solidifying its foundation as a university.
In 2006, Dr. Jang transferred the presidency to Dr. David James Randolph in order to focus more fully on missionary work, while continuing to lead global missions as International President. Olivet University later received institutional accreditation in 2009, added a language education college and a business college, and continued to grow as a Christian educational institution for world missions by expanding its degree programs and international partnerships.
