The passage
      v1. Jesus now moves toward the "Passover" event, namely, the giving of his life for the salvation of his people. He comes to Bethany, just outside of Jerusalem, and stays (according to Mark) at Simon the Leper's home.
      v2. Martha helps with the meal - she "waited on him", Moffatt. Lazarus is mentioned among the guests, but it is unclear whether it is his home. If it were his home his presence would be assumed.
      v3. Mary of Bethany takes half a kilo of spikenard scented oil and anoints Jesus' feet. By doing this Mary takes a position of great humility, the position of a servant. A Jewish woman would never display her hair in public (only to her husband), but Mary openly uses it to wipe off the excess oil. Not using a towel indicates personal intimacy in the act.
      v4. Matthew notes it was a disciple who was indignant; John identifies Judas. John notes it is Judas who would betray Jesus.
      v5. The value of the oil is put at 300 denarii by Judas. A labourer was paid a denarii a day.
      v6. John notes that Judas' indignation is not out of concern for the poor, but rather that he is a sneak-thief. This is the only occasion in the gospels where we are given an insight into the faulty character of Judas. Obviously, John is of the opinion that Judas betrayed Jesus for financial gain.
      v7. Although scented oil is primarily used for festive occasions, Jesus recognizes the closeness of his death and interprets Mary's anointing as a symbolic embalming. He includes Mary in this interpretation. She might have intended initially using the perfume for the purpose of embalming Jesus' at a later date, although much more would be required, but her plan for the present is to symbolically embalm her living Lord while he is with her. Clearly Mary has sensed that Jesus is about to leave them through suffering and death.
      v8. Jesus welcomes the action of Mary. The time when the disciples can express their love for Jesus is fast running out. The immediacy of his death supersedes the needs of the poor.

Extravagant Love
      Jesus noted that, in the coming years, wherever the gospel is proclaimed, the loving anointing by Mary would be remembered as a "memorial" to her, Mark14:9. Her anointing of Jesus, in the final week of Jesus' life, is an act of extravagant love.
      Affection has different elements to it. There is the deep affection or love for someone which focuses on the spiritual self, the God-ward nature. With spiritual love the other's spiritual life fills us with great warmth; their love of Jesus fills us with love for them, for when we touch them, we touch Jesus. Then there is the affection of friendship - mutual compatibility. With friendship love the person thinks as we think, feels passionately about the things we feel about; we can speak for hours on end with them, debating, discussing, reviewing....., journing together along the pathway of life. Then there is the affection which focuses on the sensual, a physical bonding, sexual even, the electricity of male/female relationships, of hormones doing their thing.
      In the anointing of Jesus we find the full range of affections. For Mary, she was anointing her Lord for his death. She was a true disciple who knew the mind of her master. She knew better than the apostles that her Lord was about to die. She could have anointed his head, but this was the Son of God whose feet she was not worthy to touch. Her act of humility demonstrates her faith in Jesus. This was an affection of the spirit.
      Jesus was also her friend. He was the person she sat under, listening to his every word. He was someone she could call on when her brother was dying. He was someone she was willing to pay up for. Her friend was about to leave her, and love demanded an embalming before he went away. This was true friendship.
      Then there was Jesus the man. Only her husband should see her hair, yet without shame she exposed her glory before the gathered disciples and wiped the perfume away, and the whole house was filled with its fragrance. This was pure sensual love - a woman's devotion.
      Our affection toward Jesus is something that can involve the whole person: body, mind and spirit. He is my Lord and God; he is my best friend; he is my lover (in the pure sense of the word). Our affection toward those within the Christian fellowship will also cover the same bases, in varying degrees: There is the unity, the spiritual bond, we share in Christ; there is the "being of the same mind", compatibility; there will be the sensual touch. The love of the brotherhood will include one or all of these elements. Our aim must be to retain integrity in relationships so that together we may be built up into Christ.

v2
      oun " -untranslated-" - This conjunction is usually inferential, "therefore", but here and in v3 it is most likely consecutive: "as a consequence" of Jesus being in Bethany where he had raised Lazarus to life, a dinner is given in his honour
      epoihsan oun autw/ deipon ekei "Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor" - so they made/gave to him a supper there. The "they" is not identified, although some suggest Lazarus was the host.
      anakeimenwn (anakeimai) part. "reclining at the table" - For us it is "sitting at the table", but they did actually recline on cushions around a low table.

v3
      Mariam "Mary" - Mary of Bethany is mentioned in the gospels of Luke and John. In Luke she is described as the one who sat and listened to Jesus while Martha busied herself in the kitchen, Lk.10:38-42. All four gospels have an anointing, but the details are different, with only Mark's account fairly close to John's account. In Luke, the anointing is by a woman who is a "sinner", Lk.7:37-50. It has been suggested that this woman was Mary Magdalene who was exorcised by Jesus, Lk.8:2. If this is the case then Mary of Magdala is the same person as Mary of Bethany. This is possible, but unlikely. It also seems unlikely that the woman who anointed Jesus in Luke's gospel is the same person who anointed Jesus in John's gospel. In fact, as Origin suggested, Jesus was probably anointed on a number of occasions and the stories have converged somewhat within the oral tradition of the early church. Look, for instance, at the pronounced differences between Luke's account of the anointing and John's account.
      litran (a) "pint" - A Roman pound = 325 grams. In rough terms we would say one pint or half a liter.
      murou (on) "perfume" - Correctly Myrrh, extracted from the Balsam plant, but also a common term for any aromatic oil.
      nardou (oV) "nard" - The aromatic oil spikenard.
      pistikhV (oV) "pure" - The word is unknown, so the guesses are "real", "pure", genuine",.. although spikenard by itself is too strong to be applied to the skin. It would be diluted with a rubbing oil, say pistachio nut oil. The concentration of the spikenard would reflect its purpose. For anointing the dead it would be highly concentrated, and therefore, very expensive. The word probably serves to identify this fact, eg, "mixed nard anointing/masage oil"

v5
      Lit. "Why this aromatic oil not sold three hundred Denarii and given to poor?" Given that one Denarii is a day's wage, three hundred indicates that it was a highly concentrated spikenard oil.

v6
      ebastazen (bastazw) imperf. "he used to help himself" - he lifted. It is natural that the disciples were angered by the fact that one of their own betrayed Jesus. Yet, it seems that they were oblivious to Judas' thieving ways prior to the crucifixion, so how did John work it out afterward, given that Judas committed suicide within hours of the betrayal? I sometimes wonder if the "thief" claim reflects a desperate search for the motive behind such a terrible deed. Of course, such musings have implications for Biblical authority.

v7
      afeV authn "leave her alone" - The sense here may be either, "Don't pick on her" or "allow her" to perform this duty.
      iJna ..... thrhsh/ "that she should save" - that ..... she may keep. The construction here, hina plus the subjunctive, causes some difficulty. It normally forms a final clause (purpose), "in order that she may keep", but sometime consecutive (consequence), although unlikely here. As a purpose clause it doesn't make sense. While anointing Jesus, he tells the disciples to leave here alone, so that she can keep the oil for his embalming. It may form an imperative, "keep this essential oil till the day of my burial", ie. use it for my embalming. So, is Jesus telling her not to anoint him? Brown follows the sense of a weak reading "she has kept", a reading obviously intended to overcome the problem. Carson agrees, arguing that the clause is an ellipsis, ie. some words, eg. "she has done this", are assumed and therefore, not included. The point is that as a follower of Jesus, she has kept this essential oil for his death and embalming, and out of devotion, sensing that his death is imminent, symbolically performs the embalming at this opportune time.