This post is written by David McLemore as a companion for Unit 26, Session 1 of The Gospel Project for Adults, Volume 9: From Death to Resurrection (Fall 2023).

The greatest thing in all this world is being friends with Jesus. John 12:1-11 shows us this truth in story form. Jesus returned to Bethany with His disciples. Lazarus, Mary, and Martha threw a dinner party to celebrate. We last saw these three in John 11 when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. These friends of Jesus now welcomed Him into their home as He made His way toward Jerusalem and ultimately to the cross. The details of the dinner reveal the benefits of friendship with Jesus. They also reveal the devastation of missing out. Not all who were with them that evening were true friends.

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus found their places in the room. Lazarus reclined at the table with Jesus and His disciples. Martha prepared the dinner. Mary brought a jar of expensive perfume and anointed Jesus’s feet with it. It was a joyous occasion save one grump sitting among Jesus’s disciples. His name was Judas Iscariot. As everyone else savored the presence of Jesus, he grumbled about a lost financial opportunity.

We will focus on Judas in a moment, but let’s linger over the others first. Lazarus was a man given new life by Jesus. The chapter before, he died. His sisters sent for Jesus while he was still alive and sick, but Jesus delayed in coming, resulting in Lazarus’s death. Mary and Martha were understandably distraught. Why had Jesus not come? Was He not their friend? Upon arriving, Jesus walked to the grave and commanded Lazarus to come out. Jesus undid death, and Lazarus stepped out into the daylight once again. New life like that changes a man. Lazarus was Jesus’s friend before, but now he saw how Jesus was truly his friend. So did Mary and Martha.

By the time we reach John 12, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha had no doubts about Jesus’s friendship. They had seen the lengths to which He would go for them, and they could do nothing but pour out their praise. When we first saw Mary and Martha, Martha wasn’t comfortable in her own skin. Mary sat and listened while Martha worked. Jesus helped Martha see that Mary took the better path. Being with Jesus is the most important thing. It leads to everything else. It gives meaning to everything else. By now, though, Martha seemed to get it. She didn’t stop working, but she worked differently. She knew she was serving her Lord.

Mary did some new things too. She broke out the expensive perfume and anointed Jesus’s feet with it. Jesus points to the true meaning of this by saying she has prepared Him for burial. Friendship with Jesus gave Lazarus new life, Martha new purpose, and Mary new joy, willing to sacrifice perhaps her most treasured possession in worship to Jesus.

Then there was Judas. As everyone else was basking in the glorious moment, he was running the calculations in his head. Instead of enjoying friendship with Jesus, he was judging them all. How wasteful could they be? Didn’t they know what this bottle of perfume could do in the world? That was exactly Judas’s problem. He was worldly, while the others had learned to look beyond this world.

Judas never could see Jesus as anything more than a stepping-stone to a better life. With the offer of friendship on the table, he took another route. He sat there that day as others worshiped, and he could not enter. In a room full of friends, he was an enemy. In a room filled with the aroma of life, he smelled only death. If the others showed the benefits of friendship with Jesus, Judas showed the opposite. Friendship with Jesus is the greatest thing in all this world. He is still extending His offer to this world today. We can accept it, or we can reject it. What will we choose?

David McLemore serves as an elder at Refuge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He is a regular contributor to Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s For the Church website and a staff writer at Gospel-Centered Discipleship.