Yesterday's passage of extravagant devotion (Mark 14:3-9), and today's of extravagant greed, are intentionally linked by the word 'then'.  The contrast is so stark: one who loved Jesus so much that she gave him the best, and the other loved himself so much that he got the best he could out of Jesus.  The worship of self must inevitably exclude the worship of Jesus, although we can cleverly disguise our self-centeredness in a nice-looking religious way. But here, the real crime of self-worship is seen in all its awfulness - at heart it is not just the desire to side-line Jesus, but to get rid of Him.  

At last, the chief priests had found an ally on the inside: a man close to Jesus who shared their evil motives of bitterly envious self-love.  Until that moment the religious leaders, although full of rage, did not have any plan to bring about Jesus’ death (Mark 14:1).  In particular, they did not want to arrest Him in sight of the crowds or there would be a riot (Matthew 26:3-5) - for which the Roman occupiers would deny power to the religious leaders in Israel and impose martial law (John 11:48).  So, Jesus helped them!  God commanded the whole process and the timetable (Acts 2:23) to have Jesus delivered up as a sacrifice at Passover – the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29).

It was not just greed and the long-practised habit of theft that spurred Judas (John 12:6); Mark links it to the purity of Mary's devotion to Jesus.  Seeing so much money ‘poured down the drain’ excited Judas' greed (Mark 14:4-5).  Coupled with His self-love, which excluded love for Jesus, he thought of an idea for getting more money.  His self-worship had no respect for the Lord, and he would have been intensely irritated by such an open display of devotion to the Master he despised.  Now all he needed to do was to seize the moment, and the money would be his (Matthew 26:15) ... as would the historical ignominy and the eternal remorse (Matthew 27:3-6).  But God knew it all beforehand.  About 500 years previously, Zechariah wrote, “So they paid me thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter’– the handsome price at which they valued me” (Zechariah 11:12-13).  After Judas’ death the religious leaders used the thirty pieces of silver to buy the Potter’s Field as a burial place for foreigners (Matthew 27:7).

But remember Mary: she too seized the moment.  She chose to pour out her love, and Jesus publicly commended her (Mark 14:6-9).  Mark intends that his readers put themselves into the picture and line up with one or other of the characters.  Where is my love?  For myself, or for Jesus?  The two scenarios are mutually exclusive.  Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:21).  Judas and Mary both demonstrated what was precious to them, thus revealing the natural location of their hearts (Luke 16:13), and their different eternal destiny (Luke 16:26).