I count myself very fortunate and blessed, for living with three females in my house. But before your mind start to wander, I am referring to my wife, and my two daughters, aged 19 and 10 years. Without them, I and my teenage son wouldn’t have known much about women’s hair; the ones they were born with and the other hair extensions that ladiesfixfrom time to time. I am referring tothe Weave On’s, the ‘Brazilians’, or ‘Malaysian’, ‘Romanian’, ‘Peruvian’, ‘Mongolian’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Indian’and the ‘Afros’- whether Kinky, Curly, Deep Curly, Virgin, Loose or Body Wave, Human or Non-Human Hair. The variety is endless!
On one of the days that I had to endure the ceremony that usually precede one of my daughters fixing her hair, for some reasons, my mind went to the story of the woman with the Alabaster box in the Bible: “A woman came to Him having an Alabaster box of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table” (Matthew 26:7, New King James Version). The accounts in Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, and John 12:1-8are the same, and involved Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, at the home of Simon the leper. Mary broke her Alabaster box and poured the perfume on Jesus.Soon after she poured the fragrant oil on Jesus, Christ’s disciples became angry because they thought the lady had wasted a very costly item, which could have been sold and the proceed spent on the poor.
Another account in Luke 7:36-50 is thatof a different woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee. That woman also broke her Alabaster box, sat at the foot of Jesus and wept. She washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and anointed His feet with the oil from her Alabaster box. The Bible describes the second lady with the Alabaster box as “a woman in the city, which was a sinner”. Some people have said she was a prostitute but the Bible did not label her as such. Whoever you think she was, she was definitely not the kind of woman you would like your son, your brother or your husband to associate with. She was that kind of woman you would describe as ‘notorious’. In fact the Pharisees said if Jesus was a prophet, He should have known who and what kind of person the woman was. But Jesus knew.
You may ask: “What is the significance of the Alabaster boxand the oil in these stories?”I did a little bit of research and I found out that Alabaster was a hard stone commonly found in ancient Palestine. When Alabaster is made into a flask or a jar, it was able to preserve precious items and fragrant oil when kept inside until the time of use. In the days of the Bible, when a woman reached the age of marriage, her family purchases an Alabaster box for her and fill it with fragrant oil. When a suitor asks for her hand in marriage, and she agrees, she does him honour by breaking the box and pours out the oil at his feet. These days, when a lady says “Yes” to a man, she’ll probably give him a big hug or a passionate kiss, but it was different then.
Now, I have to use my license as an author. You have to assume that the second lady with the Alabaster box wanted to get married at some point when she reached the age of maturity. But Jesus did not at any time propose to this “sinner” woman. So, “Why on earth did she break her Alabaster box, and why did she pour the (costly) oil at Jesus’ feet and wiped His feet with her hair?” Several authors have given different explanations for the woman’s act, depending on what story they want to tell. This is what I think: the womanwas very smart – she knew that due to her ugly past,she had little or no chance of meeting a willing suitor, at least, not one in his right mind. Remember she was ‘a woman in the city’, and ‘a sinner’. The Bible says so, not me. She was a woman who you might agree had been ‘here and there’;someone who some men would not mind associating with at night but not during the day. To me, this woman had been bruised,brokenand battered but she did not want her past to dictate her future, and so she decided to give all that she had to someone she knew (or that she has heard about) could have mercy on people and forgive sins.
The woman with the Alabaster box cried at the Master’s feet; she broke the vase and poured the oil–the only thing that she could possibly use to do honour to any future suitor. The woman cried so much that her tears were enough to wash Jesus’ feet. Then she did the ultimate–she washed and wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair, and then anointed Jesus’ feet with her oil.Wow! I know what women’s hair extensions cost these days, and curiously, I asked myself: “Why would a woman do this with her precious long natural hair or her costly Brazilian?”
If you will permit me, what the woman said was: “Jesus, I have been around a lot, and no man would have me. I kept being dumped here and there and passed on to another. I have shed enough tears in my lifetime and I’m really (really) fed up. But if this means anything to you I am ready to shed my tears again. This Alabaster box is worth nothing unless somebody accepts it from me. The hairs on my head are my glory and I am prepared to use it to wash your feet and anoint them with my oil if that is what it takes to restore my dignity. Jesus, if you don’t mind I am going to give you my all, and I don’t care what anybody says. J-e-s-u-s, you are the man!Please make me whole again.”
If you knew the significance of hair to women, you will agree with me that what the woman did was not a small thing at all. The Bible says if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her (1 Corinthians 11:15). To a woman, her hair is very important. I know this from experience, particularly knowing what my family put themselves (and me) through when they are about to fix their hair. If I was at the scene at the time when the woman broke her Alabaster box, I probably would have done worse than the disciples did when Mary (the sister of Martha and Lazarus) broke her Alabaster box. Instinctively, I would have stretched out my hands and screamed, “STOP WOMAN! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING? YOU’VE JUST MESSED UP YOUR BRAZILIAN!! THESE THINGS COST MONEY YOU KNOW.STOP!!!”
The woman with the Alabaster boxcouldn’t care less about her ‘Brazilian’. She gave her ‘everything’ to the Lord. Her worship cost her everything she had–her tears, her hair, her oil, her pride, her dignity, her glory. The woman was not going to stop at anything. She knew that the Pharisees were there and were watching but she couldn’t care less about the hypocrites.She gave all she had. She ‘did what a woman had to do’, and Jesus, the One that has the power to forgive sins turned to her and said: “Thy sins are forgiven!” What deliverance! The second woman with the Alabaster box exchanged her dimmed glory for the bright glory of Christ. She exchanged her nothingness for the fullness in ChristJesus and bagged a glorious future.
Pleaseask yourself a question or twotoday: “What is my ‘Brazilian’?” “Do I even have a Brazilian?”“What am I going to do with it?” You might say you have no ‘Brazilian’ or that you have nothing but I can tell you that you have something. In fact you have a lot! You have Talents, Opportunities, Abilities, Skills and Time. You just have to look inside you. What you already have is all you will need to get what you don’t have; and, that includes everything you will ever require to negotiate this life. This is the ultimate message in my book TOAST – A Conscious Thinking Approach.
