Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were just two days away, and the Pharisees — the chief priests and teachers of the law were trying to figure out how to arrest Jesus and kill him.  They decided to wait until after the celebrations for fear that others would riot against the established church.

So they sent spies to watch the heretic in action in order to gather some hard evidence to justify the death penalty.  Flash forward a few days to Bethany.  Jesus is reclining in the main living area of a house owned by a man named Simon who happens to be a leper.  His disciples are with him and so are the spies.

Suddenly a beautiful and distraught woman came into the room holding an alabaster jar in her arms.  As her eyes wildly searched each face, Jesus realized who she was.  <strong>The jar contained perfume made of pure nard and cost the woman a year’s wages.</strong>

Locking eyes onto him she smiled, bent down low and broke the jar, and began to move towards Jesus so that she might anoint him with the contents.  However, knowing her intentions, Jesus quickly moved to the side avoiding the woman with her expensive perfume as he motioned to his disciple Peter with a single glance.

The perfume spilled recklessly on the floor near him and began to expand rapidly into a pool of aromatic liquid onto the surface of the floor as the woman fell to one knee <strong>astonished that Jesus would seem so repulsed by her doting gesture.  </strong>Disgusted with the woman’s sin Jesus turned to his Disciples and the Pharisees in attendance and said “She should not have wasted that expensive perfume. It could have been sold and used to help the poor, the widows and orphans. What is <em>she</em> doing with it anyway?”

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In the alleyway Peter held the woman roughly by the arm and without looking at her said “what did you think you were doing?  You know that your <strong>chosen lifestyle is not the kind that the Master agrees with.  Why, He can not even look at or be in the same room with you.  </strong>Once you turn from your evil ways and choose to live either a life of celibacy as an unworthy woman, or just marry a man like the rest of the women here, you can come back and the Rabbi will accept your gifts.  Until then, stay away. The Master will have nothing more to do with you.”

Through heaving sobs the woman looked up at Peter and managed to say, "B-but Simon is a Leper..."

"...At least he's a man.  But you...   What are you anyway?" Peter said as he shoved the young woman towards the street harshly causing her to trip and fall sharply onto the ground, broken, and even more distraught then before.  Peter smiled smugly, then went back inside.

With this last round of rejection in mind, the young girl lay silently on her side in the dirt, her knees drawn to her chest, both hands clasped tightly over her ears, tears streaming down the side of her face while sounds of guffawing laughter echoed loudly into the alleyway from Simon’s house.  Jesus had finally obtained acceptance by his peers -- the Pharisees, for making clear his stance against at least one of the established religious rejects of the day. <strong>There would no longer be a need for his death. </strong>

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