Adaptation of Mark 14:3-9, John 12:1-8 and Matthew 26:6-13
While Jesus was in Bethany, Simon, a Jesus-healed leper, Lazarus, one of Jesus’ best friends and one who had been raised from the dead by Jesus, Mary, Martha, and the disciples were all just having a party, eating dinner together. People who had experienced and lived the power and love of Jesus know how to live life abundantly.
As Martha served the table, Mary came and lay at Jesus’ feet. She took out a beautifully adorned jar of alabaster, filled with a perfume of pure nard, broke it and poured it out over Jesus’ head and feet and wiped His feet with her hair. The sweet aroma of the perfume filled the entire house. The perfume alone was worth an entire year’s wages.
Judas Iscariot and others present began to grumble about this “waste” of money, money which could go to feed the poor, to which Jesus responded:
“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
Said another way, Jesus tells us that a part of sharing the good news of the Kingdom of God must always include this story of Mary. Jesus sees what Mary did here as an essential part of the gospel of the Kingdom. Why? What is it Mary illustrates??
Mary perfectly illustrates everything God desires of us. He calls us to be lovers. God didn’t say, “this is the most important commandment: Serve the Lord your God with all your heart….” No. God tells us to love Him. Mary demonstrates a complete abandonment of all that she had in a lavish act of love for her Lord, Savior and friend. She poured out what likely was her future, her dowry, at the feet of Jesus. It was a physical depiction of Romans 12:1, a living sacrifice, her spiritual act of worship, a sweet aroma, literally, to the Lord. In fact, can’t you imagine Jesus savoring this sweet aroma all the way to the cross?
This is accentuated by Jesus’ rebuke to the disciples who begin to preach how this act could have been better used in good works. Jesus teaches, through Mary’s example, that a lavish love for God is a part of the good news of Jesus. We love lavishly out of our intimate knowledge of God and a greater revelation of how much He loves us. John 4:19. And eternal life is simply knowing Him. John 17:3. Oh that the Church would wake up to the reality of the fact that God loves us and expects nothing more and nothing less of us than that we be lovers of Him. The lover of our souls yearns for us to sit at His feet and love Him in return. He writes us love songs (the Song of Solomon), and He doesn’t need us to run around, being Martha, trying to do, do, do. He has plenty of servants, as many as He needs. But He desires friends, lovers, Marys. When we begin to live in this reality it will revolutionize how we live and it will draw others to Him.
Do you agape Him? There really was something about Mary. I pray that we catch what she caught.
The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17