Prayer
Life-giving Lord, you make all things new.
You have redeemed our lives from perishing.
Make us holy today with your presence.
Implant within our hearts your living Word.
May we be fruitful in acts of love and mercy.
Reveal to us the things that you want us to see.
Show us what it is you would have us do.
Strengthen us as we walk as pilgrims through this world.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
Jesus had been in Jerusalem where he had enraged a crowd by claiming that he was the giver of eternal life and then said, "The Father and I are one." The crowd picked up stones to kill him for blasphemy, but Jesus escaped and with his disciples and fled to a different jurisdiction on the other side of the Jordan river, near where he had begun his ministry by being baptized by John the Baptist.
There Jesus got word that his friend Lazarus was very ill. Jesus
may have seen in Lazarus's illness an opportunity to render a teaching moment
to those who had tried to kill him for claiming equality with God, so he stayed
across the Jordan for two more days. Then, over the objections of his
disciples, he went to Bethany.
We pick up at John 11, verse 17:
17When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.
20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”
23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27She said to him,
“Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming
into the world.”
Now, none of Martha's words ring true. Compare how she acts toward
Jesus with her sister Mary, who will approach Jesus shortly. Martha seems
merely to be reciting something she's heard others say and she may even sorta,
kinda believe it but it strikes me as a pro-forma confession, sort of like a
churchgoer who has never actually embraced the Apostles Creed and just says on
Sunday:
"IbelieveinGodtheFatherAlmightyMakerofHeavenandEarthandinJesusChristHisOnlySonOurLord..."
Then Martha went to get Mary, telling her, “The Teacher is here
and is calling for you.”
Then Mary got up, trailed by a number of visitors, and went to
Jesus, who was still standing where Martha has left him.
32When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus told them to take him to Lazarus’ tomb. When they got there,
39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the
dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been
dead four days.” 40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed,
you would see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone.
Jesus briefly prayed and then cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus,
come out!” 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of
cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and
let him go.”
When news that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead reached the
Jewish high council, its members were aghast. Jesus was extremely popular with
the people, drawing large crowds at every appearance. The council feared that
Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect, or military commander, would crush the swelling Jesus movement
with horrifying force. Pilate already had a well-deserved record of brutality;
he had once ordered thousands of Jews killed whom he thought improperly
subservient to Roman rule. (In fact, Pilate was ultimately fired and banished by the governor of Syria for being too violent, which says a lot about him.) Caiaphas, the high priest, insisted that another
bloody disaster must not befall the country. He told the others that it would
be better for Jesus to die than to have the whole nation destroyed.
"So," says John, "from that day on they planned to put [Jesus]
to death."
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Now we pick up the story at John 12, verses 1 – 8:
1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of
Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him.
Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.
3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed
Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the
fragrance of the perfume.
4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about
to betray him), said, 5 "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred
denarii and the money given to the poor?" 6 (He said this not because he
cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and
used to steal what was put into it.)
7 Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she
might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you,
but you do not always have me."
The perfume Mary used was expensive stuff. Today, the famous
Chanel No. 5 sells for more than $52 per ounce. If that’s too proletariat for
you, there is Clive Christian No. 1, of which a 1.7-ounce bottle sells for $750.
Mary's perfume was measured by weight, not volume, but consider that the pound
of perfume she used was worth three hundred denarii, about a year's wage for a
typical working man in those days. Now just imagine someone dousing a house
guest with well over a quart of Clive Christian No. 1.
Mary's gesture was breathtakingly extravagant. Why so much?
An ancient historian told of a day a beggar by the roadside asked
for alms from Alexander the Great as he passed by. The man was poor and
wretched. He had no claim upon the ruler, no right even to lift a solicitous
hand. Yet the Emperor threw him a bag of gold coins. Alexander's aide was
astonished at this extravagance and exclaimed, "Sir, copper coins would
adequately meet a beggar's need. Why give him gold?" Alexander responded,
"Copper coins would suit the beggar's need to receive, but gold coins suit
Alexander's need to give."
I think that Mary's extravagance filled Jesus' need to receive an
anointment less than her need to give it. Of course, she was immensely grateful
to Jesus for returning her brother to life, but her giving went well beyond
simply thankfulness. It could have been impelled only from love.
Mary was a single woman, but her love for Jesus wasn't the love of
romantic attraction. We know about that love, and the love we have for friends
and the love we have for family. The love Mary had for her Lord was like those
in some ways, but don't you think there was something different about it? Her
love was self-giving, in fact sacrificial, just as Jesus' love for her and you
and me was supremely self-giving and sacrificial.
Writer Dave Simmons described a trip to a mall with his two
children, Helen (eight years old) and Brandon, five. "As we drove
up," he wrote, "we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen‑wheeler parked with a
big sign on it that said, "Petting Zoo."
The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, Daddy. Can we
go? Please. Please. Can we go?"
"Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before
walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking
for a power saw. A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking
along behind me. I was surprised to see she preferred the hardware department
to the petting zoo. I bent down and asked her what was wrong.
She looked up at me said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost fifty
cents. So I gave Brandon my quarter."
As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo,
but not for the reason you might think. We stood by the fence and watched
Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands
and chin resting on the fence and watched her brother have the most wonderful
time petting the animals. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I
never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it. Love always pays a
price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits
accrue to someone else. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't
grab.
"On the whole," said C. S. Lewis, "God's love for us
is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him." For
it is not enough merely to love. We must love the right things, the love worthy.
Yet of all the things or people we can find a reason not to love, our
Lord often ranks pretty near the top.
That's what's going on with Judas in this story. He protests that
Mary is using all that perfume to anoint Jesus' feet. It could have been sold
and the money given to the poor. John makes sure we know of Judas' ulterior
motives: he was Jesus' treasurer and had sticky fingers. But before we stick
only Judas with a bad rap, consider that in Matthew's telling of this story, it
was the disciples generally, not just Judas, who protested Mary's extravagance,
and in Mark it was some of the other people there.
It's not that the poor don't matter. It is that Judas missed the
point. Alternative uses of the perfume were not the issue. The issue was Mary's
worship of and love for her Lord.
We mustn't think of our love of Christ in mercantile terms. Love
doesn't work that way, although Madison Avenue wants us to think it should.
Years ago, the diamond industry’s advertising used to tell us that an
engagement ring should cost the man three months of his salary. Why? Because
they knew men wouldn’t go into hock for six months’ or a year’s worth, that's
why. They reduced one of the most special moments a couple can have to an entry
on their ledger form.
Judas thought the issue was money when the issue really was Mary's love and worship of her Lord. While we recognize that Jesus' ethics – helping the poor being one example – are good and worthy, we are sustained in doing so because we love and worship Christ. Loving Christ and obeying Christ are intimately related. "Love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul and strength," Jesus said, "and love your neighbor as yourself." There are always alternative uses of our resources. Our duty is to discern the best use at the time. On that day in Mary's home, the best use of her perfume was to love her Lord.
Why did she use so much? She anointed Jesus’ feet with a pound of
nard, an ointment people used back then to refresh themselves, especially in
crowded conditions because it smelled so sweet, and people didn’t bathe so
often. But why use a pound for one man when a little dab’ll do ya?
Here is a true story: Some years ago a man in New York City was
kidnaped. His kidnappers demanded a ransom of $100,000. His wife talked them
down to $30,000.
The story had a happy ending: the man returned home unharmed, the money was recovered, and the kidnappers were caught and sent to prison. But don't you wonder what happened when the man got home and found that his wife got him back for a discount?
Reporter Calvin Trillin imagined what the
negotiations must have been like: "$100,000 for that old guy? You have got
to be crazy. Just look at him! ... You want $100,000 for that? ...$30,000 is my
top offer." Mark Trotter concluded his rendition of the story with this
thoughtful comment: "I suppose there are some here this morning who can
identify with the wife in that story, but for some reason I find myself
identifying with the husband. I'd like to think if I were in a similar
situation, there would be people who would spare no expense to get me back.
They wouldn't haggle over the price. They wouldn't say, 'Well, let me think
about it.' I like to think that they would say, 'We'll do anything for
you.'"
In my mind’s eye, I don’t think Mary started off intending to use
the whole pound. I think that once she started, she just couldn’t stop – her
love for Jesus and gratitude for his salvation just overwhelmed her and she
scooped the nard out right down to the bottom. Perhaps if she had had more, she
would have used it, too, for she recognized that Jesus was God’s supreme gift
to humankind and he was, as events at Lazarus’ tomb had proven, the source of
life itself. How can you cut short your gratitude for that? How can you bargain
down your love for One who has given you everything worth having?
The book of Ecclesiastes points out that there is a right time to
do everything, a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to laugh, a time to
mourn. That's what Jesus is getting at in his answer to Judas's criticism:
"You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
There is a time when nothing is more urgent than worshiping the Lord and loving
him, no matter what else is going on.
The book of Revelation prophesies Jesus's letters to some
churches. To the church in Ephesus Jesus said, "I know your works, your
toil and your patient endurance. ... I also know that you are enduring
patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown
weary. But I have this against you, that you have forgotten your first
love."
The church’s first love must always be Christ. If we ever become
so task-oriented or program-centered that we don't time enough to love the Lord
we will be pitiful people, indeed. Because implicit in Judas' words is a
dangerous compulsion to be so busy doing the Lord's work that we forget to sit
at the Lord's feet and simply take some time to be with him. Task
compulsiveness squeezes out love and before long only the tasks remain. But to
what end?
"You do not always have me," Jesus told Mary and his
disciples, but that's not really our problem today, for Christ has risen and is
always here with us. Our problem is not whether we have Jesus, but whether he
has us, because we twenty-first century Americans have squeezed time out
like a husk in the search for efficiency and in so doing we have squeezed out
time enough for love. We might do well to remember what Henry David Thoreau
said, that we cannot kill time without injuring eternity. Perhaps such a
thought led Martin Luther to exclaim one morning, "I have so much to do
today that I cannot not spend less than three hours in prayer." Luther
knew that no task list should supplant taking time to love the Lord. There must
always be time enough for love.
