Extravagant Love

Scripture: John 12:1-8

Summary: Mary shows us what it means to love with extravagance love. Mary give Jesus her 1. Potential Future 2. Her whole being

Title: Mary’s Extravagance Love

Grace and peace from the God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

Happy Mother’s Day!

A large part of Mother’s Day is about celebrating the woman/women who raised us and helped shaped us to be the people we are this morning.

From all the packed lunches, the little notes, the bandages and the kisses after you hurt yourself, to being the first one to cry at all your graduations and life events – your mom was there for it all. It’s important for us to thank the LORD and her this morning for all her love and the work she put in through the years.

If you are like me you had more than one mom in your life. That is to say, you had a number of people who gave you a great deal of love, support and acceptance. I had a great mom. Her name was Wanda and she was simply a wonderful mom.

I also had other women in my life that loved me, supported and helped me along the way. Some of them had children of their own and others didn’t, but all of them I consider very special in my life. There was my aunt Hilda, my Sunday School teacher Geraldine and three other special women named Lula and Lilly.

All of those women had that special something that enabled them to give of themselves. They were there when I need some advice, some correction, some support and some love. They had what I want to call this morning the ability to give extravagant love.

That is what our passage of scripture shares with us this morning. It shares with us this story about this amazing woman who knew how to love. She knew how to give herself to others.

Her name is Mary. As you look and study the life of Mary; the sister of Lazarus and Martha, it causes you to ask a couple of rather simple but life altering questions:

How deep of a relationship can we experience with the Lord?

How deep of a relationship do we want to experience with the Lord?

For as you look at this woman’s life and the lives of her brother, her sister and some others in the Bible you begin to see person after person who took up the challenge to be “One with Christ” and did their best to meet that challenge.

In John chapter 12, we find Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus. She is sitting there focused only on Jesus as He talks and as He teaches. She is sitting there soaking in His very essence.

Officially, Mary is not listed as one of Jesus’ disciples. She is not listed in being a part of the inner three – John, James and Simon Peter.

But the more you read about this woman the more you understand that Mary lived a life of devotion and extravagant love towards Jesus. She lived a life just as dedicated as those three men if not more dedicated and far more richer.

Let’s back up and put things into perspective:

+Jesus is visiting the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary

+The Disciples are with him so the house is full

+It was not Jesus’ first visit but as we read the book of John, it will be His last visit to their home before His trial, crucifixion and resurrection.

+Lazarus has already experienced the miracle of being raised from the dead

+And it is just a mere six days before the Passover

The Bible doesn’t share this, but I wonder if Mary sensed that this would be the last time Jesus would be at her home.

I don’t know, but I do know that when you love someone you are able to sense things that others around them are not able to sense.

It just seems that Mary had this certain feeling that she needed to do something special for Jesus. Maybe it was the way He looked at her when He came into the house. Maybe it was something He had said earlier that suddenly clicked in her heart and mind.

At first, John writes as if it were going to simply be another meal. Nothing more. Nothing less.

But then sometime during the meal, Mary went and sat down at Jesus’ feet. Seating arrangements at that time were a little different than they are for us today. Most of the time people sat on mats around a circular table covered with leather while that ate. A few people would sit in chairs or on stools around a taller table like we do today. And then at times people would eat their meals reclining on sofa cushions and divans (duh•vans).