John says (John 12:1) Jesus arrived in Bethany 6 days before Passover, which means He arrived on Saturday. He and His disciples stayed in Bethany each evening during the first part of the last week of His life. They’d journey 2 miles into Jerusalem, He’d teach the people, stop for the evening at the Mount of Olives, and return (Luke 21:37-38).
On Sunday, Jesus stirred up the religious leaders with His triumphal entrance into Jerusalem. On Monday, He angered them by running the money-changers out of the temple and condemning them for turning God’s house from a house of prayer to being a den of thieves.
On Tuesday religious leaders challenged Jesus with questions (Mark 11:27-12:44), about His authority, paying taxes to Caesar, marriage in the resurrection, and the greatest commandment. Jesus also told a the parable of tenants, who refused to give the owner they managed the vineyard for, his due. He sent servant after servant, only to have the workers kill each one. Finally, the owner sent his son, and they killed him, too. Jesus said the owner would destroy these workers, which was a foretelling of the eventual judgment coming to Israel, when the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. Jesus later explained this to His disciples on the Mount of Olives that evening, which had also been foreshadowed by our Lord’s cursing of the fig tree on Monday evening, which the disciples noticed on Tuesday morning.
The angry religious leaders, Mark says, “looked for a way to arrest Him because they knew He had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left Him and went away.” (Mark 12:12). So they plotted to arrest and kill Jesus (Mark 14:1-2).
Having left the temple for good, Jesus spent Wednesday in Bethany with friends. He was honored at a dinner that evening, at the home of Simon the Leper. Simon apparently had been a leper Jesus had healed. John says Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead were there, and Matthew says the 12 were there, too.
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In an article, “Five of the Most Frequent Issues of Conflict Among Church Members,” Thom Rainer says that three of the five have to do with worship. Church members have conflict, he says, over:
1. The time of the worship service.
2. The length of the worship service.
3. The style of the worship service.
All these disagreements center about personal preferences, rather than what is pleasing to our Lord. Too often, we say we want to please the Lord with our worship, but we end up defending our preferences. Where can we learn about what Jesus approved worship looks like? From the worshiping woman mentioned here, we learn that . . .
1. Jesus approved worship is worship with the right motive.
John says this was Mary, who worshipped Jesus, the sister of Lazarus. This fact has led some to suggest that this dinner hosted by Simon was a “thank you” dinner put together by Mary and Martha to thank Jesus for raising their brother from the dead. John says Martha served, while Mary presented this special gift to Jesus. If so, then it portrays for us what motive should be behind our worship of Jesus - thankfulness.
Those who have been born again through faith in Jesus, should never forget how like Lazarus, we were spiritually dead in our sin. But Just as Jesus called Lazarus to life from the dead, He has done the same for us.
“I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.” - John 5:24 (NLT)
“I am thankful that God would save me and give me new life. I know me well enough to know that I do not deserve to be saved and yet He saved me. I know that my salvation was born in His heart, not mine! I realize that the salvation I have is not performance based. It is a free gift of a good God. I know that I am saved because He is good not because I am good. I know that the Lord Jesus has taken care of all my sins already, the past ones, the present ones, and those yet to come. He paid all of my debt. I know that His love is stronger than my weakest moments and when I fail He just loves me more. I know that even when I have been unfaithful He has been faithful still. I know that He is the author and the finisher of my faith. I know that salvation starts with Jesus, goes forward with Jesus, and ends with Jesus. It is all Jesus. God’s grace is my song. He is my Lord and Savior and it is totally all undeserved by me. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for saving me. Thank you for loving me!” - Austin Gardner, Vision Baptist Church, Alpharetta, GA
2. Jesus approved worship is worship with the right focus.
As we consider Mary’s example we notice that . . .
A. Her focus was not on others.
She apparently hadn’t asked the 12 what they thought about how she planned to honor her Lord. If she had, no doubt, Judas would’ve voiced his objection then and not wait until after she did what she did.
B. Her focus was not on herself.
Mark says she anointed His head, and John says also anointed His feet, wiping them with her hair (John 12:3). Jewish women saw their hair as their glory, so Mary letting it down and drying Jesus’ feet with it meant that all her humanity, all her “glory” was devoted to Him in worship.
“What an astonishing moment! Mary, who loved to sit at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:39), unexpectedly approached her reclining Lord, bearing a priceless alabaster vial of imported Indian perfume (very likely a family heirloom), snapped the narrow neck of the flask, poured a generous portion on Jesus’ head, anointing Him, and then poured a generous portion on His feet - humbly, worshipfully, wiping His feet with her hair. It was an intensely fervent expression of devotion, as fervent as found anywhere in sacred Scripture!” - R. Kent Hughes
C. Her focus was on Jesus - v. 6
“The Heart of Worship” was by Matt Redman after an apathetic time in his church. The congregation was struggling to find meaning in its music. “There was a dynamic missing, so the pastor did a brave thing,” he says. “He decided to get rid of the sound system and band for a season, and we gathered together with just our voices. His point was that we’d lost our way in worship, and the way to get back to the heart would be to strip everything away.”
The pastor told the church to be participants, not just consumers, by asking, “When you come on Sunday, what are you bringing as an offering to God?” Matt says the question first led to embarrassing silence, but then people broke into singing and heartfelt prayers and met God in a fresh way. “Before long, we reintroduced the
musicians and sound system, as we’d gained a new perspective that worship is all about Jesus, and He commands a response in the depths of our souls no matter what the circumstance and setting. ‘The Heart of Worship’ simply describes what occurred.”
3. Jesus approved worship is worship with the right desire.
Mary worshipped with abandon out of a desire to be fully surrendered.
A. What this means. Jesus commended Mary because He said she did what she could (v. 8). She used what she had in the opportunity given her to honor Jesus. Living my life by seeking to use what I have in the opportunities given to me to honor Jesus is to live a surrendered life that Jesus will one day commend by saying, “he did what he could.”
B. What this does. Her worship reflected a desire to live a surrendered life, which made it possible for Jesus to use her in bigger ways than she could ever imagine (v. 8b). If we use what we have in the opportunities given us to honor Jesus, He’ll use us in the same way. Our lives will point others to Christ and teach others about Christ in ways that only God can do through the life of one who is surrendered to Him.
C. Where this leads - v. 9 Jesus promised Mary’s surrender would lead to her influence going beyond her lifetime and on into eternity.
Is your life surrendered to Christ in this way? Then it will be reflected in your approach toward worship. Mary worshipped with abandon because her life was fully surrendered. What does the way you worship say about your desire to be fully surrendered to Jesus?
“People are uninterested and unresponsive in worship because they have decided that some problem or ambition in their life is more all-consuming and more pressing than making Jesus their passion. They have given that person, passion or priority first place in their life.” - Timothy Milner, How Right Worship Changes us
Conclusion: Along with Mary’s commendable example, we have Judas’ condemnable example. He criticized Mary’s worship saying that the perfume would have been better used to raise money to give to the poor. John tells us that Judas said what he did, not because he cared for the poor, but because as “keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it” (John 12:6b).
In verses 10-11, we read how Judas eventually chose to turn his back on Jesus and betray Him. So will we, if we lose our gratitude, take our eyes off Jesus and think only of ourselves. That’s why we need to worship in a Jesus approved way - thankfully focused on the one to whom we want to fully surrender our lives.
Mary entered Jesus’ presence thinking of what she could give; Judas entered Jesus’ presence thinking of what he could get.
In my approach to worship, with whom do I most closely identify? Mary or Judas?
