“Worship from the Heart”
John 12:1-8
Today we are in a home in the Jerusalem suburb of Bethany, right before Jesus entered the BIG CITY for the last time.
We will celebrate THAT next Sunday—Palm Sunday.
But today, Jesus is in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
They are throwing a dinner party in His honor.
Just days before, Jesus had worked a miracle, raising Lazarus from the dead.
Now Jesus has the “temple posse” hot on His trail.
By raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus traded His life for the life of His friend—giving us a foretaste of what’s ahead—and has graduated from the category of “manageable nuisance” to “serious threat” in the eyes of the Sanhedrin.
It was the final straw for the religious elite.
And It has made Jesus’ popularity soar among the ordinary people.
And Jesus knows His days are numbered.
(pause)
Finally, supper is on the table and everyone sits down to eat.
Lazarus sits next to his friend.
No one seems to notice that Mary has slipped away until she comes back holding a clay jar in her hands.
Wordless, she kneels at Jesus’ feet and breaks the neck of the jar.
The smell of the extremely expensive perfume, which was probably left over from her brother Lazarus’ funeral, fills the air.
C.S. Lewis captured the essence of this passage of the gospel when he wrote: “The allegorical sense dawned on me the other day.
The [pint of pure nard] which one must break over Jesus’ holy feet is one’s heart…
…And the contents becomes perfume only when it is broken.
When they are safe inside, they are more like sewage.”
How much sewage do you and I carry around in our hearts because we don’t open them up to Jesus?
How much pride; how many resentments, how much anger and envy do we carry around like a milestone around our necks—internalized and under pressure, it stinks…
…contaminating our lives, infecting those around us.
But when we have the courage to crack open our hearts and pour them out at the feet of Jesus…
…the sludge of life become the fragrance of faith…
…and everything changes!!!
Have you experienced this?
After breaking the neck of the clay bottle of perfume over Jesus’ feet, as everyone in the room watches her, Mary does some remarkable things.
First, she loosens her hair in a room full of men, which a (supposedly honorable woman in that day never did).
Then she pours the perfume on Jesus’ feet, which was also not usually done…
…the head, maybe—people did that to kings—but not the feet.
Then she touches Jesus’ feet—a single woman rubbing a single man’s feet was also not done, even among friends.
Then she wipes the perfume off with her hair—the totally bizarre end to an all-around bizarre act.
My guess—for what it is worth—is that the Holy Spirit was guiding what Mary was doing…
…the love of God was working through her.
I don’t think Mary knew exactly why she was doing this, but Jesus knew.
Jesus replied to the astonished onlookers: “Leave her alone. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.”
You know, think about it.
There is nothing economical about Jesus’s death.
It cost Him everything.
And although, Jesus was a homeless nomad, there was nothing economical about His life.
God emptied Himself completely to become One of us—to call us brothers, sisters, friends, and children of God.
In Jesus, the extravagance of God’s love is made flesh.
In Jesus, the excessiveness of God’s mercy is made manifest.
This bottle, like Jesus’ life, will not be held back to be kept and admired.
This precious substance will not be saved.
It will be opened, offered, used, at great price.
It will be raised up and poured out for the life of the world, emptied to the last drop.
Before that happens, Jesus will gather His friends together one last time.
At another banquet—the Last Supper—which we will remember and celebrate this morning.
After the supper, Jesus will tie a towel around his waist, kneel down and wash His disciples’ feet.
Then He will give them and us a new commandment: “Love one another, as I have loved you.”
How much more intense can this be?
At home in Bethany, Judas, who doesn’t care a lick about the poor scoffs at Mary’s extravagance.
And the storm clouds are piling up around Jesus.
But this is a sign, that whatever Jesus’ followers need—love, courage, the indwelling of the Spirit—there will always be enough to go around.
Whatever they spend, there will be plenty left over—like the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.
There is no reason to fear running out—of nard or of life or love or the Spirit—for where God is concerned, there is always more than we can ask or imagine.
Mary’s worship of Jesus is from her heart!
To her, the opinions of others regarding her behavior toward Jesus meant nothing.
She had heard His Words: “I am the resurrection and the life,” spoken before Jesus restored the life of her beloved brother.
As part of seminary, we did something called CPE—Clinical Pastoral Education.
And when I was doing this in a hospital setting, our supervisor told us about a little girl who was in need of a life-saving operation that would also require a blood transfusion.
She had a rare blood type and only her brother could give her the blood she so desperately needed.
So the parents and the doctor explained the procedure to the girl’s brother.
And the little boy agreed to give his sister his blood.
After the blood was taken from him and transported to the operating room the boy turned to his mother and asked, “When do I die?”
It was only then that they realized that the little boy thought that by giving his blood to his sister he would actually be giving up his own life and he was actually willing to do just that.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer is quoted as saying, “When Christ calls [a person] he calls that person to come and die,” but in doing so, Christ is calling that person to come and live.
True life is found in giving our lives for others.
Greatness is found in humility.
Mary gave Jesus everything she had to give; in doing so she shows us a supreme example of worshipping God with all of our heart.
How can we be like that?
How can you and I—here in Red Bank Tennessee give all we have for Christ?
Mary’s life had been so deeply touched by Jesus, so much so that she wanted to do something precious for Jesus—not caring what others would think of her.
Can that be possible for us?
That is, can our lives be so deeply touched by the living Christ that we want to respond in some special way?
Can our lives be so deeply forgiven by Christ that we want to give Jesus our everything, our all?
They can.
Let us all fall at the feet of Jesus and worship Him, regardless of the cost.
Let us worship Him with our lives—giving everything we are over to Him, even if other people don’t understand.
We are called to give and not count the cost.
We are called to follow the path of the Cross so the we can be Christ to one another—and to those who have never met Jesus.
We are called to follow the path to the Cross so that we can also gather together in celebration beyond the Cross—at the empty tomb.
We are called to be extravagant in our loving so that in us and through us the fragrance of Christ can overcome the fear, the sin, the evil that is in this world, and so that—together as the Church which meets at 3800 Dayton Boulevard in Red Bank, Tennessee the poor of this community—the poor in spirit and the poor financially--will be able to bask in the extravagant love of Christ—that gives and gives and gives without a thought of the cost!
Shall we make the commitment to Jesus this morning that we will toss caution to the wind and be as extravagant as we can be with the love and life Jesus Christ has blessed us with?
Will we ask Jesus to cause us be His beautiful fragrance in this town for the sake of love for God and our neighbors?
Will we?
Will I?
Will you?
