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).
From our passage it appears that Jesus, Lazarus and the rest of the disciples were eating on sofa cushions or divans because Mary was able to get to Jesus’ feet quite easily. While it’s not impossible, it would have been rather unorthodox to sit at someone’s feet while they were eating a meal on a stool or sitting on a mat.
What comes next is incredible. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and literally pours out her heart, her life and her future. She honors Jesus by giving Him her very best. She honors Jesus by giving Him what can only be called Extravagant Love.
Let’s take a few moments and look at what happens here –
I. Mary lays her future at the feet of Jesus
It is hard to overestimate the act of love that Mary displays in this passage. She sacrificially gives her potential future to Jesus.
For as we shall see this pound of pure nard meant her potential future.
In everyday practical terms:
+ It was a pound of very expensive perfume.
+It was worth well over a year’s worth of wages.
Currently, in the US the average worker makes around 70,000 dollars a year including health benefits, retirement, bonuses and other considerations.
Now, that is a lot of money. Of course, that is an average which means there are as many people making less than that amount and just as many making more than that amount.
Now, think for a moment of having $70,000 worth of perfume in your hand and you decide to sit down at Jesus’ feet and start pouring it out on his feet.
Perfume has always been expensive; even today. For example if you want to buy yourself of your loved one a 1 pound bottle of extremely expensive perfume like:
+Clive Christian No. 1 – you will need to spend around 34,400.00 plus taxes
+Grand Extrait by Chanel – you will need to spend around 67,200 plus taxes
+Baccarat - Les Larmes Sacrées de Thèbes – you will spend need to spend around 108,800 plus taxes.
Now, of course you can buy some inexpensive perfumes at Dollar Tree, Dollar General and Wal-mart for a lot less but they will not smell as good.
Perhaps instead of buying platinum, silver or gold people should be buying perfume.
Now, before you put one of those perfumes I just mentioned on your next Christmas list or anniversary gift list we better go back to Mary and Jesus.
Let’s get back to where I said that Mary was giving Jesus her future.
If you notice there is no parent mentioned in any of the stories involving Lazarus, Martha or Mary. It has always been assumed that by this time their parents had passed away and that they were living together under the protection of their brother Lazarus.
That pound of nard most scholars believe symbolized Mary’s dowry. It would have enabled her to be married to a young man of good standing from a good family.
During this time, some traditions state that when a couple married it was the idea that for the first year neither one of them would have to work very much. That way they would be able to spend the majority of their time getting to know one another and adjusting to their lives together.
With most marriages being arranged, it was not that uncommon for the couples that were getting married to not know each other very well. Having some extra money was important and the one of the things a dowry would do is to assist in making a couple’s first year together easier.
Today, we do a similar thing with wedding gifts. The more wedding gifts a couple receive the less that they have to buy that first year together. If the couple is lucky enough to get a great collection of wedding gifts then all the better.
Now, think about all of this for a moment.
+This perfume was Mary’s dowry.
+It provided a wonderful way to make sure that she would be able to connect with the right families and have the right relationship.
+It also assisted in making the beginning of her marriage begin well.
I mean who wouldn’t want to start their marriage off with at least one year’s worth of wages in the bank?
At the same time without a dowry most young women would either remain unmarried or have to agree to marry someone of a lower stature or spend their life working very hard.
There was a lot riding on this little one pound bottle of perfume. With it and with some good advice, Mary could find herself married to the right family and her future secure. Without it, she could find herself unmarried or having to marry someone from a lesser home with far less future prospects.
It may not be what we would see as a problem, but in Jesus’ time it could be the difference between lifelong happiness and life full of hard work, pain and suffering.
But instead of this pound of nard being sold one day to help her and her potential spouse, Mary brings it and begins to pour it on Jesus’ feet.
This is what you have to call Crazy Extravagant Love.
II. Secondly, we see that Mary lays her heart/everything at Jesus’ feet
Mary begins to pour out not only her future but her whole life as she anoints Jesus’ feet. She bows in total submission and in humility as she anoints and caresses his feet.
I think we can assume that before she anoints Jesus feet they have already been washed. At that time as it is today, nobody likes to wash dirty feet. It's a messy, dirty and at times disgusting job.
Bible scholars tell us at the time of this event in some parts of the Roman Empire even slaves could not be commanded to wash a person's feet – it was that nauseating of a job. It was seen as a person's own responsibility to wash their own feet. Therefore one usually was very careful where they stepped and what they stepped in going down the road.
I think we can assume that Jesus’ feet were washed. Perhaps, upon entering in the house Mary had washed Jesus’ feet. If that was the case, then Mary would have displayed even more of her extravagant love for Jesus.
By kneeling down and anointing Jesus feet and wiping them with her hair, Mary spoke volumes to those in that room.
+She was publicly proclaiming her extravagant love for Jesus even though she knows in her heart Jesus will not marry her or any other woman.
+She knows that is not a part of God’s plan
+She knows that Jesus is both the Messiah and the Son of God
+I wonder if something told her that in just a few days Jesus would be going to his death on the cross
I do know is that in a matter of minutes she had poured out that pound of nard (that year’s worth of wages) not on Jesus’ head but on his feet.
I do know that she begins to massage that perfume into his feet.
I do know that the atmosphere of the room was transformed by not only her actions but by the wonderful aroma of the perfume.
I do know that she let down her hair and began to wipe his feet with her hair.
She had already given Jesus her greatest monetary gift.
Now, with her hair she was giving Jesus the greatest gift she could have to give him – Her glory.
A woman’s hair was seen as her glory. It was something that according to the Bible only a woman could have – long hair.
A man could have hair that was beautiful and at a certain length like Absolom but even Absolom would cut his hair each year.
For a woman their hair was given to them by God to display their glory.
It is still the same today.
The average man spends only about 200.00 or less on their hair a year.
The average woman will spend well over 500.00 a year for their hair.
One person put it like this:
“No matter how nicely dressed a woman is, if her hair is not tidy then she isn’t ready to show up. I would say hair contributes a lot to a woman’s beauty.” - Onuzurike Oluomachi
Whether we may want to admit it or not when a woman’s hair is all a mess it is usually seen as something far worse than when we see a man with his hair in a mess.
Here is Mary letting down her glory and then taking all that glory and using it to wipe this perfume into Jesus’ feet.
This is one of the most amazing and yet unsettling pictures of a person’s love for Jesus.
After all how many women do you know grab a bottle of sweet smelling perfume or lotion and have their loved one sit down and loving caress their feet wiping them with their hair?
Mary knows that the greatest gift she can give Jesus is herself.
Mary pours out her heart, her future, herself and her glory. She holds nothing back. She is a living example of the depth of love that a person can have for the LORD.
She is a picture of what Jesus prayed for in John 17 when he prays for the disciples to be one with Him and the Father.
Mary is a picture of the oneness that a human can share with God. A oneness that spans back to a time before sin, a time in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. A oneness of heart, mind and soul.
Sadly, there is another picture in this passage. This picture is the opposite of Mary. It is a picture of false love, a selfishness, pride and arrogance. It is a picture of false humility and greed. It is the picture that seeps through the man named Judas Iscariot.
While the room was being filled more and more with the smell of Mary’s perfume and the wonder of her extravagant love over to the side there was Judas trying his best to bring Mary down. He attempted to pawn off his lack of love for Jesus by focusing on the poor. Instead of wasting this perfume on Jesus’ feet, it should have been sold to help the poor.
For Judas the perfume was merely a money maker; a money maker that could go for other things. Things like for coins to line his pockets.
Judas never understood or experienced the depth of love that Mary possessed for the Lord.
The others in the room could visually see, smell and sense the vast difference between Mary and Judas.
They had lived with Judas. They knew of the times that he slipped some of their ministry money into his own pockets. They knew that over the years, Judas’ love had grown cold. They knew that Judas wanted riches, power and position for himself more than he wanted to follow and obey Jesus.
In verse eight, the Apostle John calls him a thief. John tells us that Judas' love for himself and money outstripped any love that he had for Jesus.
While John allows us to see this beautiful and supernatural love that existed between Mary and Jesus, he also give us this hellish look at how Judas chose himself and his own way. Judas was more concerned about keeping riches than giving them over to Jesus. For Judas, it was more about hiding behind a false mask of spirituality than it was being a living sacrifice at the feet of Jesus.
Judas is an example of what happens when we practice selfish love, when we place ourselves or even money before our LORD.
+I wonder how long the smell of nard lasted on both Jesus and on Mary. I wonder how long the beautiful smell lingered in their home.
+I wonder when Jesus was kneeling in the garden of Gethsamene, if the smell of the perfume wasn't still on the bottom of His robes and he could still smell it as he prayed.
+I wonder if it could still be floating around, reminding Him that He was loved by some of His disciples.
+I wonder how long Mary waited before she attempted to wash the smell out of her hair and how long it lingered as the days went by.
I am sure that others, like Judas, once hearing what she had done had questioned her actions that day. I am sure that many thought what she did was foolish. It is always that way when someone shares extravagant love for Jesus or for the Kingdom of Heaven.
But, I am also sure that each time Mary looked at that perfume jar, each time she smelled of its residue, she knew in her heart she had made the right choice.
Like the Wise Men before her, like Peter, James, and John, like Anna and Simeon, like the 120 later, Paul and Dorcas, and billions later, Mary knew that she had made the right choice.
She wanted to be as close to Jesus as possible. So, she gave Him her future, she gave herself to Jesus and she gave Him her glory.
What we see in Mary's story here in John 12, the Apostle goes on throughout the rest of his book to share with us. We see John, more than any other writer, giving us examples of how we too can find this intimacy with Jesus.
All it takes is for us to:
1. Be willing to be a servant like Jesus – to willingly give up our positions, our power, our minds, our bodies, and spirits and learn to wash the feet of others.
2. Be willing to be connected to the LORD just as the branches are connected to the vine. A connection that brings life, a connection that involves allowing the Father to prune and cleanse us enabling us to grow in love and faith.
3. Be willing to be open to the Holy Spirit. Be willing to be convicted, to be guided, and to be brought into the very essence of the HOLY SPIRIT.
This morning, I believe this passage challenges us and invites all of us to focus on the extravagant love that Mary shows Jesus.
+A life that knew how to give to Jesus everything - her future and herself.
We close this morning by going back to our original 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?
Can we place in His hands our future? Can we give ourselves to Jesus? Can we give Jesus our glory and honor?
Let’s close by singing that wonderful old song – O How I Love Jesus
Holy Communion/Prayer/Blessing
