Becoming Extravagant Lovers; Mark 14:1-11; 1st Lent; 1st of 7: “All for You” series; The Promise; 03-05-06; Darryl Bell
Today is the first Sunday in Lent, the period of 40 days of preparation before Easter. For centuries Christians have used this season to evaluate their lives and come closer to God. I hope that will be true for us this year as well. We’re beginning a new series of messages today that I’m calling, “All for You.” It looks at what Jesus went through, all for you, the last few days of his earthly life. We’ll work our way, section by section, through the last three chapters of Mark’s gospel as we experience with Jesus the agony and the tension and the struggle that led eventually to his victory on Easter Sunday.
The story begins two days before the Passover celebration. This was the annual festival that celebrated God delivering Israel from slavery in Egypt. The Jews had sacrificed lambs and put their blood over the doors of their homes. Then, when the angel of death passed through Egypt killing every oldest son, he “passed over” those houses and Israel was saved. It was the story of Israel’s redemption in the past, and it anticipated the redemption that the Messiah would bring. Every man who lived within 15 miles of Jerusalem was required to attend, but it was far bigger than that. It was the dream of every Jew to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem, and they came from all over the known world. The population of Jerusalem then is estimated to have been 60,000 to 120,000. Some scholars estimate there were an additional 100,000 pilgrims there for the Passover. Barclay estimates as many as 3,000,000 pilgrims. I doubt it was that high, but whatever the number, it was a festive time. We could compare it to a state fair, or even a huge, seven-day version of a OSU-Michigan game tailgate party. Not necessarily the drinking, but the festive spirit.
Jesus had been gaining popularity, and the religious leaders were becoming concerned. They were looking for an opportunity to capture and kill Jesus. “But not during the Passover,” they agreed, “or there will be a riot.” Walter Wink has said, “Killing Jesus was like trying to destroy a dandelion seed head by blowing on it” (quoted in David Garland, NIV Application Commentary: Mark, p 515).
In this tense setting, Jesus is having dinner in the home of Simon the Leper. Apparently Simon had had leprosy and been healed, but the nickname stuck. The custom was to recline at the table on low couches like chaise lounges, resting on their left arm and using their right hand to eat. As they are eating, an anonymous woman enters with an alabaster jar of extremely expensive perfume. It was a mark of hospitality to put a drop or two of perfume on the head of a guest who comes to your house. But this woman didn’t stop at a drop or two. She broke the jar, presumably the neck of the bottle, and poured the whole thing over Jesus. The NLT says she “broke the seal,” but the Greek indicates it was the bottle itself that she broke. We don’t know what was in her mind. She may have broken it because she intended to use it all. She was taking none of it back home. There was a custom that if a very distinguished guest used a glass, they would break it so that no lesser person would ever use it again. That may have been in her thought as well.
Whatever her reason; imagine the reactions around the room. The powerful aroma fills their nostrils. Some are in shock. Some see her as an intruder. Some are very practical and see this as a huge waste. I tend to be pretty practical myself, so I can understand why they thought like that. In the Greek it says they estimated the value of the perfume at 300 denarii. One denarius was the daily wage of a laborer. So figuring $8.00 an hour, eight hours a day, this jar of perfume was worth more than $19,000. That’s a lot of denarii for one bottle of perfume! It’s even more than I’ve spent on perfume for Jackie! There was a tradition of giving alms to the poor at religious festivals. Imagine how many poor people that could have helped. So they started getting on her case for this waste.
But she wasn’t counting and measuring her gift. She was giving it all, broken and spilled out. No holding back. Her devotion wasn’t “practical,” it was extravagant.
And Jesus received it with gratitude. It was a great gift. Leave her alone, he said. Why berate her for doing such a good thing to me? (v. 6). In fact, he saw meaning in it that she probably didn’t even think of. It was the custom when preparing dead bodies for burial, first to wash them. Then they were anointed, and the flask that held the perfume was broken, and pieces of it were laid with the dead body in the tomb. That’s what this woman was doing without knowing it. Jesus said, She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time (v. 8). He had the cross in view. He knew what was coming, and her devotion meant a lot to him.
Regarding their comment about the poor, he said, You will always have the poor among you, (that’s a quote from Deuteronomy 15) and you can help them whenever you want to. But I will not be here with you much longer (v. 7). Some interpreters take this as a statement meaning there is nothing you can do to eliminate poverty. It will always be here. But Jesus had a deep concern for the poor. No Christian blessed with this world’s goods may tell others to accept their poverty as inevitable (see James 2:15-16; 1 John 3:17). The point of this text is total devotion to Jesus. But if we respond to Jesus properly, we will also take care of the poor.
Actually, Jesus may have intended an ironic rebuke with these words. The context of the Deuteronomy quote is about canceling debts every seven years. It says, There should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you…he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands (Deut 15:4-5). But there were still poor people. That means God’s people had not obeyed and followed him. The very presence of the poor was an indictment of them all. They had withheld from the poor and kept them in debt. At best, they had only given to the poor in carefully measured and practical ways.
But the love Jesus seeks is not measured. It is not limited. This woman gave it all. She was extravagant. She broke and poured out the whole thing. She gave impulsive love. How often are we careful and we miss the chance to show our love for Jesus? Sometimes the chance to show love in a certain way only comes once. We may feel the nudge in our hearts to do some impulsive and extravagant act of love, but reasonableness overrides it and we don’t do it. We are careful and prudent.
William Barclay says, “It occurs in the simplest things—the impulse to send a letter of thanks, the impulse to tell someone of our love or gratitude, the impulse to give some special gift or speak some special word. The tragedy is that the impulse is so often strangled at birth. This world would be so much lovelier if there were more people like this woman, who acted on her impulse of love because she knew in her heart of hearts that if she did not do it then she would never do it at all. How that last extravagant, impulsive kindness must have uplifted Jesus’s heart” (Mark, p. 327).
Faithful and loving acts toward Jesus will not be forgotten. He says of the woman, Wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be talked about in her memory (v. 9). This woman is the antithesis, the opposite, of the disciple who, at the end of the text, bargained to betray his Master for whatever money he could get. And she was opposite of the tightfisted bystanders who mouthed pious clichés but did nothing. They may have been practical, but she is the one who blessed Jesus.
She is a lot like the poor widow whom Jesus saw putting two very small copper coins into the temple treasury as her offering. Jesus commended her: She has put in more than all the others (Luke 21:2). They gave out of their wealth, but she put in all she had. That’s another beautiful and inspiring story, but we need to remember there’s a price to pay for that kind of devotion. When she went home that evening, her cupboards were still bare. Life didn’t magically get easy because she had given to God. Love paid a price. But she and the woman in today’s story both found deeper significance in being able to give themselves fully, extravagantly to God. Both women are examples of the commitment that holds nothing back. Jesus blesses that. Jesus seeks followers who will break and spill out their lives for him.
I’ve had the privilege of knowing a lot of saints. For the most part they’ve not been famous. They are simple, anonymous folks like the woman in our story. I think of our kids’ Grandma Lillian. She wasn’t really their grandma, but they lived 15 hours away from real grandparents, so she adopted them like a grandma. She served them, and she served the church because she loved Jesus and wanted to do whatever she could to express that love. I think of my dad’s Aunt Irma, my great-aunt. She never married, but in a lot of ways she was married to Christ. She was the organist in my home church for 50 years, and she rarely missed a Sunday. She also taught Sunday school and served with the women. Her life was poured out for the Lord. I think of missionaries I’ve known who left the comforts of life here to live in very challenging settings. They poured out their lives in extravagant love for Jesus. I think of people who leave well-paying jobs to serve Christian ministries. I think of people who teach and pour themselves into the children, in spite of the poor pay and the challenging conditions. I think of people who are witnesses at work and aren’t afraid to speak the name of Jesus. The people who break and spill out their lives for Christ are rarely the famous ones. They’re the anonymous, every-day saints, and there are some in this congregation.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
We serve Jesus by serving people. A wealthy American traveler visited a hospital in Southeast Asia. He walked in just as a young missionary nurse was cleaning the sores of a sick, dirty, elderly man who had been found lying in a gutter. The rich man said to the nurse, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.” She answered quietly and firmly, “Neither would I.” Money couldn’t buy her extravagant devotion to Jesus. Her life was broken and spilled out for the love of Christ.
We often don’t realize the impact of our acts of love in Jesus’ name. In 1994 our church sold Christmas trees in the parking lot. After Christmas there were a lot of trees left. The grower had parked his big trailer on the lot one night intending to load out the trees in the next few days. Then, on New Year’s Day I found this note from him on the church door: “Oh, you beautiful people! I cried when I saw that you had done this. (Someone had loaded all the trees for him.) Thank you! My father passed away Wednesday morning and my mother may have only a few days. By doing this for me, you’ve given me a little more time to spend with my mother. God bless you. John.”
Jesus isn’t physically with us today, but he is with us in all the people around us, especially those in need. When we pour out our lives for people, we are doing it for Jesus. As you have done it for the least of these members of my family, you have done it for me (Matt 25). Ruth Harms Calkin has written: You know, Lord, how I serve You
With great emotional fervor
In the limelight.
You know how eagerly I speak for you
At a women’s club.
You know how I effervesce when I promote
A fellowship group.
You know my genuine enthusiasm
At a Bible study.
But how would I react, I wonder
If you pointed to a basin of water
And asked me to wash the calloused feet
Of a bent and wrinkled old woman
Day after day
Month after month
In a room where nobody saw
And nobody knew.
There’s another way people pour out extravagant love for Jesus. The religious conflict in Sudan has been in the news a lot lately. The Voice of the Martyrs reports on the atrocities committed there. Four young Sudanese boys cried and screamed out for their mothers but they refused to repeat the words that would mean saving their lives by renouncing their Christianity. Their red blood began to flow across their black skin, but they would not give up their faith in Christ.
The older teenage boys looked on in horror. They had seen their Southern Sudanese families murdered by sword-wielding Islamic fighters. Now they watched as their four young friends and relatives – the youngest only five years old—were beaten to death. Already the soldiers had forced each older boy to lie over hot coals and ordered them to repeat the Muslim creed and join the Islamic faith.
There were fourteen boys and thirteen girls abducted in the raid that day. The girls have never been located and were likely sold as slaves or concubines in Northern Sudan. All of the boys were tortured, but none relented. The next night the older boys escaped, still bearing the scars of the previous nights. Not one renounced his faith. (from “Extreme Devotion”- The Voice of the Martyrs). That’s a different aspect of being broken and poured out for Jesus. We don’t have to deal with that here, but believers are facing situations like that every day in other parts of the world. It takes extravagant love to hold onto the faith and remain true to Jesus at the cost of horrible physical and emotional pain like that.
In whatever form it takes, Jesus looks for followers who will break and spill out their lives for him. The reason he can ask that of us is because he did it himself. His own body was broken and his blood was spilled out for us. He said, I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. And here is how to measure it—the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends
(John 15:12 NLT).
As we enter this Lenten season, and we think about our own devotion to the Lord, what kind of grade do you give yourself? Are you a disciple who is practical, and measured, and careful? Sometimes that is wise and necessary. But are you ever an extravagant lover who impulsively gives it all? Do you love Jesus carefully so you’ll never be seen as a fanatic or a religious nut? Do you do the minimum to be a disciple because you have so many other things you’re trying to squeeze into your life? Or are you ready now to break your life open and pour it all out in overflowing love for the Lord? Jesus seeks followers who will break and spill out their whole lives for him.
