Urgent Adoration

the way of Mary whole-heartedly worshipping Jesus. How is our worship this morning? What do we let get in the way of our whole-heartedly worshipping Jesus this morning? What do we have in our lives that is more urgent that adoring the One who created us and bought us with His blood this morning? I want each of us to urgently adore Jesus this morning. But not just this morning. I want us to quit seeing worship as just another thing we casually do in our lives. I want us to see worship for what it is. Urgent, abandoned, whole-hearted, committed adoration of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Mary is a great example of that. So, from her example, we’re going to see four attributes of urgent adoration. The first attribute is found in verse 7:

MATTHEW 26:7

The first attribute of urgent adoration is that urgent adoration is unrestrained. Picture the scene with me. It’s Saturday night. The night before Palm Sunday. Remember that Matthew doesn’t always list things in chronological order. Many times, he organizes things according to a theme rather than according to time. So, here we are on the Saturday night prior to Palm Sunday. Jesus is with His dear friends, Lazarus, Martha and Mary. It was only days prior to this that Jesus called Lazarus forth from the grave. And here they were sharing a meal together. They were having that meal in the house of another friend. A friend who is only identified as Simon the Leper. Since the man was in his house and preparing a meal, he had obviously been healed of his leprosy. And since there was no cure, it is obvious that Jesus is the one who had healed him. So Jesus was sharing food and fellowship with two men he had brought back from the dead. Lazarus back from physical death, and Simon back from social and emotional death. Imagine the joy! Imagine the wonderful, intimate friendship and fellowship! And walking up behind Jesus is Lazarus’ and Martha’s sister Mary. She’s not involved in the conversation. She’s not laughing and talking with the others. She’s not concerned with the meal. Her focus is only on One. Her focus is only on Her Lord. In her hand, she held a bottle. But this was no ordinary bottle. It was an Alabaster bottle. Alabaster is a beautiful semi-transparent gemstone. It was used to make containers which would hold only the most expensive and precious contents. When the contents were extremely precious, the makers would work the stone in such a way that the only way to empty it would be to break the container. It was the ultimate example of extravagance. This particular bottle contained some of the most exclusive perfume of the day. When Scripture says that it was “very precious” in verse 7, that word carries a dual meaning. It means that the perfume was precious because it was extremely expensive. It cost over a year’s wages. The average annual income in Mercer county is somewhere around $35,000. Can you imagine a $35,000 bottle of perfume? That’s what Mary had. But not only was it precious because it was expensive. The word also carries the meaning of having sentimental value. It would have the same value to her of a priceless heirloom. Something that had been passed down for generations. To steal a line from a MasterCard commercial, it was priceless. Mary fully understood the value of the priceless bottle she held in her hand. But she also