Broken and Spilled Out
Pastor Glenn Newton 3-18-01
Mark 14:1-11Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two days
away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to
arrest Jesus and kill him. 2 "But not during the Feast," they said, "or the people may
riot."
MK 14:3 While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known
as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume,
made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
MK 14:4 Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this
waste of perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the
money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly.
MK 14:6 "Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a
beautiful thing to me. 7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help
them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could.
She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9 I tell you the
truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will
also be told, in memory of her."
MK 14:10 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray
Jesus to them. 11 They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. So
he watched for an opportunity to hand him over.
How many of you have done something crazy because of that thing called love? You say
things you wouldn’t normally say. You spend more time looking in the mirror. You try
to write poetry even though you don’t have a clue. Being in love makes you do irrational
things. You carve your names on tree trunks. You hold hands while trying to eat
burritos. You can sit two people where normally one person could barely sit. Being in
love can be excessive. The practical question “Does this make sense?” doesn’t apply to
people deeply in love. Would you agree?
I still remember with cold chills the day I asked Nola’s Dad for her hand in marriage. You
talk about scarred. I think that day, I kind of felt what Daniel was feeling as he was being
lowered into the lion’s den.
I think I had already been at the house for about an hour and hadn’t been able to
bring it up. And what made it worse was that Nola had told her mom that I was going to
do this, so there both staring, and snickering, which made it 10 times worse.
Finally Jim went outside to water the cattle, and I followed and made small talk, and then
because my Love for Nola was bigger than my fear of Jim, I finally told him what was on
my mind. I still think that he knew the whole time what was going to happen that day, and
he was making it kind of hard on me. Of coarse, as any concerned father, he asked me
some silly questions like, “How are you going to make it financially?” Where are you
going to live?” You know silly things like that. If I remember right I said something
profound like, were going to live on Love. I’m sure that gave him great comfort.
But you see, when love is involved, being excessive, and extravagant and
impractical many times isn’t far behind.
But as you know, something can happen to us the longer we are in love. It happens
almost by osmosis. We grow up, and sometimes we grow out and up. It’s not something
that happens overnight. But slowly, and ever so surely, we replace costly with practical,
we exchange the extravagant for sensible, spontaneous for responsible, and the lavish for
the useful.
It’s not that we stop loving. It’s just that the more mature our love becomes, so
does our means of expressing it. We begin to pride ourselves in being thrifty and
conservative people, not given to indulgence in any area of our lives. We are much more
comfortable being in control. We would rather be considered economical than excessive,
and cautious rather than risky.
Can you relate to that transformation that can take place?
I want you to think about this from the standpoint of a new believer. We come into
worship and sit next to the brand-new Christians. It doesn’t matter if we are singing
hymns or choruses, it doesn’t matter if we are standing or sitting, it doesn’t’ matter what’s
going on, the tears roll down their cheeks. Whenever that alter is open for anything, they
are the first ones in line. They give sacrificially of their time, talents, their resources, their
money. They study the Word of God with Passion, they just can’t get enough of Wisdom
of the Word on Sunday Nights, they share their faith with anyone who will listen. There
excessive. They’re Extravagant. They are lavish in their expressions of love to Christ.
I see that in some of our people.
But of coarse, we know what those of us that have been in the church, in the faith for a
long time say, don’t we? “Oh, they’ll get over it. It’s all so new right now, but they’ll get
a shot of reality and start acting a little more practical.” And eventually some do. They
find their composure, get realistic, become practical, and settle in. They stop “wasting”
their energy on extravagant love for Christ. Just give em time, they’ll be like us we think
to ourselves.
That brings us to our story. Jesus is spending some quality time in the place he loved to
be the most. Even Jesus needed a place to be renewed, and Bethany was that place for
Him because it was the home of His dearest friends: Lazarus, Mary, and Martha.
Good Friday is right around the corner, the clock is ticking. According to Mk. 10:33-34
Jesus had said to his disciples, “When we get to Jerusalem the Son of Man will be
betrayed to the leading priests and teachers of religious law. They will sentence Him to
die and hand Him over to the Romans. They will mock Him, spit on Him, beat Him with
their whips, and kill Him. But after three days He will rise again. (paraphrashed)
As you could imagine there was some tension around the table as these friends and
disciples didn’t really know what to say or react.
Then all of the sudden this “Woman” bursts into the room.
Mark doesn’t say, but John tells us that her name was Mary. She came carrying an
alabaster jar full of pure nard, a very expensive ointment. An alabaster jar was probably
about the size of a Coke can, with a long neck to pour the precious perfume very
carefully.
And before anyone can stop her, she does something completely irresponsible -- she
breaks the neck of the bottle close to the stern and pours the entire bottle on Jesus head.
And when she does, John also tells us that the fragrance of that perfume fills the entire
house.
What’s the big deal? How expensive can a little bottle of perfume be? If I want to buy
some perfume for Nola I just drive to the department store, and buy her whatever is on
sale, no big deal. (See there’s that being economical again.)
But for them in that day, perfume was a great luxury. Pure Nard was very rare. It
was very valuable. Mark says that that Mary had a bottle of pure nard that was worth
more than 300 denarii. So what’s the big deal. It was worth $3 right? Wrong.
In Jesus day that was nearly an entire year’s wages. In our day, if our average
income around here is say $25,000, then that bottle of perfume would be the same as
pouring $25,000 worth of perfume out, onto Jesus. That was kind of an expensive bath
for Jesus wasn’t it?
You can understand why the disciples were so upset. Mary had taken what was
probably her entire life savings and completely wasted it. The Bible says that their jaws
dropped to the floor and “they rebuked her harshly”. In other words, they let her have it.
“What in the world are you thinking lady?” “Are you crazy?” “That was about the
dumbest thing I think I have ever seen!” Can’t you hear them. I mean, it seems to me the
disciples had a point didn’t they? Think about it. In a matter of minutes the aroma of that
perfume will be gone, and what difference would it have made? What would have been
accomplished in the world?
That perfume could have been converted into cash to buy blankets and soup for the poor.
$25,000 would have bought a lot of bread. That would have been far more practical,
don’t you think? After all, the world needs food, not fragrance.
In their mind, they might have been thinking. It’s OK to express a little love for Jesus, but
let’s not go overboard. Couldn’t she have expressed her appreciation with flowers or
candy or a nice Hallmark card? That would have been a much better use of the money.
What a waste.
I imagine after they have all showed their disapproval, and told her about it, now there
waiting for Jesus to quote her a scripture from somewhere on good stewardship, or
something. They just know he’s going to have something really good for her, her wasteful
enthusiasm needs to be tamed.
Jesus said something all right. But it wasn’t for Mary. It was for the disciples. MK 14:6
"Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful
thing to me.”
It appears to me that we have conflicting views of extravagance. One view is that
extravagance is wasteful. The other view is that it is an expression of love.
You may be thinking, “Why, Jesus didn’t need that much perfume, Even if it was
for his upcoming burial, did He really need a $25,000 bath?” The answer is NO.
Jesus didn’t need it. It wasn’t about a ego trip for Jesus. It didn’t boost His
Self-Esteem. And those kind of questions miss the point of the story.
This is important. You see, in the disciples view the ministry was fast becoming a business
to be budgeted rather than a Savior to be loved. Extravagance was no longer in their
vocabulary. Extravagance was wasteful. Being excessive was not practical.
But what they couldn’t measure, what these disciples couldn’t measure was the heart of
this grateful woman. Her act of worship was done for herself but done soely out of love
for Jesus.
Imagine your son becomes very ill and you take him to the doctor, who says that he has a
rare and incurable disease and has a week to live. What would you do?
Or imagine your wife is having severe headaches and upon further tests the doctor says
that she has a brain tumor and has a week to live. What would you do?
What would you do if the most precious person in your life only had a few days to live?
How would you spend your time? Of coarse, you would hurt, and it would be very
painful, but you would also want to find a way to express your love to that person. And in
moments like that, sometimes words are not enough to express how you feel. And so you
begin to ask yourself, “How can I show this person that I love him or her?”
Maybe your son loves baseball cards. You know baseball cards can be expensive,
but you know how much joy they bring him. And so you rush out to look all over town
for all the baseball cards you can find. You buy them by the case. Money is no object.
Price is not your concern. You just buy them because you know it will make them happy.
Your dying wife loves roses, do you buy her just one because the prices are just
outrageous, and there’s no way your going to get ripped off --- is that what you do? No
way, Your going to buy her all the roses you can to say “I love You”. You spare no
expense, because cost isn’t the issue.
Why? You see it’s the context this is done in. It very well might have been silly to buy
three cases of baseball cards when nothing was at stake. But when it’s life or death, it
doesn’t seem so silly anymore. A dozen red roses might have been plenty on her birthday,
or even just because. But when it’s life or death, you have to say “I love You in
extravagant ways.”
That’s what Mary was doing. Mary had this encounter with the Living Christ, and
His extravagant love and acceptance had changed her life. He was the best thing that had
ever happened to her. But Jesus had been saying he was going to Jerusalem where He
would die, and she knew that Jesus always told the truth.
She didn’t know what to do. She was searching for a way to express her love to
Him, and she wanted it to be more than words. And so in an act of uncalculated love she
offered Him the most extravagant expression she could imagine. Her perfume was the
most lavish oupouring of love that she could come up with.
And so she did what she did, not counting the cost. Not because Jesus needed it
but because she wanted to tell Him, “You mean everything to me”. And because Jesus
understood, He said, “She has done a beautiful thing to me.”
Can I tell you something? Those kind of spontaneous expressions of love make some
people angry. They don’t see the logic. It was the last straw for Judas. He’d had enough.
Following Jesus just wasn’t practical anymore, and following Him was becoming far too
costly.
That was the difference between Mary and Judas. Judas appreciated what
following Jesus offered him. But Mary did more than appreciate Jesus-- she loved him.
And that makes all the difference in our response.
The same is true today. We carefully measure our responses to the Lord in our
services, because we don’t want to be too extravagant. We count the costs of sacrifice,
we wouldn’t want to leave our comfort zone. We guard our resources as though they
really did belong to us. We withhold our talents as if we had created them. We preserve
our dignity by refusing to be too lavish. You see, we are caught up in managing our
religion, managing the church like a business, that we have forgot why we come to church,
it’s to Love the Savior. Period.
So we file into church every Sunday morning, kind of like unbroken alabaster
vases. We are contained. Encased. Contents are hidden. Self-Sufficient. No fragrance
at all. Were not bad looking vases, we even line up in the same place every Sunday. In
fact, many are beautiful people. And no doubt many are here because the living Christ
lives within them.
But many keep him bottled up and contained. They come to worship and sit in
long rows, pews. But the air if full of nothing. And when the service is over these vases
get up and march out into their world with no fragrance and no aroma and no risk. But
what they really need is to be broken. Because only when the vase has been shattered can
the life get out.
The irony of this story is that Jesus himself was about to offer the most
extravagant, lavish, impractical statement of love in the history of the world. In complete
abandonment, just like that jar, he was about to be broken and spilled out for us.
What about you this morning? Is your love a extravagant, costly love. Are you Broken
and spilled out in your love for Christ? That’s the only kind of love that is going to
change our world. Duty is good. But broken and spilled out love is Beautiful to Christ.
