closing eyes, i run my hands across the grain of wood piled with steaming dishes serving a feast to honor our savior; feel the skimming of Martha's linen as she prepares and serves; listen to the rise and fall of male voices, clinking of platters, rustling of robes.
Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
and slowly, deliberately inhale the costly, sacrificial, purposeful, love-filled outpouring of perfume.
a spilled vile of cabbage patch perfume in childhood clutched in the dripping palm of a clumsy, growing girl. room of dolls, mini-records, rainbow splashed wall quickly filled with the sweetened water of a savored possession. a scent that lingered days, weeks, decades in the walls of memory.
i wonder how long...
the fragrance filled the house were Jesus dined?
remnants lingered in mary's hair?
scent-memory stained the nasal membranes of everyone attending the feast?
the hour was quickly approaching.
the time when Jesus would be the one to pour out a fragrant offering. the costly, sacrificial, purposeful, love-filled outpouring of blood. And the world and heavens would fill with the fragrance of the sacrifice.
Your Spirit beckons, awakening my senses. deeply, reverently i inhale.
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected,"Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a years' wages." He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
yet the timing and means are difficult to grasp.
excuse me, Lord, you are approaching this matter all wrong. as we see it with our limited, one-dimension earthly vision, the plan should be that You save Israel by restoring the kingdom to the Jews. have you noticed the oppression, lack of favor, unfair governmental practices? or have you been too busy dining with sinners, healing on the Sabbath, teaching multitudes? i can think of a million more profitable things You should be doing besides hanging there, dying, spilling blood that is much more useful inside your body keeping you alive.
"Leave her alone, " Jesus replied. "It was intended, that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me." John 12: 1-8
it was intended.
mary worshiped through a ceremonial outpouring of perfume.
Jesus worshiped through obedience with the outpouring of blood.
both costly, one immeasurably.
both sacrificial, one ultimately.
both purposeful, one restores life.
both love-filled, one endures forever.
Lord, stain this heart with the scent-memory of your costly, sacrificial, purposeful, love-filled outpouring of blood. teach me to be extravagantly worshipful in the time I have with You.
