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4501 Waller Road, Tacoma Worship 10:00 a.m Phone (253) 922-8736 |
INI Judica, the Fifth Sunday in Lent March 21 2010 Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA Paul Naumann, Pastor MARY'S LENTEN GIFT OF LOVE John 12:1-8 Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text upon which we'll base our meditation comes from the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of John, beginning with the eighth verse, as follows: Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead. 2 There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. 3 Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. 4 Then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray Him, said, 5 "Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" 6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it. 7 But Jesus said, "Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. 8 "For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always." Here ends our text. In Christ Jesus, whose love brings us together again this Passion Season, Dear Fellow Redeemed, Love is arguably the most powerful emotion one person can feel for another. Sadly, it sometimes happens that love is unrequited. A four-year-old girl once found that out. She had two favorite dolls which she played with incessantly. She cuddled them, talked to them, held tea parties for them, and tucked them safely into bed at night. One day, though, she came to her mother with a troubled look on her face. With the two dolls tucked in her two chubby arms, she said wistfully, "Mother, I love them and love them and love them, but they never love me back!" Much more tragic than this is the indifference that many people show toward the love of God. God loves them and loves them and loves them -- but they never love Him back. Our text for today, however, gives us the opposite example. Today we hear of a woman who was acutely aware of how much God loved her, and was ready to make even the costliest sacrifice to show her love for God in return. If your love for God has been something of a formality lately; if it's lost its first luster and grown cool, then this text will be good medicine for you. Consider with me the theme -- MARY'S LENTEN GIFT OF LOVE i. It was a generous love. II. It was a humble love. III. It was a believing love. The time is Friday evening, exactly one week before the crucifixion. The place: the little village of Bethany, just a stone's throw from Jerusalem. I'd like you to imagine that it's evening, and that we've been invited to a dinner in Jesus' honor. We're a little late as we stoop to enter the low doorway of the house. On the white plastered walls inside there are eight or ten oil lamps that have been lit to cast a warm glow around the room. The meal isn't quite ready yet, and we recognize many of the people who are standing or sitting around the big main room. There's the owner of the house, who's called "Simon the Leper," even though Jesus healed him of his leprosy long ago. There's Peter and John, and the rest of the disciples, quietly talking with the other guests. We notice Judas sitting silent by himself; brooding under his dark eyebrows, lost in thought. There's Lazarus, smiling at something somebody said, looking happy and animated. Who would think that this man - so alive and healthy - had lain cold and dead in a tomb not many days prior to this? We see his sister Martha who, once again, is bustling around the table, helping get things ready for dinner. At the center of everything sits Jesus Himself. His face seems to cast a warm glow of peace and light over everyone there. At Jesus' feet sits Lazarus' other sister, Mary. This is her favorite place to be; Mary would rather sit quietly and listen to Jesus' words than do anything else in the world! Tonight, though, she has a special gift that she's been waiting to give to her Master. Seemingly from nowhere, she produces an exquisite little box of white alabaster. Everyone's attention turns to Mary, and we watch amazed as she kneels at Jesus' feet and breaks the box open. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. This was the best way Mary could think of to show how much she loved her Savior, Jesus. And Mary's was a generous love! Oil of spikenard was a very expensive lotion, like a perfume. She used up a whole pound of it to anoint Jesus' feet, and our text says that one pound of the precious lotion was worth 300 denarii. One denarius was the common wage for a whole day's work; in terms of today's money, the amount Mary spent on this one act of love was probably about the price of a new car. Think of it! The fragrance that immediately filled the room was the sweet smell of Mary's love for her Master. As far as she was concerned, nothing was too good for Jesus. The disciples were amazed. Some of them were angry and indignant over what Mary did, and they said so. Judas protested the loudest. Our text says, Then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray Him, said, 5 "Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" Judas, of course, was very conscious of money. He was the treasurer of the disciples, and had gotten into the bad habit of dipping into their account whenever he wanted to line his own pockets. He was so greedy, in fact, that he had made a secret deal with the Jewish rulers to betray Jesus Himself into their hands for thirty pieces of silver. So naturally Judas protested. "Generosity is one thing," he said, "but this is too much. This is a waste of money that could be used for better things!" Was Judas right? Is it possible to be too generous in showing our love for our Savior? Is anything too much to give to Jesus? If so, how much is too much? Is $20 too much to put in the collection plate? $50? Is $100 too much? We normally have about half of our church members in church on any given Sunday; midweek services have been about one-quarter. Maybe that extra hour of devotion is too much to give. Twenty minutes out of your daily schedule to read the Bible, maybe ten minutes to pray? Do we get to the point where we say, “This much is enough to give to my Savior. This much, but no more; this far, but no farther”? But what about Jesus' generosity to us? Aren’t you glad He never said, “This far and no farther. I’m only willing to go so far for unworthy sinners like these”? Jesus set no limits on His love for us. And who can put a price on the weary steps, the humiliation, the torture, the agony He went through for us? What's the dollar-value of the blood He shed to rescue us from our sin? How much is the love of our Savior worth? Mary had an answer to that question. Jesus' love was priceless to her, and this was her way of showing it. There's something else about Mary's gift of love that we can't help but notice: Mary's was a humble love. Some of the disciples were proud men. As we discussed last week, they even asked Jesus what places of honor they would have in His kingdom! But not Mary. Have you noticed? -Every time the Bible mentions Mary, we find her in the same place: at Jesus' feet. She listens to Jesus' words in silence and humility. When the time comes to give her gift of love, she kneels humbly, and anoints Jesus' feet. Then she does something that was considered socially unacceptable in Jewish society - she takes down her hair in public, and uses it to smooth His feet dry. There's no embarrassment, no thought for herself. Her thoughts and her love is focused only on Jesus. What about our love for the Savior? Is it a humble love? Do you come to these services thinking that you're doing God a favor? Or do you come in humility to have God pour His favor out upon you?! Sit at the feet of the Savior again this Lenten season! Listen, humbly, as the story is told of how Jesus, who was equal with God - who was and is God! - allowed Himself to be humiliatingly executed for us! In next Sunday’s sermon text, we hear Paul say, "He made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." Php 2:7-8. Finally, Mary's love was a believing love. She had seen the evidence of Christ's power in her own life. She had seen Him perform miracles of healing. When she was in despair over the death of her brother Lazarus, she had seen Jesus call him forth, alive, from the grave! That incident always struck me as a wonderful analogy for our own life. You recall that when Lazarus was called forth from the tomb, the sisters were afraid. What they expected was the rotten stench of death emanating from a body that had been decaying in the tropical heat for several days. Instead, what Jesus delivered to them was the sweet smell of life, and a young man risen fresh and healthy from the grave. How similar to our spiritual condition, isn’t it? Think of the last time you smelled something that you could truly describe as a stench. I remember walking though a cow pasture once on my way to go fishing at a stock pond, when I suddenly became aware of an overwhelming and repulsive odor. When I came over the grade of the stock pond I saw, down by the water, a cow that clearly had been dead for several weeks. Well that ended my fishing for the day – you couldn’t get within a block of that pond without being overwhelmed and disgusted. Sad to say, that’s a pretty good description of a person’s spiritual condition without Christ. For us too, the many sins we've committed, the rebellions and transgressions and violations of God's law, are a stench - a foul odor - in the nostrils of almighty God. But instead of this foul odor, through faith Christ Jesus bestows upon us believers the sweet smell of righteousness. His own perfect righteousness. Our sins are covered by the sweet-smelling savour of the sacrifice Jesus offered on cross. Mary believed that - she believed that if God's promise of a Messiah was true, that Messiah could be none other than Jesus of Nazareth. How much did Mary understand about the dark days that were coming for Jesus? We don't know. Jesus had warned them all several times that this last trip of His to Jerusalem would end in His suffering and death, but his disciples still didn't understand what was going to happen. Perhaps Mary did, though. It's interesting that the oil of spikenard that she bought for Jesus was commonly used for anointing the bodies of the dead. And when the disciples rebuked her, Jesus replied, "Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial." It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Perhaps Mary, alone, understood what was coming. She certainly believed in Jesus as her Savior. Mary's was truly a believing love! You and I have an advantage over the guests gathered in Simon's house that evening. Our advantage is obvious - we know what happens. We've traced over and over again the events that led to Jesus' crucifixion. On many Good Fridays we've seen the dreadful consequences of sin, and mourned the death of our Savior. On many Easter Sundays, we've rejoiced at His resurrection. The Holy Spirit has worked saving faith in our hearts so that we, too, believe the Good News of redemption. You can go home from this church service today with joy in your heart. For you know, as Mary did, that ALL your sins - all your mistakes, misdeeds, and failures - have found pardon under the sheltering arms of your gentle Lord Jesus. Yes, thank God - our love, too, is a believing love! Whenever a hurricane is forming off the southern coast of the United States, the U.S. Weather Service sends out an observation plane to determine it's strength and severity. The pilots report that, despite the turbulence all around the outside of the system, there's always a pocket of peace and quiet in the very center of the storm. The peaceful evening that Jesus spent at Simon's house that Friday was like the eye of the storm; trouble came before it, and more trouble would follow. Today you and I have spent a quiet hour with Jesus at a house in Bethany, and we've witnessed the generous, humble and believing love of Mary. May God grant that our love for our Savior may match hers as we continue on our Lenten journey! In Jesus' name, AMEN. |