church

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.