In Mark 14 Jesus is at a meal, but it is interrupted by a woman coming in and performing an extravagant act. She pours a whole bottle of expensive perfume over Jesus - causing surprise to all present.
The perfume is estimated to cost over a year's wages. For the woman this was her worship - her pouring herself out for Jesus, putting her best at Jesus' disposal. Against the muttering that follows Jesus says two very interesting things. First he says 'she did what she could' - he affirms that the perfume pouring thing is her own way of expressing her worship. Our way might be different - we might not have a super expensive bottle of perfume to pour out! But what do we have to pour out? How might we extravagantly put our best at Jesus' disposal?
The second interesting thing that Jesus says is: 'she has poured this perfume to prepare for my burial'. This is because that Jesus knows that for Him, His extravagant worship, His doing what He could, His putting his best for Father God ... was to put his life on the line. It was to lay down His life for those around Him, for you, for me, and for the whole world. That is the ultimate that any human can do ... but laying down for the whole world was actually something that only Jesus could do. It is worth pausing for a moment to think what our own response is to this.
Our service today includes a baptism - someone will go down into the water completely, and then we will bring them back up. In doing so they are making an important statement. They are saying 'thank you Jesus for laying down life for me - I owe my life to you, so I now give and sink my life into yours'. They go down into the water - the old self gone. They come back up to new life in Jesus - living for Jesus, to now extravagantly give of themselves for Jesus.
The baptism is really just a starting marker - having been baptised it is to then work out what it means to live the rest of their lives extravagantly for Jesus. Hence our key question and challenge:
[OUT] Where is God calling you to lose life in order to gain it?
Challenge: Put yourself on the line for His cause
What might we put at Jesus' disposal - maybe in the area of our income, our career hopes, our family expectations, the riches of our lives. How might we lay that down or pour it out as an extravagant offering for Jesus.
In the story others saw the action of the woman and were not happy. "What a waste", they said. Some were plotting to kill Jesus, and this episode triggers one to form a betrayal plot. The fact is that not everyone out there thinks that Jesus laying down His life is a good thing. In fact some are actively hostile to it. So none of us gets baptised to be popular, to win friends out there. No, like Jesus, it is about laying it all down, to give our best, our all ... to God.
No comments:
Post a Comment