Do you remember what Christmas and birthdays were like when your children were small? I remember. We would spend time picking out the perfect gifts. Then the time would come for one of our sons to open his gift. And when they were very small, they needed help opening the presents. Then, once the presents were open, our boys would inevitably show more interest in the box than they would in the present inside.
As God’s children through Jesus Christ, we have been given the most wonderful gifts of all: the gift of God’s grace, the gift of his love and forgiveness, the gift of his person, through the indwelling Holy Spirit. However, like very small children, we are often content to just play with the boxes that his gifts come in. We get all caught up in the beautiful wrappings of his creation, or a beautiful church building, rather than focusing on the present inside.
We are going to read this morning about a person who wasn’t like that. She wasn’t content to play with the box. She recognized the gift inside—the gift of the Lord Jesus—and so she spent as much time as possible focused on him, serving him.
Let’s read John 12:1-8 and see what it has to teach us about the power of a servant heart. Listen for God’s word to you…
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
In this brief passage, I think we can see at least six important characteristics of Lazarus’ sister Mary and her service to Jesus. First, her service to Jesus was humble.
In order to anoint Jesus’ feet, Mary adopted a position of subservience. I think it is fascinating to note that each time this Mary is mentioned in the Gospels, she is at Jesus’ feet. Mary’s life and posture reveals that true service for Jesus grows out of whole-hearted devotion to him as Lord. Spending time at the feet of Jesus is where service to him begins.
You may ask, “How do we spend time at Jesus’ feet today?” We cannot physically sit at his feet as Mary did 2000 years ago.
However, we can sit at his feet spiritually, drinking in his teaching just as Mary did. We can do this by reading his words in the Gospels and seeking to flesh out those words in our lives.
Doing what Mary did, logging hours at Jesus’ feet, may not seem very significant from a worldly perspective. Even Christians sometimes question the value of something like the monastic life where a man or woman devotes their whole life to prayer and worship and study of Scripture. However, what is seemingly worthless from a worldly perspective may have the greatest value from a heavenly vantage point.
Madeleine L’Engle once wrote, “Perhaps what we are called to do may not seem like much. But consider what one scientist has called ‘the butterfly effect’.” L’Engle was referring to an idea that first appeared in a short story called “A Sound of Thunder” written by Ray Bradbury in 1952. Scientists later picked up on the same idea, that one butterfly could eventually have a far-reaching ripple effect on the weather in some distant part of the world.
Whether that is true or not in the world of science, I do believe our small, humble acts of service to Jesus can have a butterfly effect.
A second characteristic of Mary’s service to Jesus is that it was perceptive.
Bruce Milne has written, “Although the full significance of her action was possibly hidden from her, it was ‘right’ because she perceivedsomething of the mind of Jesus. Despite the festive nature of the occasion Mary senses his truespirit, and feels in her own soul the chill of the dark waters in which Jesus must soon be immersed (Lk. 12:50).”
In a world where a cacophony of voices assault us every day, and sometimes every moment of every day, it is so important to take time to tune out the multiplicity of this world’s voices, and perceive the one voice, the one spirit, that really matters for all eternity.
Some time ago, I read an article on the internet about listening to “the music of the spheres”…
From his place in New Mexico, Thomas Ashcraft recently took in a live show—even though it unfolded some 390 million-plus miles away on Jupiter. All he needed was a few antennas, some short wave radios and a recorder to document the event.
It turns out Earth’s big brother can belt out a tune…well a few notes anyway. The radio waves come to Earth in two varieties: long bursts and short ones. They appear when particular parts of Jupiter are aligned with Io—its closest and most volcanically active moon—and receiving stations on Earth.
The stations can be very simple. Ashcraft, a 58-year-old artist who has been listening to the sounds of Jupiter, the sun and other celestial bodies for about 20 years, uses a directional antenna system known as a Yagi antenna, a series of secondary dipole antennas and a short wave radio.
There’s a group called Radio Jove that sells kits for under $20. If owning the goods isn’t your thing, the University of Florida Radio Observatory streams its catch live on the Internet.
The short bursts last just a few milliseconds before shutting down and shifting over to other radio frequencies, Francisco Reyes, director of the UF radio observatory, told Discovery News.
“It’s like pebbles or hail falling on a tin roof,” Reyes said.
“The long notes can linger for 30 minutes, or even an hour or two.”
Whether listening to the music of Jupiter or listening to Jesus, in either case one needs the requisite equipment. To listen to Jesus we need at least four things I can think of: the Gospels, the Holy Spirit, an open heart, and a quiet space.
A third characteristic of Mary’s service to Jesus is that it was timely.
Jesus said, “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.”
If Mary had saved the perfume for another time, her opportunity to honor Jesus in this way would have passed forever.
Life is full of uncertainties. James 4:13-14 says,
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” 14 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Paul says in Galatians 6:10, “So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.”
Jesus says, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” (John 9:4)
Thomas Carlyle wrote after the death of his wife, “If only I could see her but once more, were it but for five minutes, to let her know that I always loved her. She never did know it, never.”
Now, today, is the time to serve Jesus. Timely service is the only kind of service we can render unto him, or unto anyone for that matter.
A fourth thing we see here about Mary’s service is that it was criticized.
Judas complained because Mary’s perfume was not sold to provide money for the poor. John tells us that Judas said this not because he cared for the poor, but because he liked to help himself to the disciples’ common purse.
It occurs to me, after living some fifty-five years on this planet, that one will be criticized in life no matter what one does. So how much better it is to be criticized while serving Jesus!
A fifth thing we see here about Mary’s service is that it was extravagant.
Judas informs us that Mary’s perfume was worth a year’s wages. This was an amazingly generous gift, even for a presumably wealthy person.
It is possible, as we grow older, to become too balanced in our response to Jesus. Sometimes we are too careful in our expression of love for our Lord.
Mary did not live that way. She served and expressed her love for the Lord with reckless abandon, and Jesus commended her for it.
I may have told this story before, but I think it bears repeating. In a church I served many years ago as an assistant pastor, the senior pastor was introducing Communion. The pastor had just blessed and broken the bread, and invited people to receive the elements. At precisely that moment, a young woman in the congregation who was a new believer, ran forward to the communion table, took some bread and ate it, picked up a little cup of juice and drank it, then she ran out of the room.
We were all left sitting there, speechless. The pastor did not quite know how to continue with the service. Though I am sure a little lesson in church etiquette followed at a later time, that young woman taught us all something that day. She showed us something of the passion of Mary for Jesus. Would that we were all that aware of how desperate our need is for the Lord.
A final thing we see here about Mary’s service to Jesus is that it was fragrant.
We read that after Mary anointed Jesus’ feet “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
Furthermore, not only was that house filled with the fragrance of Mary’s perfume poured on Jesus’ feet, history has been filled with the fragrance. In Mark 14:9 Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” Here we are, two thousand years later, still talking about what Mary did for Jesus that day, less than a week before his death. You can be sure of this: Nothing we ever do for the Lord is ever lost or wasted.
Malcolm Muggeridge once wrote this about Mother Teresa…
Doing something beautiful for God is, for Mother Teresa, what life is about. Everything, in that it is for God, becomes beautiful, whatever it may be… Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity provide a living witness to the power and truth of what Jesus came to proclaim. His light shines in them. When I think of them in Calcutta, as I often do, it is not the bare house in a dark slum that is conjured up in my mind, but a light shining and joy abounding. I see them diligently and cheerfully constructing something beautiful for God out of the human misery and affliction that lies around them. One of their leper settlements is near a slaughter-house whose stench in the ordinary way might easily make you retch. There, with Mother Teresa, I scarcely noticed it; another fragrance had swallowed it up.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:14-16…
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16 to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.
May we be the fragrance of Christ to others through our worship and service at Jesus’ feet.
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