It is hard to imagine a more emotionally charged scene...Jesus and his disciples are having dinner with a dead man; excuse me, a once-dead man. Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, are giving a dinner in honor of their friend, Jesus, the One who called Lazarus out of death and the tomb to life. What a scene this must have been as stories of grief gave way to a joyous celebration of life. In the midst of this celebration, Martha is serving, as she was prone to do, and Mary, as she seemed prone to do, suddenly does something unexpected. She takes expensive perfume and pours it over the feet of Jesus...a scandalous act, compounded by what she does next, as she wipes his feet with her hair. This immodest act brought condemnation from one of Jesus' disciples, though others may have been thinking the same thing. Judas decries the waste of such an expensive property, nearly a years wages, when the poor could have been helped instead. John tells us that the words of Judas were motivated less by the needs of the poor, reflecting more his own greed as a thief of the group's money. "Leave her alone," Jesus said. Hers was an act of a grateful heart, an extravagant offering for the One who had transformed her life and those of her family. This was also an act of preparation for the moment of death that Jesus would face.
How often do we take note of the unusual, the unexpected, and consider the actions of others to be wasted? How quickly do we pass judgment on that which we do not understand?
On this 15th day of April, when our thoughts are focused on our own checkbooks, perhaps it is significant for us to read again this text, to recognize that true wealth is not measured by dollars and cents, but the willingness of the human heart to give generously for the cause of Christ. Mary's unusual act was a gift of love and adoration. Can we say that our gifts to Christ, in whatever form they are offered, are gifts of love and adoration as well?
Jim Abernathy
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