The Beauty of an Extravagant Devotion: Mark 14:1-9

Well, a sermon scripture reading continuing in the Gospel of Mark this morning, chapter 14.

You can find that page 798 if you're using a cheer Bible or else follow along in your bulletin.

Here another reading God's Holy Word.

It was now two days before the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread, and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him.

For they said, Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly.

And she broke the flask and poured it over his head.

There were some who said to themselves indignantly, Why was the ointment wasted like that?

For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.

And they scolded her.

But Jesus said, Leave her alone.

Why do you trouble her?

She has done a beautiful thing to me.

For you will always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them.

But you will not always have me.

She has done what she could.

She has anointed my body beforehand for burial.

And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

Oh Lord, hear our cry this morning.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Well, I wonder if you've ever been surprised by an extravagant devotion, some kind of extravagance from someone, a total and unwavering commitment to someone or to some enterprise.

I was made aware of this week.

Someone uh notified me that the all-black rugby team, New Zealand rugby team, was coming and playing at Baltimore.

And so I looked online at ticket prices and I found myself asking the question how far is my devotion willing to go?

Some are willing to pay very, very large amounts to go and have a front row seat at a sporting game.

But then there's uh the likes of Jadev Peyang, who spent 30 years planting trees on a barren sandbar, single-handedly creating a 1,360-acre forest during his life.

And if that isn't committed enough, we have Dejrath Manji, who spent 22 years carving a road through a mountain using only hammers and chisels to connect his remote village to a hospital.

Why?

Because his wife had been injured and then went on to die, and he felt that if he could have received, if she could have received the necessary treatment in time, she would have lived.

And so he carved through a mountain to reduce the journey to this hospital.

And I ask, what do you make of that kind of devotion?

Is that just crazy to you?

Is it plain, foolish to hear of that kind of thing?

Could their time have been better used in some way?

And I raise that because we come to see some extravagant devotion in what we've just read on display here.

And uh it caused a lot of varying responses from those who were around Mary.

If we look at the literary context here, this passage, verse 3 through 9, is literally sandwiched between two destructive acts.

On one side, we read in verse 1 and 2, we have the plot of the chief priest and the scribes.

They're looking for a way to kill Jesus.

And then the other side, we didn't read it, but verse 10 and 11, we go on to see the plot of Judas, who is conspiring to betray Jesus.

Sandwiched in the middle of these two accounts is this account that this thing that is happening in the home of Simon the leper.

And it might lead us to ask the question well, why is it recorded right there?

What's the intention behind that?

The intention is to highlight the rose between two thorns.

One scholar reminding us human nature at its best, because of what God and His marvelous grace did for it, stands out all the more radiantly when it's contrasted with human nature at its worst.

And so Jesus' words tell us that what we have before us is a beautiful thing.

The reward being, verse 9, that wherever the gospel is proclaimed, in all the whole world thereafter would, what this woman had done would be told in light of or in memory of her.

And that's still being fulfilled today in our midst.

And so the context is that the religious leaders at this point in time were trying to navigate the crowds.

They've already determined in their minds that they want to put Jesus to death, that he is no good.

The problem being one of timing when to do this.

The challenge before them is delicate, right?

Like how to put him to death while also keeping their position, navigating the crowds, knowing there's some in the crowds that could potentially turn against them.

Their willingness to compromise their integrity, killing an innocent man in order to keep their position.

And I think that if there was a value statement that we could frame, that we could summarize as to their intent, that value statement would read: Jesus is worth more to us dead than alive.

And then we have Judas, who seeing his opportunity to make some money, leaves Jesus and the disciples, and he begins to conspire about how to betray Jesus by selling him into their hands.

And I think again, if you were to make a value statement in light of Judas, it would be this Jesus' life is worth five months' wages.

And then in between these accounts, there are 15 men in the home of Simon the leper at the time of Passover.

And they're having a dinner, and the dinner is probably in gratitude to what Jesus had done, having raised Lazarus, having healed Simon from his leprosy.

Martha, the sister of Lazarus, is serving.

And they're all seated and they're reclined at the table there.

All of this is ordinary custom.

And then Mary enters the gathering, and she's carrying some very expensive perfume, a flask of ointment, a pure nard.

And we're told that this bottle was worth about a year's wages.

So to equate that today, we're talking maybe$70,000 or so in value.

This is probably a family heirloom that had been passed down to her, kept in the family.

And as she as she walks over to Jesus, she she breaks the flask.

And what that tells us is that she wasn't looking to pour just a little bit of ointment on Jesus and keep some of the remains to get some money.

She was all in.

Every drop.

And as she pours it over Jesus' hair, and as it works its way down his body to his feet, there's the sweet smelling aroma that begins to penetrate and waft through the ear with sweet fragrance.

However, the reaction from the disciples is one of confusion at best.

It indicates that this kind of love that was being displayed here was an unfamiliar language to them.

And we're told in John's account that it was actually Judas who piped up at this point and complains, saying, well, if this is going to be used in such a reckless fashion, then by all means it ought to have been used towards the poor.

I mean, this in his calculating mind, treasurer, was enough to feed around 300 families for a day and have something left over.

And so others begin to chime in at this point and take issue with her.

But then Jesus comes to her defense and he says, leave her alone.

She's done a beautiful thing for me.

This is not a dichotomy between Jesus and serving the poor.

He's shown his heart for the poor many times during his ministry.

That was clear.

And so the issue is not between Jesus and the poor.

The issue is between always and not always.

The poor would always be present to serve.

But Jesus was about to leave and to die.

The significance of this being that Mary was preparing his body for burial just a few days at the time.

And I think the question presented to us in the midst of this is a simple one.

What is Jesus worth?

In our appraisal, what is his value?

Those of us who have come to know the gospel, I think will agree that Jesus has immense value.

So the question I want to entertain this morning is how might our own devotion to Jesus be inflamed?

How might the worth of Jesus become more precious to us so that it would come to expression in acts and deeds in our own lives?

And so the first thing we learn here this morning is that any beautiful act of love toward Jesus arises from his devotion to us.

Right?

We see that.

When Mary entered the house of Simon, she was already intending to respond to Jesus.

The flask was brought with the intention from her heart of devotion to Jesus.

We know that she was already close to Jesus.

We know that she had been listening at his feet.

We know of her brother Lazarus being brought to life.

We know of Simon the leper being healed.

And we have every reason to believe that she had also admired who Jesus was, along with an understanding of why he came.

The heart filled of gold, the gold of devotion, arises from Jesus being precious to us.

Our love is bound to his love.

The scripture tells us it in this way.

He says, We love because Christ first loved us.

And so the devoted heart that gives itself to Christ is one that has seen something of his beauty, of his glory.

We've been given to see something of who he is.

It satisfies our deepest desires and our longings.

Any beauty that might come to expression in our lives arises from seeing something of the beauty of Christ through the eye of faith.

It arises from seeing something of the magnitude of his immense worth and value towards us.

You know, this great beauty in the heart of the person who determines, because of what Christ has done for me, I want to express my love and gratitude to him and act on it.

The gospel fuels our devotion by stirring up our interest in him and adding fuel to the flames of love.

I think I can think of a number of examples in this church where people have responded to Christ in some beautiful ways.

They haven't drawn attention to themselves, they haven't made it known.

You perhaps don't know about it because they haven't wanted it to be known.

They've been content not to draw any noise to it, because in their knowledge, they have had an audience with God and they've done it before his eye.

Beauty has arisen from his devotion to them.

And so we observe here that any beautiful act of love toward Jesus is in response to his devotion to us.

Mary, we see, carried out this act willingly of her own desire.

There's no hint of her being compelled in any kind of way to give what she did.

The thing she bought was determined in her own heart.

And it teaches us that where the spirit and love is, there is great freedom.

Ask those who have given themselves in great ways, you know, why did you give up earthly comforts?

Why did you give that lavish gift?

Why do you give yourself so boldly in the use of your gifts?

And they will say the overriding motive boils down to this: to their deep devotion to Christ.

There's no hint in their being strong-armed to do something, coercing, only the sweet aroma of their desire to bring their own oil and flask in service of Christ.

But it does raise the question, I think, what do we make of the degree that we experience?

Well, the degree of experience and certain acts or responses.

Why are some acts more lavish than others?

What do we make of the difference between Miri's acts and that of the disciples?

I mean, they were all followers of Christ, they had all shown devotion to him.

They were all in his presence.

It also makes us ask the question: why can we all hear the same thing even this morning in his presence?

And one person leave with little on their heart, and another with their heart inflamed.

Right?

The answer lies in the work of the Spirit who works within our hearts to produce varying responses.

And I liken this work to an ocean.

As we know, the waves of the ocean, they come in, they go out with regular constancy.

Right?

And if we if we watch it for long enough, if you've ever stood at the shoreline of the ocean and just watched the waves lap in and go out, we can grow accustomed to the drawing in of the waves and then the lapping up of the waves on the shore, to the point that the regularity almost becomes common experience.

And like the ocean, the waves of devotion can go in and go out as we draw upon grace and then give ourselves in response, day after day, week after week.

But I think that the challenge is that oftentimes the waves of devotion can soon become a thing of convention, just normality.

It's what we do.

But then there are times when deep calls to deep, where the Spirit is pleased to draw back the waves of gratitude and with greater undertow in our hearts.

This great undertow that draws back gratitude and joy and who Christ is and draw up a greater measure of his love within us.

And then we witness a greater crashing forth of that love and that joy and that gratitude toward him.

A devotion is fueled.

A wave of heartfelt response pours out, a tsunami, you might say, of love and gratitude.

That's a different response that the work of the Spirit can do.

Because I think we can get into a place in the Christian life where our thirsts just pond or they puddle.

They become stagnant.

Our thirsts just kind of stagnate and we lose sight of his excellencies and we lack a curiosity in him and who he is.

Not because we necessarily intend to all the time, but because sometimes we've come just to think that we have come to know all there is to know.

Or busyness in life just keeps us from asking the kind of questions that are of real value.

We close the treasure chest of his glory and and we lose our curiosity and our questioning and our pursuit of his heart.

But you see, God loves you too much to leave you in that kind of a state.

Leave me in that kind of a state.

And so he works by providence and by his spirit to stir up, to stir in you and draw you into new vistas of his person, his works.

There are always deeper things to know.

There are always deeper realities for you to experience.

There is always more of his work to behold.

And I thank God for the times when he has worked in my own heart, when I've my own thirsts have stagnated and puddled, and he has drawn me in.

To sit with him, to be curious again, to question more of who he is, that I might enjoy him.

Opening my eye to his word in new ways, his mighty works and his power.

All of this is the free work of the Spirit.

Making our acts of devotion bold in something of beauty.

To the heart that is set free.

These acts of devotion make all the sense in the world.

And so that's the second thing.

The third thing is beautiful acts of devotion toward Jesus may come at a cost to ourselves.

There are times when certain acts of devotion can come at a cost to us.

Again, we see that here.

Not only was Mary's jar of perfume costly, but it also led to suspicion and rebuke.

And I think that teaches us that a bold devotion can often make others unsettled and uncomfortable, not because it intends to parade itself, but because we often fail to see the heart behind the act.

David is an example.

I remember he joyfully at one point in devotion comes and dances before the ark when it came back from the Philistines to Israel, and it's met with his dancing and joy and jubilation before the Lord, expressing his heart of devotion, is met with contempt by his wife.

Why?

Well, because her eye was more trained toward her husband's public image than it was toward his heart, toward God.

And then we have Hannah, whose heartfelt devotion was seen by Eli the priest, as she was somehow drunk, had too much to drink.

Stephen, you remember, when he was martyred, his devotion was the cause of stoning, even though he saw into the glory of heaven.

Sometimes our devotion can be met with confusion and sometimes even hostility.

I've had missionaries tell me the responses of those at times, people that are close to them.

The confusion and even sometimes the anger at those close to them hearing the news that they're giving themselves to a work in a field across oceans.

Why would you do that?

What about your 401k?

What about your kids?

What about all this, that, and the other?

There are churches who are uncomfortable with any form of enthusiasm and worship that breaks the status quo.

Any hint of bold devotion, we gotta quench that.

And while we can't control how others will respond, what we can control is how we offer ourselves.

And that can bring us to some important and even confronting questions.

Is my devotion to Jesus being expressed?

Is my devotion to Jesus costing me anything?

Have we done anything lately just because we love Jesus?

Or have you or I stopped doing something lately just because you or I love Jesus?

Because you see, the acts that bear the name beautiful are born out of the Spirit's work and love.

And though it's always lamentable that any kind of beauty like this should be met with any kind of frown or or hostility, owing to the fact that these kinds of things defy worldly wisdom and calculation, we shouldn't be surprised if they come at some kind of cost to us.

But may our devotion be one that is done in the eye of God, before Him, unto Him, and for Him.

And so the question then is where are we to focus our energies in order to stir up this kind of devotion?

We see it also in the intent of the anointing of Mary to Jesus.

Mary knew the value of Jesus in light of his coming death and burial.

The precious life that he lived and the precious life that he was about to give was of value to her, deep value.

And I think there was a heart of adoration that we have seen in prior accounts that lay behind her act of devotion here.

And it brings us to consider our own eye and what is the cause of our own focus in our daily life.

I wonder if you were to examine your prayers or if it were possible to weigh them, how many pounds you would attribute to supplication, right?

Asking things of God.

And how many pounds would you attribute to your adoration of Him?

The enjoyment of His person, His attributes.

Now both of these are important, it's not one or the other, but I think for a lot of us an imbalance might come to light under that kind of searching.

It's certainly been true of me at times.

There are times when under this kind of scrutiny, my cry is, Lord, please bring me into a deeper knowledge of your love.

Give me an eye, a single eye, a unified eye in my heart to focus on who you are, your perfections, your glory, your attributes, who you are, your holiness.

Give me a sustained focus, an eye to the beauty of your glory, that I might enjoy you, and that I might know you even more deeply.

And you see, that's important because whereas supplication has an eye to the provision of Jesus, adoration has an eye to his person and attributes.

Right?

Supplication can give us a view to the power of his arm.

But adoration leads us to his heart.

Think about if you've ever put a song on repeat.

Perhaps you've been in the car and you're like, either put it on repeat or you're like, well, let's just play that one again.

All right, why have we done that?

We've done it because we've been gripped in some way in that moment.

There's some beauty in it that we enjoy.

Even though there are thousands of other songs out there, and probably even better ones than the ones perhaps we're listening to.

This is the one that has value to us in that moment.

And strikes a chord with our hearts.

The secret, what does this tell us?

Well, it tells us this.

I think it reveals the secret of contentment.

What is the secret of contentment?

The secret of contentment lies not in how much we have, but in how much we enjoy what we have.

You can be a baby Christian and know hardly anything.

But your heart can sing more than the person who has known Christ for years because you are enjoying who he is.

It doesn't take account for maturity.

It doesn't take account to our knowledge, our brilliance, our wisdom, none of that.

Are you satisfying yourself in him?

Are you enjoying him?

Again, what is Jesus worth in your appraisal?

What is his value?

The truth is that our enjoyment needs to be stirred up every morning, doesn't it?

I liken this to as a child.

We had a wood firebox.

We didn't have central heating or anything like that.

But we had this firebox that required us to put wood into it, and each night as we would go to bed, it would be burning hot, radiating through the house.

But as we would wake up in the morning, it would always be the case where it would be down to ashes and a few embers.

And what we would do is we would stir up some of those embers and we would put fresh kindling on that fire.

And soon it would be burning hot again.

And I say that to say that same flame of love can be kindled in any heart.

But it requires that we stir up and set our minds before the love of God through the fresh kindling of the gospel.

Asking the Spirit to move Christ's love within us, to make it real to us.

Anything less than that leads down the path to corruption.

So where is the eye of your heart set?

Is it set on sin weighing on you?

Or is shame causing you to hide?

Are you focused on all the troubles and challenges of daily life?

The cares that creep in?

Do you feel plagued by your own sense of unworthiness?

Although, true, none of us are worthy.

Jesus has made you worthy, and so bury it.

Bury that thought that says you are unworthy.

Christ has made you worthy of his love.

And so bury it and don't think any more of it.

That's what he would have you do.

Bury that kind of thought and any other thought that doesn't serve love.

A critical spirit, perhaps?

Jealousy.

Whatever it is.

Jesus would have you bury it because why?

Well, because he was buried for it.

And so he wouldn't want that kind of thought to have power over you.

You're his blood-bought child.

He is paid to set you free to know a perfect kind of life.

That's why he came.

And because you're a new creation with a heart set free, fix your heart on heaven's glory.

All that's holy and beautiful in Christ, his attributes, his perfections, his very heart, the same heart that we just read about earlier, the heart that washes the disciples' feet with towel and basin.

Knowing that that same heart bends down to you to serve you, even now from his exalted position.

Comforting you in your troubles, directing your steps, accompanying and helping us in all of the little daily life's activities.

And though at times he may see fit to remove a little comfort, he's made it clear that he's doing it to make room in our soul for even more.

And so my question this morning to you and to myself is there a price tag that you or I can place on being raised with him on the last day or being the apple of his eye?

Not only now, but for all eternity.

Is there a price tag?

Is there a thing that you would be willing to compromise to give up that kind of value?

How would you respond to that kind of love?

Whatever the thing, large, small, frequent or infrequent, insight of others or out of sight, no matter the form of expression, what is true in every case is that he sees the heart behind the act.

And you will always be rewarded because he's supremely worth it.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Our Lord, we praise you and we thank you for the wonders of your love.

Father, we thank you for the great devotion.

The devotion that has won us, that has was willing to die and to be buried, but also raised for us.

Father, we thank you that you knew not only of the price of Jesus Christ to you, but Lord, you made him known to us that we might know his worth and value and his death and his burial, and also now in his resurrection.

Oh Lord, we praise you and thank you for his great worth.

Having accomplished all of this so that we might in him know it applied to ourselves.

And so, Father, we ask and we pray, Lord, give us to be people who respond to that same love.

Stir up within us a deeper, a deeper heart for you, for your worth, your value, your love, that we might respond in love and good deeds.

For your name's sake and for your glory.

Amen.