Extravagent Love

In John 12 we find Jesus in a room with a very interesting mix of people Now this is a powerful time.  Jesus has just raised Lazarus.  The buzz around Jesus is started to grow, for good and for ill.  Some are saying he is the Messiah and praising him.  Some are plotting to kill him.  He is headed to Jerusalem.  The triumphal entry lies just ahead.

But now he is in the room with a select group of people.  And all of them are, in essence, interacting with him.  And from this moment, we learn a lot.  Because these diverse people represent many ways of being engaged with Jesus.

One of the people in the room is Judas.  I think it is not too hard to figure out that we aren’t supposed to be like Judas.  We all know how that turned out.   But you know, in reality, a lot Christians are kind of like Judas.  Judas is the keeper of the resources.  He has the money.  He is the one who parcels out what the disciples and Jesus have to work with.

And his mind set it clear.  He sees himself as part of the inner core, he is.  He thinks he and Jesus are “like this”.  He sits there next to Jesus and from the position of perceived privilege and power, he looks out on the rest of “those” people, and he judges.  He thinks he can be a gate keeper of God’s love, even perhaps God’s grace.

In this case he is not happy with what he sees.  When he sees Mary anoint Jesus with expensive stuff, he is frankly, offended.  “What a waste!” he says.  And he judges.  Instead of celebrating Mary’s love of Jesus, her honoring of him, he judges.   Sometimes Christians get like that.  They have their place.  They are part of the in crowd. And from that positive they judge.  

Then there is Lazarus… resurrected, given new life.  The person powerfully touched by God.  It is interesting that Lazarus is quietly present, as those who have been touched powerfully by God’s love often are.  There is a place for this I think, and I like Lazarus better for his reserve.  He doesn’t put himself in the forefront.  Doesn’t do what some seem to do, almost boast in what God has done, as if it is somehow about them.  He is just accepting, and rests quietly in the presence of Christ.  There are certainly those of us who are in this place.  And that’s OK.  But it is clear Lazarus is not the focus of the story.

Then there is Martha, busily doing her acts of Service.  Doing the right things. Cleaning, feeding, making it all happen.  There is a place for this too, of course.  But Martha the doer is also not the focus of this story.  In fact in some of the other versions of the story, Jesus actually gently rebukes Martha, for being too concerned about doing things, and thinking that her value to Him was in what she did.  In Luke 10 Jesus says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Which brings us to Mary.  She doesn’t help.  As far as we know Jesus hasn’t done anything big in her life, like raise her from the dead.  But what she does do is offer, amazing, extravagant, forget about the cost, forget about what it looks like, forget everything, kind of love. 

The most important here thing is the extravagance! Mary took a most valuable thing, this amazingly expensive perfume, and she dumped it all over Jesus’ feet.  We’re used to giving tokens of our affection and love as presents, and there’s nothing wrong with that as it shows that the person to whom we’re giving means something to us. But it is different when the giving gets costly and extravagant.  A matter of giving all.  A matter of going above and beyond what is rational and reasonable.

Then there is Mary’s humility! Notice where Mary is?  Simply at Jesus feet.  What do we think of when we think of a person at another person’s feet?  Arrogance?  A person trying to pu themselves in a position of power?  I think of a child at the feet of a parent.  Or we might picture a follower, a learner. 

But what really jumps out at me is how unselfconsciousness Mary is! We read that Mary wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair. Now we might think that was an odd thing to do, wouldn’t it have been better to have wiped his feet with her hands or a cloth? But it was more than an odd thing to do, because in Palestine no respectable girl would appear in public with her hair unbound – loose hair meant a loose woman! But Mary didn’t think about that, she was in a world of her own with Jesus, and couldn’t care what people thought!  

Mary gave the greatest gift a person can offer God

Extravagant love

We know god loves us loves us that way… that God’s love is extravagant, even scandalous…and extravagant love calls for extravagant love.  Nothing more, really to say

Extravagant love….

That is what Mary offered Jesus,

And this tells us, that this is where we must start

Before we worry about what God has done from a practical perspective…

Before we start making ourselves the moral keepers of the world..

Before we start worrying about what we need to do….

We are to turn to Christ with extravagant love

Donald Miller points this out in one of his books suggesting that the entire Bible narrative is about our love relationship with God.

“Perhaps the reason the scripture includes so much poetry in and outside the narrative, so many parables and stories… is because it is attempting to describe a relational break people tragically experienced with God, and a disturbed relational history people have had since then, and further more a relational dynamic people must embrace in order to have a relational intimacy with God once again, thus healing themselves of the crap they get into while looking for a relationship that makes them feel whole.”

Its about a relationship, a love relationship… this thing we call faith

And so being Christ’s is all about - Extravagant love

Flopping ourselves down at the feet of Christ

And making holy fools of ourselves

For the sake of our love for Christ…..

Think about that as the starting place

Extravagant love….

That is what Mary offered Jesus, and for that

She earned a place in all the Gospels… all of them

As a model of faith

As a role model for us