This story of Jesus being anointed appears in all four gospels and in three of the four it is the event that comes immediately before the Last Supper and because Jesus alone knew that his death was coming in just a 24 or 48 hours, and he alone knew that they would not have time to anoint his body properly before placing it in the tomb, he says that what this woman has done will be remembered forever because she has prepared his body beforehand for burial. Jesus knew what was coming, so the act of this woman had special and profound meaning for him.
It’s interesting that while he says that this woman’s actions will be remembered for all time, Mark doesn’t include her name, and when we look at the other gospels we aren’t completely sure who she is. In John it says that this woman was Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus who all lived in Bethany, but most scholars believe she was Mary Magdalene who had not only been a prostitute but at one point in her life was possessed by seven demons. Mary Magdalene knew very well the brokenness and pain of life. She knew what it was to wrestle with sin and to feel trapped in a life that she didn’t want to be living but felt powerless to change. Being possessed by demons, she knew what it was like to battle forces and powers that were beyond her ability to overcome and I’m sure there were times in her life when she felt helpless and hopeless. Of all the people Jesus met during his ministry, maybe it was Mary who really understood that our lives are really just dust and ashes.
While we may not know the depth of Mary’s pain, I think there are parts of Mary’s life that we can all identify with. We all wrestle with a past that is filled with disappointments and sin. We have all said and done things of which we are ashamed we all wish we could just wipe the slate clean. We all wrestle with issues and circumstances in life that on our own we can’t overcome, whether those issues are emotional, physical, financial, relational or spiritual, we all at times feel trapped and powerless in situations and like Mary we end up feeling helpless or hopeless or both. There are many ways where, if we are honest with ourselves, we can identify with Mary before she encountered Jesus.
But Mary’s relationship with Jesus changed her life. The power of his forgiveness and love changed Mary completely. Jesus not only drove out the demons Mary faced, but when he forgave her sin, it set her free from her past and helped her truly embrace a new life here and now. It was the power of God in Jesus that transformed Mary, and what I love about her is that she knew exactly what God’s love and grace had done for her, While she knew she didn’t deserve God’s grace and could never repay God for his love, she accepted both completely and allowed it to change her. Mary knew exactly what God had done for her and she was grateful, grateful for the forgiveness God had given and grateful for the new life she received from Jesus. So it was gratitude that moved Mary to give herself the way she did to Jesus.
As we enter into this Lenten season what Mary teaches us is that tonight is not just a time for us to acknowledge that we are sinners and that we need to repent and turn back to God. This is also a night to understand just how powerful the touch of God’s grace and love can really be. Like Mary, we don’t deserve God’s grace and we cannot repay God for his love, but God’s love and grace are here for us to receive. Tonight while we acknowledge that we are dust and that we are sinners who need to repent and turn back to God, we are also reminded that it is our repentance that leads to God’s forgiveness. It is confessing our sin that leads to God’s grace. Ashes lead to new life – if we are willing to surrender to God and accept his love and allow his power to work with in us.
Mary shows us that God’s forgiveness and grace are real and transformative if we are willing to accept it, but Mary also shows us that we need to be truly grateful for the power of God’s love and grace. Mary showed her gratitude by literally giving all she had to Jesus. The bottle of nard Mary used to anoint Jesus was probably worth a year’s wages, so it was a valuable gift that was given directly to Jesus. It upset the disciples that this gift was given to Jesus in such an extravagant and personal way and not given to the work of Jesus and the disciples. It is interesting that it was Judas who complained the most and said that the money was wasted on Jesus and not given to the work they were doing with the poor, but Mary wasn’t giving to the work of Jesus, she was giving to Jesus and her giving came from a grateful heart. Mary gave as an act of devotion and worship because she knew that it was through Jesus that she had been forgiven and given a new life. So Mary shows us that we not only need to find ways to accept God’s love and grace but we need to find ways to worship God with the same kind of love and devotion. We need to find ways to worship and love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength which is the first and greatest commandment.
What will it look like for us to give ourselves to God the way Mary did? What will an extravagant gift of our heart look like as we come together to worship Jesus? To be honest, I don’t know. I don’t know what it will look like for you or me, but I do know that it will have to cost us something. Mary’s gift cost her everything and I’m not just talking financially. Mary knew that her act of worship and devotion to Jesus done in such a public way would be looked down upon by those who were gathered around the table. She knew that her reputation preceded her and that people would talk about what she was doing, but she was risked rebuke and ridicule because she was so grateful. So our worship of God needs to cost us something, maybe it’s time and changing our priorities on Sunday or during the week. Maybe it’s money and giving financially the way God is calling us to give. Maybe the cost will be facing ridicule from family, friends or neighbors who think it’s silly to worship and give our lives to God. So many people think being a devoted follower of Jesus who sincerely tries to live like Christ in the world today is just a little crazy, so maybe the cost is to our reputation and standing as we place our faith out there for the world to see. I don’t know what the cost will be for us, I just know that real worship is costly and the season of Lent is a good time for us to count that cost.
What we are going to see in the last 24 hours of Jesus life was that his worship of God was costly. Everything Jesus did during his life and particularly during his last day was an act of love and devotion to God. Jesus didn’t just do all he did to save us, he did it to be faithful to the will of God, so his arrest, trial, beating and crucifixion were all acts of worship that cost him everything, so we see both in Jesus and in Mary that true worship is costly. What will it cost us? What will we be willing to give God during these next six weeks and how can our giving to God during the season of Lent transform our lives?
By making sure her story was told, Jesus was making sure that we take some time to reflect on the life and the worship Mary. Her life was changed because she accepted God’s grace and love. Her gratitude led her to worship God completely and while her gift to God was costly – she received a blessing of life and faith that few others in the gospel received. There is no one else Jesus said would be remembered the way he said she would be remembered. As we begin this journey of Lent tonight, we need to repent and confess that we are sinners in need of God’s grace, but we also need to accept God’s grace and allow God’s love to change us. We need cultivate grateful hearts that will not only learn how to worship God, but will learn how to count the cost and give to Jesus all that he asks for.
