CROSS EXAMINATIONS:
BROKEN AND SPILLED OUT

MARK 14:1-11

Being in love makes you do crazy things. You say things you wouldn't normally say. You spend a little more time in front of the mirror. You drink out of the same straw. You write poems even though you're not poetic. Being in love makes you do irrational things. You have this sudden desire to carve names into the bark of perfectly good oak trees. You hold hands while trying to eat burritos. You find a way to fit two people into a bucket seat. But that's the way being in love is. Being in love can be excessive. The pragmatic question "Does this make sense?" doesn't apply to people deeply in love.

I can remember like it was yesterday when I asked my wife's father permission to marry his only daughter. It was a cold, dark November night. I drove around for half an hour trying to figure out the best way for a young, inexperienced kid to ask a no-nonsense father for his daughter's hand.

I finally decided that the best way to approach him was to just explain how utterly in love we really were and that we couldn't live without each other. I stood in her garage fervently praying for several minutes before I went into the house. Not because I was particularly religious, just hoping that I wouldn't get killed. My father-in-law is one of my dearest friends today, but having two daughters of my own, I understand things a little differently today than I did then.

But finally, driven by love of a blond-haired, blue-eyed gal, I mustered the courage to walk through the door (Daniel in the lions' den suddenly made a little more sense to me).

The events of the evening are pretty much a blur to me (must have been that blow I took to the head). Except that I do remember that her dad didn't have a whole lot to say. In fact, the only two things I can remember him asking were some of those ludicrous, seasoned-veteran questions like, "How are you going to support her?" And "If you're so much in love, why can't you wait until you're out of college?" I don't remember my exact response, but I know it was something profoundly mature like, "We're going to live on love."

Hindsight tells me that wasn't the smartest answer I could have given to a concerned father. But at the time it was the best answer I could give about the way I felt about her. I was being excessive and extravagant and impractical. And that's how love can be at times.

But something can happen to us the longer we are in love. It happens almost by osmosis. We grow up. It's not something that happens overnight. But slowly, and ever so surely, we replace costly with practical, exchange extravagant for sensible, spontaneous for responsible, and lavish for useful.

It's not that we stop loving. It's just that the more mature our love becomes, so does our means of expressing it. We begin to pride ourselves in being prudent and conservative people, not given to extravagance in any area of our lives. We are much more comfortable in control. We would rather be considered economical than excessive, and cautious rather than risky.

We suddenly see extravagance as foolishness reserved only for the young at heart, and lavish expressions of love now become wasteful and careless. And without realizing what is happening to us, we begin to view love as needed, but purely ornamental and lacking any real power to bring about useful change. And so we begin to look for ways love can serve us rather than for ways we can serve love.

Think about it from the standpoint of a new believer. We come into worship and sit next to brand-new Christians. It doesn't matter what we're singing or what's going on, tears are streaming down their faces. Whenever the altar is open for anything, they are the first ones in line. They give sacrificially, study the Word with passion, and share their faith with anyone who will listen. They're excessive. They're extravagant. They are lavish in their expressions of love to Christ.

But do you know what some seasoned-veteran Christians say? "Oh, they'll get over it. It's all so new right now, but they'll get a shot of reality and start acting a little more practical." And eventually some do. They find their composure, get realistic, become practical, and settle in. They stop "wasting" their energy on extravagant love for Christ.

Which sets the context for this Gospel story. Jesus is spending a few leisurely hours in the place He loved to be the most. Even Jesus needed a place to be renewed, and Bethany was that place for Him because it was the home of His dearest friends: Lazarus, Mary, and Martha.

But the Good Friday clock is ticking, and Passover is just a few days away. According to Mark 10:33-34 Jesus had said to His disciples, "When we get to Jerusalem the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and teachers of religious law. They will sentence Him to die and hand Him over to the Romans. They will mock Him, spit on Him, beat Him with their whips, and kill Him. But after three days He will rise again" (paraphrased).

And so one gets the feeling that there is tension around the table, but nobody's quite sure how to break the ice. When all of a sudden this "woman" bursts into the room. Mark doesn't say, but John tells us that her name was Mary. She came carrying an alabaster jar full of pure nard, a very expensive ointment. An alabaster jar was probably about the size of a Coke can, with a long neck to pour precious perfume very carefully.

Before anyone can stop her, she does something completely irresponsible--she breaks the neck of the bottle close to the stem and pours the entire bottle on Jesus' head. And when she does, John also tells us that the fragrance of that perfume fills the entire house.

You may be thinking, "What's the big deal? How expensive can a little bottle of perfume be?" Well, let me try to put it into perspective. When you and I need perfume or cologne, we simply drive to the department store, search the glass case, and choose one of our favorites (or one that's on sale). But for them, perfume was a luxury. Pure nard was very rare. It was much more than a commodity. It was valuable. What makes a diamond valuable for us is the fact we have put value on it. Not too many years ago nobody valued diamonds. They were just shiny rocks. But now, because we say they are rare and costly, suddenly they are a luxury.

Diamonds for us is like perfume to them. The few who were fortunate enough to own even a tiny amount of nard simply stored it away as a kind of retirement plan. It became a "nest egg" so that when times got tough, or they could no longer work for a living, they had something to fall back on.

With that in mind, Mark says that Mary had a bottle of pure nard that was worth more than 300 denarii. In Jesus' day that was nearly an entire year's wages.

What would you say the average annual income for a family in our county is? Let me give you a very conservative figure and say $25,000. That means if that alabaster jar were put into modern economic categories, we're looking at a $25,000 bath for Jesus.

Now you can see why the disciples were so upset. Mary had taken what was probably her entire life inheritance and completely wasted it. The Bible says that their jaws dropped to the floor and "they rebuked her harshly" (14:5). My paraphrase of that is, "They let her have it!" They took turns making sure she felt sufficiently guilty for such an irresponsible lack of common sense. "What are you doing? Are you crazy? That was just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen!"

I hate to admit it, but I think the disciples may have a point. Think about it. In a matter of minutes the aroma of that perfume will be gone, and what difference would it have made? What would have been accomplished in the world?

That perfume could have been converted into cash to buy blankets and soup for the poor. $25,000 will buy a lot of bread. That would have been far more practical. After all, the world needs food, not fragrance.

I mean, it's OK to express a little love for Jesus, but let's not go overboard. Couldn't she have expressed her appreciation with flowers or candy or a nice Hallmark card? That would have been a much more prudent use of money. What a waste!

And so I say, "Let her have it, Jesus. Just give it to her good. Set her priorities straight. Hey, I have an idea. Give her that one about: 'Seek first the kingdom of God.' That'll bring her down to earth. That'll teach her a thing or two about acting like an excessive extremist."

Jesus had an indictment, all right. But it wasn't for Mary. It was for the disciples. "Leave her alone. . . . She has done a beautiful thing to me" (v. 6).

It appears we have conflicting views of extravagance. One view is that extravagance is wasteful. The other view is that it is an expression of love. You say, "C'mon, now. Did Jesus really need that much perfume? Even if it was for His upcoming burial, did He really need a $25,000 bath?" No. Jesus didn't need it. It wasn't about an ego trip for Jesus. It didn't boost His self-esteem. But those kinds of questions miss the point of the story.

You see, in the disciples' view the ministry was fast becoming a business to be budgeted rather than a Savior to be loved. Extravagance was no longer a part of their vocabulary. Extravagance was wasteful. Excessive was impractical.

But what they could not see was the heart of lavish love of this grateful woman. Her act of worship was not done for herself but done solely out of love for Jesus.

One of my preaching students at Nazarene Theological Seminary helped me see this passage in a new light last year. She said, "Imagine that your son becomes very ill and you take him the doctor, who says that he has a rare and incurable disease and has a week to live. What would you do?

"Or imagine that your wife is having severe headaches and upon further examination the doctor says that she has a brain tumor and has a week to live. What would you do?

"What would you do if you knew the most precious person in your life only had a few days to live? How would you spend your time? Well," she said, "certainly you would hurt, and it would be very painful, but you would also want to find a way to express your love to that person. And in moments like that, sometimes words are not enough to express how you feel. And so you begin to ask yourself, 'How can I show this person that I love him or her?'

"Then you remember that your son loves baseball cards. Baseball cards can be expensive, but you know how much joy they bring him. And so you rush out to scour the city for all the baseball cards you can find. You buy them by the case. Money is no object. Price is not a concern. You just buy them because you know it will make him happy.

"Then you remember that your wife loves roses. She loves the smell of roses and the shape of roses. And so you go and buy 1,000 red roses as a way to say, 'I love you.' You spare no expense. Cost isn't the issue.

"Why? Because context is everything. It very well might have been silly to buy three cases of baseball cards when nothing was at stake. But when it's life and death, it doesn't seem so silly anymore. A dozen red roses might have been plenty on her birthday, or even just because. But when it's life and death, you have to say 'I love you' in extravagant ways."

Mary had had an encounter with the living Christ, and His extravagant love and acceptance had changed her life. He was the best thing that had ever happened to her. But Jesus had been saying that He was going to Jerusalem where He would die, and she knew that Jesus always told the truth.

She didn't know what to do. She was searching for a way to express her love to Him, and she wanted it to be more than words. And so in an act of uncalculated love she offered Him the most extravagant expression she could imagine. Her perfume was the most lavish outpouring of love she could conceive.

And so she did what she did, not counting the cost. Not because Jesus needed it but because she wanted to tell Him, "You mean everything to me." And because Jesus understood, He said, "She has done a beautiful thing to me."

Can I tell you something? Those kinds of spontaneous expressions of love make some people angry. They don't see the logic. It was the last straw for Judas. He'd had enough. Following Jesus just wasn't practical anymore, and following Him was becoming far too costly.

That was the difference between Mary and Judas. Judas appreciated what following Jesus offered him. But Mary did more than appreciate Jesus--she loved Him. And that makes all the difference in our response.

And so it is with us today. We carefully measure our response to the Lord Jesus lest we appear to be too extravagant. We count our costs of sacrifice lest they be too high for our comfort level. We guard our resources as though they really did belong to us. We withhold our talents as if we had created them. We preserve our dignity by refusing to be too lavish.

And so we file into church every Sunday morning like so many alabaster vases. Contained. Encased. Contents hidden. Self-sufficient. No fragrance at all. Not bad-looking vases. In fact, many are beautiful people. And no doubt many are there because the living Christ lives within them.

But many keep Him bottled up and contained. They come to worship and sit in long rows of beautiful, cold alabaster vases. But the air is full of nothing. And then the beautiful, cold alabaster vases get up and march out into their world with no fragrance and no aroma and no risk. But what they really need is to be broken. Because only when the vase has been shattered can the life get out.

You say, "That's kind of scary. I'd just feel too vulnerable and awkward." Of course it's scary. Brokenness as an expression of love is scary. It's easier to keep up that cold alabaster front. It was certainly costly for Mary. But it's the only way to finally express our love for God, and truthfully, it's the only way to life.

The irony of this story is that Jesus himself was about to offer the most extravagant, lavish, impractical statement of love in the history of the world. In complete abandon, just like that jar, He was about to be broken and spilled out for us.

"Broken and spilled out" is lavish, extravagant, costly love. But it is the only kind of love that is going to change our world. If you want to live the authentic life of perfect love, you have to be willing to be broken and spilled out, which means that when it comes to Jesus, no gift is too costly and no price is too high. Duty is good, but love is beautiful.

I used to pray that on the day I see God face-to-face He would look into my eyes and say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Now I pray that on that day He will look into my eyes and say, "You have done a beautiful thing to me."