Sometimes You Gotta' Break Things to Do the Best Thing

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While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
                                                                                    -Mark 14:3
 
Sometimes to give your best, you have to break something.
 
Nard perfume was derived from the very rare spikenard plant.  Wikipedia has more interesting background on it, but suffice to say it only grows at very high elevations in rocky soil—all of which made harvesting it very difficult.
 
This was a lavish gift that the woman poured out on Jesus. It was the kind of gift you’d use in a kingly inauguration ceremony.
 
In John’s biography of Jesus, John tells us her name: Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus. She was the one who sat at Jesus’s feet while her sister Martha whipped up dinner in the kitchen.  She had been there when Jesus had raised Lazarus from the grave.
 
Mary had met Jesus and seen what he could do. Here was a power and glory and life that could overthrow death. The glory of Jesus radically relativized every other good she had in her life. What could a couple thousand dollar equivalent jar of perfume compare to the power to triumph over the grave?  
 
In her encounters with Jesus, what we see of Mary is that she isn’t especially calculating. She’s devoted. She’s all-in. There’s no pretense, not holding anything back. She doesn’t care what those around her think of her (they grouse about how expensive this gift was as we’ll see tomorrow).
 
Sometimes to give your best, you have to break something.
 
Sometimes to do the right thing it looks like recklessness to the people around you.
 
Sometimes to do the best thing requires giving up a really valuable thing.
 
For most of us who are following Jesus, at some point you’re going to have an opportunity to pour out your own alabaster jar of pure nard.  All the math will tell you not to do it.  Maybe all the people around you will counsel you against it.
 
But Jesus is worth it.
 
What do you think a relationship with Jesus that radically relativizes everything else looks like? What’s keeping you from that kind of a relationship? Is there an opportunity today to surrender something valuable to the one who is worth giving everything to?

2 Comments

Great, concrete example, Jan. Thanks for your honesty.
I have to give up my selfishness, especially over using money to treat myself instead of paying my debts. I also have to be mindful of where I can sacrifice to help others.

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