Pouring Out

Intro

Many of us are in search for the new killer app. The one that adds minutes or hours back into your day. The one that helps you not only shed the pounds, but allow you to eat all the food you want. Not only that, it adds strength, stamina, muscle. We want the eating plan that promotes health and helps with the aches and pains that we fill. The app that tells us where we are deficient and how we can get a healthy immune system. The app that provides daily wisdom to be a better human, employee or boss, brother or sister, son or daughter. The app the provides the quick fix, to difficult problems. The app that says we can have all these benefits, at little to no personal cost. Quick fixes, as long as it doesn’t cost too much.

We see in this passage, that the religious leaders and the disciples are looking for the quick fix, meanwhile unnamed woman is willing to sacrifice for Jesus.

Big Idea: How much are you willing to give up? How much are you willing to sacrifice? What are you holding on to?

Context:

Jesus has just explained to the disciples the sign of the last days and his subsequent second coming. And they are in Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of unleavened bread.

There were three major feasts in Israel’s calendar.

Feast of Weeks, which would be at the end of the Spring harvest. The purpose of this festival was to teach the people of God to be a steward of the land God have given them. It was also an opportunity to care for those that did not have a good crop that year. To share with those in need. This was a one day affair, but called the feast of weeks because it took place 7 weeks after the feast of unleavened bread.

The feast of booths or tabernacles took place in the early fall or autumn. This took place a few days after the Davy of atonement, which was a day of fasting and a rembrance that God does provide forgiveness of sin through sacrifice. The high priest would enter into the holy place in the temple and provide atonement for the sins of the nation. But a few days later Israel would make their pilgrmiage to Jerusalem for the feast of booths. This was to celebrate the ingathering of the summer fruit. Booths or tents was a reminder that Israel wandered in the wilderness, and God provided for them there and is providing for them now.

The third feast, which is why Jesus and his disciples are in Jerusalem to begin with is the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. This too was a harvest festival, meaning the people of Israel would harvest the first fruits of barley. The feast of Passover would be celebrated. I don’t want to go into too much detail today, because we will talk about passover and the last supper next week.

But just know the Passover meal was a reminder of Israel’s redemption and God’s rescue of his people from bondage and slavery.

Just as an aside, Israel celebrated these days, and they had meaning. They had theological significance. It was their liturgy. Which means work of the people. Or public service. Every church has a liturgy. Yes..even the big churches have an order that they follow. So we too have a liturgy, an order, with theological significance. We don’t do it to seem cool, and yes, liturgies are becoming increasingly popular. We do it because we believe that a liturgy focused on God’s grace, which is what this is, forms us as followers to remember who we are in Christ. How extravagant the grace of God is on our behalf and how we are to live in light of that truth.

Thomas Cranmer says, “What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.”

What he is saying is that we do what we love and eventually the brain will catch up to us. So we are seeking to form and capture your love, retraining or loves, reorienting them toward the gospel through our liturgy. And pretty soon in a little over month we will enter into advent, and again we will be shaped to not only celebrate Jesus’ first coming, but to look toward and anticipate Christ’s second advent. His second coming.

So as we look at the intent of Passover, the irony of what is going on in the moment is tragic. It is sad. While Israel is to be celebrating a supernatural, miraculous, merciful, loving and gracious act of God, her religious leaders were seeking to find ways to kill him. The word for seeking means to investigate. They are actively plotting to find a loophole, a way where they can finally put an end to this prophet. What he did at the temple was the last straw! No more. We have to put an end to this. But we have to do it on the sly. Because Israel has had a history of rebellions occurring during this festival. The population of the city swells. But you have the reminder as you walk in that you are not a sovereign nation. The Roman Empire is going to have extra security on hand to prevent any type of uprising. Every soldier you pass by on your way in would be a reminder that you are still in exile. The promises of God have not been fulfilled. Why? Because there is a pagan nation, a nation that worships gods and has no respect for you or your way of life. These are the people that you have to pass by on your way in to worship. And you would be looking for hope. HOpe that the messiah, the annointed one would help free God’s people from the Roman army. And you have this man Jesus, who is claiming to be a prophet, is one who has authority. Is he the one who will free us from this captivity? So if you are a religious leader who is tired of being called out, and tired of being told to repent, but you don’t want to start an insurrection, because Jesus is popular. You have to do an end around. You have to find ways around the rules in order to get this whole things to word.

Ironic that, Jesus Christ, whose life and ministry represent our redemption from sin, our exodus from sinfulness, and the kingdom of God being brought on the scene as our king, will die during the festival that is meant to celebrate God’s grace and mercy.

We have a plot to kill Jesus, but there is an interruption. In the midst of it. Now this is another Marcan Sandwich. We’ve seen many of these throughout the gospel of Mark. What he does in a sandwich is that he will interrupt a story with another story, then he will complete the first story.

The point of these interruptions is to pay close attention to what is being taught.

Israel had imbedded in their calendar reminders of God’s faithfulness. What are some ways the church does this currently or what might be some ways to have reminders?

Jesus came for the outsiders

We see this in a few different ways. Jesus and his disciples are staying in Bethany which is about 2 miles outside of Jerusalem. Where is Jesus staying? He is staying in the house of Simon the Leper. The fact that Mark uses the name might indicate that he was known to the reader. Leprosy was a severe skin disease. And if you were a leper, you were considered in the Old Testment Law to be unclean. Which meant you couldn’t be around people. Similar to having COVID, you would need to quarantine. But unlike today, where we have ways of keeping in contact with others, to have leprosy was really a social life killer. You were ostracized from your community. Simon would have been an outsider. Now we don’t have direct evidence, but I would venture to guess that Simon was probably healed by Jesus from his leprosy. And we know that Jesus often times does the unthinkable when he heals people.

Mark 1:40-45 “And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.”

Jesus shows us the gospel in cleansing a man who was unclean. He was enacting 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

So here he is at the house, most likely having dinner with his disciples and Simon. Mark 14:3 (CCSS Mk): That they were reclining at table suggests a formal banquet, and recalls the earlier scenes of Jesus’ table fellowship: his supper with sinners (2:15) and messianic banquets in the desert (6:35–44; 8:1–10).

This would have just been a meal amongst the men. The women would have served the men their food, but the only women that would have been allowed would have been the servants.

But what happened. A woman, who was not supposed to be there comes in. Now is could have been easy for Jesus to have said, hey wait a minute, you’re breaking all sorts of cultural rules and regulations. Don’t you know that you are not allowed to be here amongst the men. But what does Jesus do? He does the same things he has done since he has been there. The people that are the needy, the ones who are desperate, the ones who realize how dependent they are the ones he invites. The ones he encourages. Those that think they have it altogether, who think they make a few mistakes here and there, but overall they have their lives together. They don’t think they need Jesus. Hey…I’ve gotten this far on my own, I’m doing pretty good so far, what do I need Jesus for. It will only be when those who think they have it altogether, realize how fragile they are, and repent of following their own ways, their own ideas, and ask for forgiveness and believe that the good news Jesus proclaims is also good news for them, that they will no longer be an outsider, but an insider. Israel has it backwards. We too have it backwards.

But Jesus, looks at the heart and sees this woman, who is willing to break the social and cultural norms of her day to get close to her master, her teacher, her Lord, her king, her God.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Costly Response to Jesus.

Capital cost

So this woman who is not supported to be there in the first place does something really unthinkable as we will see from the disciples response. The perfume the woman used is described as made from nard, an aromatic oil extracted from a root found in India. It was sealed in an alabaster flask to preserve it, and the flask would have had to be broken to use the perfume. So its not like she sprayed a couple of spritz of perfume and called it a day. Once she breaks it, there is nothing left. It’s all gone. And this is not a $50 bottle of perfume or cologne. We see in vs. 5 that this perfume was worth 300 denarii. 1 denarius was a days wage for a laborer. So we are not talking about an insignificant amount of money. This could possibly have been a family heirloom that was meant to be kept in the family as a security fund. Only used or sold when times were tight. But instead pours it on Jesus and is symbolically gesturing that everything she has belongs to him.

Sinclair Ferugson says that she “In gratitude for her past, poured her future and her security on Jesus.”

Think about that for a moment. As a response to who Jesus is and what he represents. She is willing to pour out her future and security on Jesus.

Is that our response to Jesus? Would I be willing to give up our home, if Jesus demanded it? Would I be willing to sacrifice the luxuries and securities that we have for Christ? I don’t know. I hope so. What about you?

The cost does not just stope at being sacrificially generous. She endures a cultural Cost.

We already know that she shouldn’t be in the room. But listen to the response she receives. The disciples were indignant. The word means flaring of the nostrils.

Have you ever seen someone so made that their nostrils begin to flare. You see the biofeedback that someone is about to unload on someone. I’ve been in situations where you could just see the face begin to contort, the anger begin to build, and the words begin to spew out.

This is the disciples response. These are the guys who have been with Jesus the longest and by now you would think that they would understand Jesus enough to respond that way.

Instead they give her a stern warning. They are basically ”you fool, don’t you know that you just wasted this expensive perfume, think of all the people you could have helped, if you would have just sold it.” You could have taken care of the poor. Why would you do such as wasteful thing?

You may not agree with the delivery of the disciples, but they do have a point. Right? During the Passover feast, and the other feasts that we mentioned early it was customary to care for the poor.

So she experienced the cultural cost of being fully devoted to Christ. Not just from people on the outside, but from his own disciples.

And as I have been thinking about that, I’m faced with a conviction of how often do I either silently, or vocally disapprove of people’s dedication to Christ. I make the claim that they are too intense. They need to chill out. Or they stand out too much, they are too radical. I was listening to an audiobook the other day about a pastor in Oregon and his book the ruthless elimination of hurry. And some of his practices seem pretty radical. Like he his Sabbath practice is to turn off his phone on Friday night and not turn it back on till Saturday night. That to me seems intense. Weird, counter cultural. Backwards. But the heart and motive is to endure the cultural cost to follow Jesus. To rest in him. To realize that we don’t need to have our devices feeding us content all our waking hours. Its okay to put it away and rest from it. That’s just one example, where I see something and think, man that is radical, intense. I am being a disciple. Think of all the good you could be doing on your phone. You could be texting people, telling them you are praying for them, calling friends, reaching out, being available.

Are you willing to face the cultural cost of following Christ? To face, doubt, backlash, flaring of nostrils to follow Christ?

Costs are recognized by a Good and loving God.

But notice the direction of the sacrifice. The woman is not saying, Jesus if you do such and such I will then sacrifice. That is not grace is it. Maybe you’ve done this before, I’ve heard stories of people that try to make deals with God.

One of my roommates in college would doe this. He was struggling in his engineering degree program and he would tell me “Hey J.C., I made a deal with God, that if he would give me an A in my class that I would quit smoking.”

I don’t think God works like that. He doesn’t owe us anything. But he does, because he is merciful and gracious give us gifts. First and fore most is the gift of his son. The gift of salvation that we receive by faith and repentence. And as response to the gift, we are called to live a life of obedeince. Which means we pay the price of no longer doing things our way, but doing it his way.

And this unnamed woman, shows Jesus her cost, sacrificing her security and her future.

How does Jesus respond?

Does Jesus quote Isaiah 64:6 “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

No! He says that she was done a beautiful thing. God does not view Spirit empowered works by His children as filthy rags. Self-righteous works yes. But those done by faith empowered by the Spirit. No

Indeed, one could say that the entire “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11 is a catalog of the great deeds of the saints. Think of all that was done by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Samson, David, Samuel, and others. Are all their deeds “filthy rags” in God’s sight?

Of course, we should not be surprised that God is pleased with the good works of his people. As Hebrews 11:1-2 tells us, God is pleased with these works precisely because they were done out of faith. They are good works generated from the work of God’s own Spirit in the hearts of the saints (Eph. 2:10). Sure, they are not perfect works—they are always tainted by sin to some degree. And no, we cannot think for a moment that they merit salvation. They do not. But they are the works of God’s own sons and daughters, and he delights in them.

Yet notwithstanding, the person of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works are also accepted in him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblameable and unreproveable in God’s sight; but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied by many weaknesses and imperfections (WCF 16.6).

God’s delight in the works of his people is not, as some might think, a recipe for pride. Rather, it is a tremendous (and much needed) encouragement to those of us laboring in ministry. Our efforts can seem futile. We often find ourselves spent and exhausted.

What a refreshment to our souls to know that our Father in heaven actually delights in these labors! It is like salve on our blisters and a balm to our aching muscles to know that he is pleased with the faith-driven works of his children.

He is like a Father who sees the painting his 5-year old brought home from school. He doesn’t pour scorn on the effort because it is not a Rembrandt. Instead, he takes the painting, with all its flaws, and sticks it on the refrigerator for all to see.

Indeed, it is this very hope—that God might be pleased with our labors—that Jesus lays out as a motive for us. For our hope is that one day we might hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:23).

Done more than you Understand.

I don’t believe she has intended to anoint Jesus for death, for burial. She was anointing him, which was a hospitable gesture to be sure. But did she know in that moment that she was preparing him for death in a few days. No. She is acting on faith and is giving Jesus her everything.

And So often is the case with us. When we do things in his name, when we walk in faithful obedience, God takes those acts and weaves them into the tapestry of life he is creating in our midst.

The word of encouragement, the kind deed, the offer of hospitality often does more than we realize, more than we understand. And there may be people from years past, that are a part of the kingdom now, whom you never realized that in the moment you had with them, the moment that seemed insignificant that a seed was planted and later began to grow.

Remembered

We are literally fulfilling that promise right now.

Betrayal

We have the end of the Sandwich. We have this beautiful scene of a woman who sacrifices her comfort and future, and Judas and the chief priests who are seeking comfort and looking seeking to control their own future.

What about you?

Are you looking for your own comfort? Are you seeking to secure your own future? Or are you willing to trust Jesus Christ with your future and comfort?

Former is easy, that is our habit. The latter is difficult, challenging, a little scary, but God, in his mercy and forgiveness, gives us the strength to handover our treasures to God and to trust him with them.

How do we do this? There are many directions we can take this, so I don’t want to go down too many rabbit trails but let me give you 1 or 2 suggestions.

1 may be to take some time this week and ask some trusted people to help you seek and discern what are some areas that you are holding on to. I would be more than happy to help you discern an area or two that you need to trust the Lord with. So take a brother or sister in Christ and invite them to pray with you and for you to help discern where God is calling you to deeper trust, deeper faithfulness. You were never meant to live the Christian life alone, in isolation. That is why one of our core values is to be community focused. To true bear one anothers burdens as the Scriptures call us to.

2 - I think one of our most precious assets we have in our culture is time. We are all given the same amount. Different people have different gifts, different talents, different starting points, but we all have the same amount of time. And many of us, myself included, face the challenge of not feeling like we have a enough time. The resource feels scarce. So here is the way we can offer our time (this precious resource to God). That is to take time each and everyday, for silence and solitude. Spend 30 seconds doing nothing, just being still. Then spend time with God in hearing him through his word and speaking to him through prayer. Sacrifice your precious time and trust Jesus with it.

When we say we love Jesus, it means we are willing to hand our comforts and our futures to him? What are they for you? Are you willing to give them to him?