"Then Jesus came to Bethany.There they made him a supper; and Martha served: and Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
Then came Mary having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious, very costly, and she brake the box, poured it on his head, and anointed the feet of Jesus; and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the smell of the ointment.
And Judas Iscariot said, Why was not this ointment sold for more than 300 pence, and given to the poor?
And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? She hath wrought a good work on me.
For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she is come beforehand to anoint my body to the burying," (taken from Mark 14 and John 12).
Spikenard. An oil derived from a flowering plant native to Nepal, India, and China. An expensive import at the time, it was used as a perfume, a temple incense, and a spice for wine. Due to its intense woody aroma, it also was used to prepare bodies for burial. Typically sealed with wax in jar or box of stone to keep it pure and contained until ready to use. To open? One would need to break it.
There are a few accounts of women (sometimes specifically named as Mary the sister of Lazarus and Martha, sometimes described as a different woman entirely) bringing an alabaster box of fine perfume and anointing Jesus' head and feet with it. The symbolism of the ointment preparing him for his own burial is both beautiful and heartbreaking. The humble worship displayed in these women sacredly anointing the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one shouldn't be missed.
This act, by both Mary and the unnamed woman, is often used to represent offering Jesus your very best; sacrificing and sanctifying what is most precious to you and laying it at his feet. While reading the accounts a couple weeks ago, a different interpretation hit me hard. I hope I can convey it well enough here.
Bringing him our smiles and worship and best days and finest prayers and praising him with our God-given talents can be easy… and giving up that perfume, worth a small fortune, may not have been such a simple thing. It was so striking, in fact, that those present had the mind to question why it wasn't sold to provide for the poor. This act was not so plain. This act was not so common. So, for us? What about offering instead something that is difficult to concede? Something that the mortality in us clings to so naturally. What about giving up our favorite sin? Handing over our sweetest grudge? Surrendering our deepest source of pride?
What if your alabaster box contained your most expensive mortal weakness?
The thing putting the most distance between you and God?
The one that would cost you the most to let go of.
This one is a toughy for me.
There is a relationship in my life that has years of built up bitterness and resentment. So much so that the good memories are sadly often clouded by the not so good ones. So much so that I can go months with hardly talking to them and be just fine.
This relationship is something that, if I dwell upon for too long, brings out a very ugly side of my heart.
This would be my most expensive offering and one that I still have not completely handed over to the Lord.
Because breaking that box… well that would cost me too much.
It would cost me my stubbornness, something I have refined apparently since birth. It would strip me of my right to demand for restitution and justice with this individual and instead have me simply forgive. It would mean loosening my grip on feelings that have been accumulating over years.
The price would be admitting and handing over my worst flaws, the things that truly put the greatest distance between me and my Maker.
And I’m working on it.
So yes, I love the symbolism of Mary and her ointment as offering up our very best to the Savior… but while he wants our best efforts, the whole point of what he did in that garden and on that cross was so that we could give him our very worst. My very worst. My weak. My ugly. My broken.
You’d think it would be easy, right?
"Come unto me you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest…" (Matthew 11)
Trade in my turmoil and struggle and frustration and bitterness for this rest that Jesus so willingly promises? Such an obvious choice. Duh, Ciara.
I labor often with this relationship in my life. I wrestle with it and it weighs me down. It angers me and exhausts me. I crave that rest; to simply hand over this struggle, release myself of the shackles, so to speak... so why on earth am I still stuck?
Because I know that part of me also craves justice. For wrongs to be righted. It's the Peter in me. It causes me to 'cut off ears' and ask 'how often can a person sin against me and I forgive him?!'
So lately I've been trying to make more room for the Jesus in me.
The Jesus who calls me compassionate, even when most of the people in my life, including myself, do not see it.
The Jesus who wants nothing more than to rid me of this struggle. Who wants to show me how to simply forgive, even if apologies never come. Even if change is a long way off.
The Jesus who, even on the cross, said, "forgive them, for they know not what they do," (Luke 23).
The Jesus who healed that very ear that Peter cut (Luke 22).
The Jesus who answered Peter's vastly human question, "until seventy times seven," (Matthew 18).
For now, my alabaster box is still tucked behind my back. Unbroken. Still sealed. Still containing my most expensive inner struggle. I take it out every now and then with the very real intention of just smashing it open, laying it at the Savior's feet, and being done with it. But I'm just not there yet. I'm learning that working on the heart takes time, a lot of humility, and a whole lot of that Jesus.
Mary anointed Jesus with her perfume. An expensive gift to resemble her precious feelings for what he was to her: a Friend, a Savior, a King. And what did Christ say of this act? She has done something good and beautiful for me... she has done what she could. Even though my struggle is still a work in progress, I hope one day to be able to follow Mary and this unnamed woman; to anoint Christ with an offering of my own. To make it far less about this broken relationship in my life and far more about Jesus. The Jesus who was sent to heal the brokenhearted, to bind up the wounded, and to make weak things strong. The Jesus whose grace is sufficient for me. My ugly. My weak. My broken.
