Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am delighted to welcome you to another week of the last month of this year, the month of December 2023. My prayer is that God will lead you to do every good thing you are meant to do this year, so that His rewards that are also meant to be yours by doing so will be yours without delay, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As we see in the bible, just some days before our Lord Jesus was crucified, a dinner was given in His honour in Bethany, where He had raised Lazarus from the dead. And Mary, the sister of Lazarus, took advantage of the moment to celebrate Him in an unexpected and outrageous way. What did she do? Here is the account:
“Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “[It was intended] that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”” (John 12:3-8NIV)
Did you see that? Just to honour Jesus, this woman poured on His feet a whole jar of perfume that was worth one year’s wages of a hired worker. When did she start planning to do this? We would not know. How did she get this jar of very expensive perfume? We would not know. But we do know that what she did that day was not well-received by most of the people that witnessed it. Why? It was outrageous!
To say the fact, it is outrageous to use one year’s salaries to buy a bottle of perfume and then waste everything on one person’s feet in few minutes. Many would even consider it irresponsible to use up that kind of expensive perfume in few months. But Mary did not use it up in few months but in few minutes. And she did it without any feeling of guilt or reluctance. She did it cheerfully and even used her hair to clean the Lord’s feet, as she poured the perfume on them.
Now why did she do that? Her reason for doing so is actually beyond what we can imagine. But it is clear that Jesus meant so much to her that she wanted to honour Him in such a way that anyone who heard about what she did would surely say, “What? Is that not too much?” And that was exactly what happened. Those who witnessed what she did were all like, “Stop! What are you doing? Is this not too much?” In fact, Judas Iscariot protested seriously against it and said that she should have given the perfume to the Lord so that they would sell it and give the money to the poor.
But then, to everyone’s surprise, the Lord did not stop Mary or rebuke her for doing what she did. Instead, He said what she did was done by the leading of the Spirit. In fact, He added that it was God that made her save that perfume for that moment, to prepare Him for His burial. In other words, if she had not honoured Him the way she did that day, the opportunity to do so would have eluded her forever, for it was during that same period that He was arrested and killed. But because she did it, the Lord said, as recorded by both Matthew and Mark in their gospels, wherever the gospel is proclaimed, what she did will also be told, in memory of her. And that is what I am doing here. (Cf. Matt 26:13; Mark 14:9)
In any case, what is the point of this story? First, it is that we must desire to honour Jesus in outrageous ways, in ways that will make those around us wonder whether we are the only ones He is good to. That is because He deserves it. Second, it is that we must learn to pray that God will always lead us to recognise every opportunity to specially honour the Lord that we must not miss in life and to also be ready to utilise it. Otherwise, we will miss those special rewards that are meant to be ours alone.
Now perhaps the Spirit of God is already telling you that this year-end gives you an opportunity to do something rare, something outrageous to honour the Lord. It will be wise for you to listen and act without delay. Otherwise, the opportunity to do so may never show up again. And if that should happen, your reward also will never be yours. My prayer is that just as Mary, King Solomon and Barnabas did not miss their opportunities to honour God in very outrageous ways and be unusually rewarded by Him, you too will not miss yours. Amen. (Cf. 1Kings 3:4-15; Acts 4:36-37)
Have a great week.
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