April 1, 2001
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on The Cross and Beyond: Today in the fifth of the sermons for the Lenten season on “Love On The Cross And Beyond, Mary the sister of Lazarus and Paul the apostle and writer share with us their great love for Jesus the Christ. Mary literally pours out her love for Jesus. Paul wants the Philippians and us to know how Jesus has changed and transformed his life. The love and life of Christ poured out for him on the cross is the same love he pours out to the church at Philippi. Mary’s story is demonstrative and dramatic. She
is the person we know who expresses his or her faith artistically. She is among
the singers, the actors, the painters, the dancers and sculptors. Mary is not
unthinking. Remember that Luke describes another time when Jesus visited this
family, and Mary sat at the feet of Jesus listening and learning. But when it
comes to expressing her love for Jesus, she finds the most dramatic way possible
to show her feelings. She literally
pours out her love for Jesus. This story of Jesus’ anointing is so important to the church’s
understanding of the prediction of his death that each of the four gospels [the
others are Matthew 26.6-13; Mark 14. 3-9; Luke 7. 36-40] tells it. John locates
it immediately after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, so we are not too
surprised that Jesus is still in Bethany at the home of his friends for a
celebratory dinner. Table fellowship is one of the ways honor people who have
become good friends, or who are deserving of special honor. That is the reason
for all the intense menu planning that happens when there is an anniversary,
birthday, wedding, baby, bridal, couple, or whatever kind of shower is being
planned. Sharing food is one way we share hospitality and gratitude. In the case of Mary, she along with her brother and sister are grateful
that Jesus had called Lazarus out of his burial place. But not everyone was
pleased that Jesus had done such an incredible thing. Instead of sharing in the
joy the Pharisees put out the word that there was a warrant for Jesus’ arrest. So this family of friends was not only hosting Jesus, they were harboring
him as well. His presence was worth the risk, and in their home, Jesus found a
safe place for himself and his disciples. Every thing and every body is in their traditional place. Lazarus is
sitting, actually reclining at the table with Jesus and the disciples. Martha is
doing what she does best. She has
the gift of culinary expertise, and is preparing and serving the meal. Then there is Mary. She is so touched and so grateful for what Jesus has done that she goes into her room, gets some perfume from the dresser, comes into the dining room, and approaches Jesus. She is holding a bottle of perfume, made of pure nard. Nard was a fragrance so rare and expensive that was usually reserved for use on for festive occasions, for healing, and to consecrate people and places. Mary pours the perfume on his feet and wipes it with her hair, filling the air of the whole house with its aroma. We know that Jesus has not just arrived, he has been in their home a
while, so we can assume that his feet have already been washed. Mary is not
providing a simple act of hospitality. Instead what she has done is offer an act
of gratitude for bringing her brother back from the dead. It is also an act so
extraordinary, that it would have shocked people in her day – it would likely
shock people in this day too. It was shocking because what she did was absolutely indiscreet and
immodest. In that day, no self-respecting woman would have her hair unbound and
loose in the presence of a guest, not even a good friend like Jesus, let alone
use her hair as a towel, not even at home. Yet she did it. She risked a lot to
let Jesus know how she felt. Into this scene, Judas provides the voice of
dissent. This is the same Judas who is on his way to betraying Jesus. He is
upset because he sees what Mary did as a waste of money. “You could have sold
the perfume and used the money to help the poor. After all that one bottle of
perfume probably cost three hundred denarii, that’s a year’s wages for some
people.” Some of us are with Judas, we can always see a better ways to do things, especially when we have not been consulted. “I wouldn’t spend the money on that, the church can do without that piece of equipment, we could have used that money for something else.” John has already told us that Judas has impure motives. He wants money in
the treasury so that he has more to embezzle. Notice that Jesus does not argue
the facts with Judas. Everybody knew how rare and expensive perfume made of pure
nard was. But he knows more than Judas does the true value of what she had done.
Jesus knows that Mary has not only performed an act of gratitude but and act of
preparation as well. She has anointed him as if getting ready for his
burial service. She has poured perfume on him and wiped the perfume with her
hair six days before the final Passover Jesus will celebrate. It is six days
before the Last Supper, six days before Jesus will at that supper, remove his
clothes, wrap himself with a towel, pour water into a basin and wash his
disciples feet. It is six days before the arrest that will Jesus to the cross. Anointing Jesus was worth the risk to her reputation for Mary. But she
did it, and in doing so she shows us what is possible when we take risks for our
faith. “Don’t bother her, she has heard the prediction of my death and she
knows what she is doing. And don’t pretend to be concerned for the poor. They
will always be around, but I will not be. How sad that these words of Jesus have
become distorted to fit our uncaring attitudes. Too many of us hear his words now as an excuse to do nothing, or to judge
the poor as unmotivated and those who would help them as naïve do-gooders.
Sometimes that is all too true. But more often, such attitudes miss the point
and demonstrate their a lack of biblical knowledge. Many of us do not know that Jesus is paraphrasing Deuteronomy 15.11 in which the people receive instruction on how to care for those in need in the years of sabbatical when land is not farmed and debts are forgiven. The people are advised: “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land’.” When we are willing to do all that we can for the Christ we love, we can
perform acts of devotion and help the poor with integrity and honest motives all
at the same time, when we act in gratitude for the love of Christ Jesus poured
out in us. Love continues to be
poured out in the life of Paul. Paul has the intellectual, rational story. He is sure, confident, and
intense. He is the person who approaches faith as a matter that is as much
thought out as it is felt. Paul is the theologian shares his conversion
experience with the church at Philippi. He knows them well, he founded the
church and continues to be a mentor to them. He has called them his joy and
crown. But now he needs them to be students as he uses his life story to help
them know the joy and salvation that come from knowing Jesus. As he writes to
the Philippians, Paul is in prison. He has been sentenced for preaching the
salvation is in Jesus Christ alone. Unlike Mary, Paul did not know Jesus personally. Like us, he knows Jesus by his own experience of him as the crucified and risen Christ. Now he has gotten word that among the people preaching and teaching in Philippi are those who had been of no faith, then adopted the faith and rituals of Moses, including circumcision. Now they are Christians. They were teaching that in order to be a good Christian one had to first be a good Jew. They are like we are in those times when we insist that our faith journey provides the only map worth following, and that anyone who did not take our exact same path to faithfulness is not completely faithful. From his prison cell, Paul has had time to reflect on his faith and the cross. Paul writes to the Philippians, by the grace of God, here is what faith in Jesus means. Then the one whose approach to his faith is reasoned and well thought out tells a bit of his story in order to help them to see Jesus as the source of grace and salvation. As if addressing his opponents, Paul writes to them, you can boast all you want to, but listen to my story. Nobody is more of a Hebrew than I am. No one is more steeped in the law of Moses than I am. In fact, I am a life long Hebrew, just like my mother and father. I am of the tribe of Benjamin. I was so devoted to the law, that I considered it my duty to persecute the church. My life was fine, and I was on the fast track to success. Paul Tillich says of our coming to faith, nothing has changed, but everything has been transformed. When Paul met Jesus Christ, and was confronted by him in love, everything was different. No longer is Jesus for Paul the source of anger and persecution, now Paul sees Jesus as the sovereign savior. All of his credentials were still intact, but he says that all that made me who I am, is nothing, in the profit and loss column of my life, it is all loss, especially when I lay it aside what Christ means to me. I threw it all away for the sake of gaining Christ, and it was a lot. Paul’s conversion story is not one of degradation and restoration. His is not a catalog of trash or a life of waste. It is a life of
transformation. Fred Craddock puts
it this way, “He does not say of his former life that it was in the loss
column of the ledger, but rather that in his new ways of reckoning the counted
gain as loss. It is not that the law is dead; Paul is dead to the law. Paul does
not toss away junk to gain Christ; he tosses away that which was of tremendous
value to him.”
(Fred Craddock, Philippians, p. 58)
He can count it all
loss because knowing Christ is worth so much more. Now Paul has a new perspective in Christ that comes only from the cross of Christ and the promise of the resurrection. In other words, Paul is willing to lay down his life, and he is sure that his life can be reclaimed in the resurrection. He has died to one life, and looking forward to a renewed life with Christ in eternity with all that he holds dear. Is there anything of Paul’s life that speaks to
yours? I think there is. Each of us has a story of our encounter with Jesus
Christ when we knew in the deepest part of our soul that all that we have is
worth so little when compared to the satisfaction of knowing him. Surely when we
think about the sacrifice of his life that he made for us, we can join in
singing, “When
I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, and pour
contempt on all my pride.”
(Isaac Watts, 1707) It is our call as the church of Jesus the Christ to pour ourselves out in love for the world. Like Paul, we are on a faith journey. Like him, we are not there yet. But our faith calls us to keep moving forward. So Paul presses on and we press on in order to make all that Christ has for us – his grace, his mercy, his hospitality to seekers, his forgiveness of sins, his love – our own, because Christ Jesus has made us his own. Paul’s message is that we can experience love poured out in us when we let the love of God through Christ Jesus pour through us. This same Jesus so present for Mary, so present for Paul has poured out his life for us and like Mary and Paul we can show in ways both dramatic and reasoned how much knowing Jesus has shaped our lives. We can say thanks by joining with Mary in her devotion, not just the
dramatic offering, but in the disciplines of prayer, study, worship, by sharing
in the richness of our time, hearts, souls, and money. They are everywhere.
There are the poor in finances, poor in spirit, impoverished because they have
made no effort to know the richness of life in Christ. We can as an act of
gratitude serve the poor. We know that our lives of faith and transformation are not measured by our credentials. It is not how long we have been members of the church, or who our parents are, or where we were born, or where we went to school. All of that is important, but it is how membership in the church, and being part of the body of Christ has transformed us from the inside out that shows how much of ourselves we will pour out in response to the love of God. We journey as if in a footrace, not a quick, intense sprint, but an intense marathon, with hurdles. The race is long, but God has given us hope enough and faith enough to endure. As we go, we cannot look back, that will slow us down and cost us momentum. So we keep moving forward, knowing that while there is value in the past, God’s future for us is always ahead of us. You know your story, you know the value of all that
you hold sacred. Paul says as good as it all is, and it is good, there is
something more. Press on toward it. The church of Jesus Christ is more. Bringing hope and good news to people
who are hopeless and in need is something more. Moving pressing, running till our legs are tired, and our lungs are full, but the goal to be reached is something more. Claiming Jesus as our own all the way to the cross, and staying to witness the resurrection is something more. Pouring out our love and receiving his love poured out for us is
something more. Do we have good news to seek? Yes we do, let’s go get it. Do we have ministries of service to claim? Yes we do, let’s go claim
them and do them. It is worth all that we have and all that we can give to know
the surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. “Were
the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small; love so amazing so divine, demands my soul,
my life, my all.” For the joy of knowing Jesus Christ whose love continues to pour out all over us, we say with grateful hearts, thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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