Mark 14:1-11 Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread
were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were
scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. “But not during the festival,” they
said, “or the people may riot.” 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. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this
waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.”
And they rebuked her harshly. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing
to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body
beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout
the world, what she has done will
also be told, in memory of her.” Then Judas Iscariot, one of the
Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray
Jesus to them. They were delighted to
hear this and promised to give him money. So he watched for an opportunity to
hand him over.
Pastor JJ, continuing in his Sunday
Sermon series through the book of Mark focused on the parallel of this passage
in the fourteenth chapter and the two different Followers of Jesus today. There
are those who believe that there was nothing so precious to them that they
cannot lay it at Jesus’ feet. They actively anoint their king with the
perfume of “Worship”. Then there are those who see that perfume as a means to
personal gain. Those who are not will to let go of the “goods” of this world.
He told the story of how native tribes used to catch monkeys by hollowing out a
coconut and filling it with rice or other delicacies, then leaving it tethered
to a tree for a monkey to find. A monkey would reach in and grab the desired
delicacy and be trapped because the hole had been deliberately made just big
enough for a flexible hand to enter but not for a closed fist to leave. Clearly
it was not the coconut that was trapping the monkey. Rather the true trap
was in the monkey’s own mind, the monkey’s greed, the monkey’s attachment to
his physical possessions, and the monkey’s unwillingness to “Let Go.”
Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this
is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can
boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do
good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
But do not
be caught up in “doing good’, because there is something greater. As a word
points to the subject of the word (as the word “Jesus” point to the person of
Jesus Christ), works point to the “gift of God”, for which the “good works" are
performed. We do not do “good works” to earn salvation, but because God (by His
grace, through our faith in the Savior) gave us salvation as a free gift. So in
gratitude, we worship God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). Our goodness cannot
replace our worship of the Lord. Do not let the opportunities pass for praise,
worship and a life of gratitude in thought, word and action. We need to stop
and examine our lives, that we do not allow a negative spirit to dwell in our
hearts and master us with a “what’s in it for me?” attitude; it’s not about
“feeling better about ourselves.” Are we willing to give what is most precious
to us to the gospel of Jesus Christ for the advancement of the kingdom of God ? Have we stopped and thought of how
much God has done for us? Do we have our hand in the coconuts of this world and
too busy holding onto the things of this life; allowing them to capture us …
trapped and keeping us in bondage, because we won’t let go of them?
In
gratitude, will we worship and honor the Lord and lay the distractions of this
world at His feet, while showing grace to others as we have been shown grace by
God? Or continue to live distracted and hardened, greedily focused of the proverbial “rice”
in the coconut that we will not let go of. Let Go. Let God. Live.
In Christ,
Brian