Love's Extravagance

August 14, 2009
Dear Fellow Travelers,
Most of you are very familiar with the story of Jesus’ visit to the home of Mary & Martha (Luke 10:38-42), the one where Martha was busy preparing supper, while Mary was sitting at His feet, doing (according to Jesus) the one thing that was necessary (sitting at His feet is really does rank that high on the list of things that are necessary!). As you re-member, Martha got a bit “testy.”
The characters in the following story are the same, with the addition of Lazarus, the brother of Mary & Martha, and, for some reason, Judas Iscariot. Listen carefully: “Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they made Him a supper there, and Martha was serving, but Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with Him. Mary therefore took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii, and given to poor people?’ (John 12:1-5 NASB).
It seems that Mary was much like John, in that she preferred to be as physically close to Jesus, as she possibly could; obviously, Lazarus was one of Jesus’ strongest supporters, as not too many people could lay claim to having been raised from the dead; Martha loved Him dearly, but she, for some reason, thought He was impressed with her serving abilities; Judas, although Jesus had chosen him as one of His disciples, was a crook, who loved money much more than he loved Jesus.
Enter Mary with a pound of very costly perfume, nard to be precise, that was worth an amount equal to roughly a year’s wages. By anyone’s stretch of imagination, it was valuable, and Judas had his “snake eyes” riveted on it, already trying to figure out a way to confiscate it, when the unthinkable happened—Mary broke it open and gently, lovingly poured it over Jesus’ feet, and then wiped His feet with her hair.
Judas was hyperventilating, barely able to constrain himself at the thought of this lost opportunity, as the stench of his hypocrisy tried, futilely, to overcome the fragrance of the perfume that immediately filled the house. The Sacred and the profane met toe-to-toe, and the Sacred won, as the powerful, healing, redeeming, fragrance of extravagant love saturated the air. What followed, however, is beyond the pale of evil.
These revealing words fell like hot, acrid vomitus from Judas’ lips before he even had time to form them in his mouth: “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii, and given to poor people” (vs. 5)? In other words, “Why this terrible waste?”
It is heartbreaking, indeed, to think that Judas never knew the extravagance of love.
It is even more heartbreaking to think that he saw love’s extravagance as a waste.
Is your love extravagant?
His is, and then some!

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10 NASB). Extravagant love, indeed, and, thankfully, nothing wasted!