Sincere Love for Christ

What does sincere authentic love for Jesus look like?  This is an important question to see if our claim to love God is real or not.  The woman in Mark 14:3-9, who is Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus,  is a great example in the Bible of someone who loved Jesus and demonstrated it through an outrageous act of great generosity, even though it didn’t make much sense to those around her.    

We see her take a jar of expensive perfume, which was used in those days to prepare a body before burial, and empty its entire content on Jesus’ head.  John’s gospel tells us that the oil was worth about 300 denarii, which in today’s terms is equal to about $55K.  In other words, she took probably the most valuable thing in her home and poured it all out for Jesus to show her love for Him.

And as a result of her great act of love and devotion, we read one of the greatest compliments Jesus gives to anyone in all four gospels in Mark 14:9, “And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her!”  And here we are almost 2000 years later still remembering her great act of devotion.

In Mark 14 we can see two basic truths.  First we will see through this woman, what sincere love and worship looks like.  It  is always sacrificial and expressed, "as Jesus was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head."  (Mark 14:3)

We also see here that sincere love for Jesus is unashamed of what others think.  Look at what those around her were thinking as she worshipped, "There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her."  (Mark 14:4-5)

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And here is our second truth in our text, what hypocrisy looks like. Interestingly, the key person in all of this judgment and criticism was no other than Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus a few days later for 30 pieces of silver.  As this woman anointed Jesus with something outrageously expensive, we see Judas and  those around her angry, indignant, critical, lacking joy, and absolutely blind to what is truly important to God. 

No wonder as they scolded her, we see Jesus tenaciously defend her, “leave her alone, don’t trouble her… she has done a beautiful thing to me.”   (Mark 14:6)  What a great word to those who are willing to sacrifice and express their love for Jesus.  And some of the words Strong's concordance uses to define "beautiful" here in the original language are:  "excellent, surpassing, precious, commendable, admirable. beautiful to look at, shapely, magnificent, genuine, and praiseworthy."

How is your love for Jesus being demonstrated.  I invite you to reflect on Mary's great sacrifice, a woman who took the most valuable thing in her household and poured it out ALL for Jesus.  Yes indeed our worship and love for Jesus, when done with sincerity and a pure heart is indeed "beautiful."