The Third Lesson of the Cross: Loving Means Being Vulnerable
Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason - August 3, 2003
Text: Matthew 26:6-13
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers...of love is Hell.
Sacrificial love has transforming power. Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. It if is, so much the better; but if it isn't, the commitment to love, the will to love, still stands and is still exercised.…True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision. .
With these thoughts about love in mind, let’s look at our text for today: Matthew 26:6-13
Matthew gives us a time peg as he begins what has become verse 1 of chapter 26.
It is two days before the Passover celebration. That makes it the Tuesday before Good Friday. Jesus tells them about the fact that he will be crucified very soon.
Matthew does not identify the woman who anoints Jesus at the home of Simon the Leper. John in his gospel tells us that it was Mary and that Martha and Lazarus are also there.
The perfume in the alabaster vial is portrayed by Matthew as expensive. Mark tells us that it was pure nard and worth 300 denari. That would be approximately a man’s wages for a year. John tells us that it was a pound of pure nard.
According to the Gospel writers, she poured it on his head and his feet.
While Jesus is speaking with his disciples, the Jewish priests and religious leaders are plotting how they might kill him. They are not planning to do anything during the celebration of the Passover for fear of a riot.
And then Jesus and his disciples are guests at the house of Simon the Leper. Lazarus, Martha and Mary are also guests there for dinner.
There are two things we want to see if we can understand about this passage:
- Her motive for anointing Jesus
- Its Meaning
Her motive was love.
Mary loved Jesus with her whole heart for all he had done for their family. It is a self-forgetting love.
Mary had the privilege of knowing Jesus intimately. He had spent time in their home whenever he came to Bethany. He had raised her brother Lazarus from the dead. He had willingly taught her the principles of the Kingdom when in their home. It was Mary about whom Martha had complained when she was preparing a meal for Jesus and Mary was listening to Jesus rather than helping her. Jesus told Martha that Mary had chosen the important thing.
As a symbol of that love and devotion to Jesus, she had to break open that vial of perfume. It was her love for Jesus that prompted her.
Her love prompted her to sacrifice for Jesus.
This love is a self-sacrificing love. It is a self-less, think nothing of yourself and only of another kind of love.
The perfume was costly. At 300 denari it would be a large sum for any one; for Mary it represents a very large sum of money. Jesus recognizes the sacrifice when he say, "She has done what she could." It implies that she has expended all her resources and has poured it out on Jesus as an act of loving devotion.
Her love set her free from convention.
She openly, willingly acted on her love.
She is fearless. She was not afraid to do something others might misunderstand that expressed her devotion to Jesus. She did not ask permission of anyone. She simply acted out the love of her heart for Jesus. You will not see this kind of devotion in the others until after Pentecost.
If we are correct in stating that her motive was love, and I believe we are correct in doing so, what is the meaning of this act of devotion and what application is there in it for us today?
Note carefully Jesus’ response to her act of love. He said…"wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done shall also be spoken of in memory of her."
Jesus responded with the only statement he ever made about a memorial to anyone when he said that this would be a memorial to her wherever this gospel was preached.
In verse 12, he connects what she had done with his burial and says that it was in preparation for it. She broke the alabaster vial of perfume and poured it out on him.
Very soon, Jesus’ body will be broken and his blood poured out as a sacrifice for us on the cross of Calvary. It is as if Jesus were saying, "There is that broken vessel and outpoured perfume is my death foretold." She offered it in love and so did Jesus. His love for us prompted him to go to the cross. He is motivated by self-forgetting love for sinners like us.
The anointing in Bethany provides us with a symbolic act that helps us to understand that death and the love that prompted it.
Jesus came into the world because he loved sinners. He loved us so much that his Love prompted him to come. Love prompted him to go to the cross. He could not remain in Heaven’s courts while his brethren on earth continued dying in sin. His love motivated him to come and be that alabaster box – human body broken for us and that perfume poured out for us.
Mary’s good work of anointing Jesus mirrors Christ’s self-sacrificing character. She gave everything in this act of devotion. Jesus gave everything. He did what he could to purchase our salvation. Far from shrinking from the cross, he looked forward to it with earnest desire to accomplish the Father’s will.
It was as if Jesus said this about her act of devotion:
"Here is what I understand by Christianity: An unselfish, uncalculating devotion to me as the Savior of sinners and as the Sovereign King of the Kingdom of Truth and Righteousness."
By commending her action before those gathered there at Simon the Lepers house Jesus leads us to understand that the chief Christian virtue is love, devotion…that self-less love is the measure of Christianity.
The world, of course, is going a different way. The world’s model of the successful person is the man or woman who never forgets him/herself. It prefers a dead level of mediocrity, moderation and self-possession. The world says, don’t let your principles stand in the way of your self-interest; don’t let your heart get the better of your head.
What of the disciples?
They criticize her action as wasteful.
On the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, they will forsake their Master and flee to save their own lives. They were afraid of the consequences of their actions in following Jesus.
Mary wasn’t afraid. She was free and unafraid of the consequences of her action.
This woman got closer to the inner heart of Jesus than any other person did on that side of Pentecost.
What of ourselves? We ought to be counted among those who are breakers of the alabaster box for Jesus’ sake.
--Dennis Gleason
