Lent 5

Lent 5 You do not always have me.

Jesus is the visible expression of God’s extravagant love.

While people in Jesus’ time and in our time debate and discuss, analyze and criticize Jesus, God simply pours himself out to us fully, completely, and without restraint in Jesus Christ.
Such superabundance of love is impossible for human beings to understand. Most people ask the question we grow up and learn to ask: What’s in it for me? What was in it for Jesus?

Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, is one of those rare individuals who grasps the essential meaning and purpose of God. That meaning and purpose is infinite, eternal, unconditional love. It is the extravagance of love appearing in a world obsessed with scarcity. It is the extravagance of grace in a world lost in self indulgence.

The pound container of perfume Mary broke to anoint Jesus was worth about a year’s salary. It could have been diluted and placed in dozens of smaller containers to sell in the market and earn a enormous profit for the family. Instead, Mary poured it all out in one moment of devotion.

Judas was outraged and said so. They other apostles were probably no less astonished and bewildered. Why? Why so much extravagance? Why so much waste?

Of course, most people looked at Jesus in terms of their own needs and desires. They wanted power, pleasure, possessions, and prestige. They expected Jesus to give them those things.
God sent Jesus into the world to give eternal love.

Eternal love? You can’t sell it. You can’t cash it in. You can’t trade it for what you really want. Eternal love for most people most of the time is wasted breath. The words speak but hold no meaning. The words hold no meaning because they hold no value for us. What most people most of the time value is money and power.

Mary valued Jesus. She heard his words. She observed his actions. She believed in the value of his gift. She perceived Jesus as the extravagant outpouring of Divine Love to all people everywhere.

As she embraced the extravagance of Divine Love in Jesus Christ she brought forth from her own soul the real choice to practice the extravagance of divine love. Her choice to take a valuable jar of perfume and anoint Jesus with the entirety of its contents is an act of worship.
God looks for this kind of response from each of us, from all of us.

Who we worship and how we worship defines who we are and what we are becoming.
God is seeking for people who have even the smallest desire to be immersed in the very essence of who God is: eternal love.

As we begin to seek the total immersion of our souls in Divine Love God will fill us with that love. As we are filled with that gift so we find the additional desire to share that gift.
It starts with worship since worship is the most perfect form of love a human being can experience. The purpose of worship is not to flatter orto placate God. Worship is not a holy bribe to get God to give us what we want, what is really important. The purpose of worship is the total immersion and endless transformation of the soul in Christ. Christ and Christ alone is the supreme value from whom all other things derive value.

It does matter who you worship and how you worship.

Judas follow4ed Jesus for all the wrong reasons. In that respect he was no different from the other apostles and most of the disciples and very likely most of us at times.

Had Judas been able to perceive the outpouring of Mary’s devotion as a moment of grace, perhaps he could have sought that grace after he betrayed Jesus. But, Judas knew very little if anything of grace. He knew power. He knew money. He knew rewards and punishments. He did not know grace.

Mary knew, or at least was beginning to know, grace. Grace is the character of the relationship Jesus offers us. Mary knew grace because Mary knew Jesus. In that grace, Mary glimpsed the greater reality of Divine Love.

Divine love is infinite and eternal. It has no beginning and has no end. It makes all things new and joyful. It is the amazing abundance of God pouring Himself out to all people everywhere.
And so, Mary takes the most precious possession she has and makes a real choice to pour out its contents, its worth, its value, on Jesus.

In her simple yet amazing choice, she mirrors a tiny portion of the great love of God in Jesus Christ.

The people who witnessed this act were astonished, bewildered, even outraged. Jesus was delighted. Mary had made the best choice at that moment. Mary had chosen love, eternal love. Her action has been recorded for all people and for all time.

This is the model of worship our Heavenly Father is seeking in us. This is the model of worship the Holy Spirit is encouraging us to embrace fully and passionately. This is the model of worship that immerses our mind, heart, and will in the eternal love of Jesus Christ. This extravagance of worship is the means by which we live God’s blessing and become God’s blessing now at this time in our lives, at this place where we live, and forevermore, world without end. Amen.