Hello, it’s Friday – the weekend is nearly here and excitingly, so it seems, so too is the British Summer. Bring on that warm weather Lord!

This week, we’ve been asking the question: who is Jesus and what does he means to us? We’ve reflected on his divine nature, his sovereignty, his great sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection through which we receive new life. Today, we end our week by going back to what we were talking about at the start of the week – that as we see and experience Jesus more fully, we discover that he is worthy.

REFLECTION:

Our reading for today is John 12:1-19; let’s look at verse 3: Then Mary took about a half a litre of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

Our daughter Naomi is three and a half and loves coming to church. She loves the people there. Loves to play with her friends. To eat copious chocolate biscuits at the end. And she loves to dance. And as she has become increasingly more independent, we have found that she will often take herself off to front of church during times when we are worshipping together and find herself a space to sing, dance and twirl around in whatever dress she’s sporting that day. She did it again this Sunday and after a while Jo gave me that look which said, ‘You better go check where she is.’ So I subtly made my way down the side aisle and peered across to see that she had made her way to the very front – a good few metres away from anyone else and she was just gazing up at Becca, our worship leader here at STC. The expression on her face was one of wonder and amazement. It was a lovely moment to witness.

We’ve all probably had those moments maybe whilst at a sporting event, a gig, a show or something of that nature when we just look at someone and think…’You’re so cool. Gifted. Talented. (Insert suitable adjective here). I wish I could be like you.’ We give that person worth in our eyes. In a way, we worship them.

What we see in today’s passage is also worship. Mary, the brother of Lazarus, takes this hugely expensive jar of precious perfume and anoints Jesus with it and the wipes his feet with her hair. And we’ve already begun to talk today about worship but what we see here is something much more than that – it’s sacrificial.

Sacrificial in the sense that the perfume was costly – it equated to nearly a year’s wages.

Sacrificial in the sense that Mary anoints his feet – often the work performed by a servant.

Sacrificial in the sense that she wipes Jesus feet with her hair. An extraordinary act given that Jewish women at that time rarely unbound their hair in public.

What we see Mary expressing here is an act of utter devotion to Jesus. It’s intense. It’s deeply personal. She is literally giving herself to Him. So extravagant are her actions that those around the table become uncomfortable.

What’s our response to this as we read this passage again? Do we look at it and, like some of the disciples we read about today, do we feel uncomfortable? That it all seems just a little bit full on? Do we look and feel inadequate? That we could never give of ourselves so fully like that?

In a sense all of these thoughts focus on how we express our worship when the better and more pertinent question would be why. Why does Mary behave towards Jesus in this way? We can’t really know. But her actions do give us a clue. Her actions all point away from her and towards Jesus. They each involve the letting go of one thing and the giving over to another. Each action denotes the value Mary places in knowing Jesus, in being with him, in serving him. They speak of his great worth.

John constructs his Gospel account in such a way that gradually we are exposed more and more to the fullness of who Jesus is. The word made flesh, John speaks of, who comes and lives amongst us.