Materials
Gospel
of John, #7
Letting
Your Hair Down
John 12:1-11
by R. Todd Bouldin
You would think that we’re never going
to get out of Bethany, but we’re still lingering there as we
prepare to make that final walk to Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter.
There are those times in your life when you sense that you are experiencing
the calm before the storm, when you celebrate the good things because
you know something else lurks around the corner. So on the night before
Jesus would head into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, He sits down for dinner
with His friends in Bethany. There were terrible times to come, but
this was the time to celebrate dinner with a resurrected man.
Prayer
We don’t know exactly who was at the dinner party, but Matthew
and Mark tell us that it was held in the home of Simon of Bethany.
Perhaps Martha had quit cleaning and hosting after Jesus corrected
her, so she didn’t host this party. But John doesn’t tell
us much about the dinner. He just makes it clear that Judas was at
the dinner, as well as Mary, Martha and Lazarus, when Jesus was raised
from the dead.
Martha of course was serving and Lazarus was just sitting at the table
with Jesus. We are not told what Lazarus said during dinner, but you
can only imagine what he was thinking. You can only imagine what the
others asked him. What was it like to be dead? Did you see a bright
light? Did he see Jesus? (oops Jesus was sitting right in front of
him). My guess is, eating with Jesus, he probably couldn’t tell.
And there was sister Mary who was probably just glad to have her brother
back again.
At some point in the evening, the dinner and festivities turned into
a perhaps awkward moment when Mary came over to Jesus, knelt down,
pulled the pins out and let her hair down. You can see the conversation
go silent, and everyone is looking at the ground like when you see
two people engaged in a public display of affection that is just a
little overboard. That’s how their culture would have seen this
action by Mary. Respectable women don’t do this to men, and
particularly in public. But Mary evidently isn’t concerned with
social manners, and she has only begun to scandalize their sense of
appropriateness. She then takes a pound of very expensive perfume,
pours it on the feet of Jesus, then wipes His feet with her hair.
You can see people twitching in their seats, clearing their throats
and wondering what to do with such loose behavior around such a holy
man.
As the house fills with the fragrance of the perfume, and no one seems
to know what to do or say, the scene is just overwhelming. The perfume
was pure nard, only found in the mountains of India. Exclusively at
Nordstroms. A pound of it cost 300 denarii, nearly a year’s
wage. Think about that for a moment. Take your annual income and pour
it out on the feet of Jesus.
Judas, who seems to have a fascination with money, speaks up finally
and cuts the silence in the room. Notice that he doesn’t even
address the awkwardness of the PDA. He is just like some shrewd money
managers I know, “Jesus, do you know what we could have done
with that kind of money?” That’s a pretty good question.
What about the poor? What about missions and the church? What about
a nice house, or a new suit, or my needs?
Jesus responds to Judas by telling him to leave Mary alone. “You
will always have needs, and you will always have opportunity to meet
those needs.” More specifically, “The poor you always
will have with you.” Now that has been used by some as an excuse
to accept poverty or to do nothing about it. Evidently those who would
use this passage have never read the Gospel of Luke or examined the
context of this passage. Jesus isn’t asking us to accept the
inevitability of poverty so that we do nothing about it. Jesus is
saying something much more important. I think He is saying that, before
you can meet human needs, you must find yourself at His feet too lost
in adoration. It’s a matter of priorities. Meeting human needs
is important, and it’s part of our faith. But the heart of discipleship
is not meeting needs but adoration of Christ Himself.
Since John doesn’t tell us who was at the dinner party, it makes
me wonder if we all are not invited to the table. I would like to
invite you to go with me. But the question is where you would like
to sit. Would you prefer to sit closer to Judas or to Mary? Which
one makes you most comfortable?
Judas had such high expectations for Jesus. He had been a disciple
now for three years, but that was actually because he was looking
for Jesus to fulfill his agenda. Some speculate that he was a political
zealot hoping that Jesus would be his revolutionary leader who would
overthrow Roman rule. Others think he was just a zealot for himself.
But it doesn’t matter really.
Anytime we start to follow Jesus because we have an agenda for Jesus,
no matter how compassionate or selfish the agenda may be, we inevitably
reduce Jesus to a means to an end. This type of discipleship isn’t
comfortable with lavish adoration. At the end of the day, this type
of discipleship adores the self and looks for Jesus to adore our expectations.
Maybe you had high hopes for Jesus too, and He isn’t quite living
up to your expectations. Maybe you came to Jesus expecting to keep
all of your money, have a good life, and just have a little Jesus
in your life for when the times get tough or when you need a little
fix. Maybe you are looking for some purpose or someone to affirm you,
so you come to Jesus to find a mission for your life. You’ve
heard He can feed the hungry, heal the sick, and even raise the dead.
So maybe you think Jesus will one day get around to doing a little
miracle in your life too. Or maybe He will make all the oppressors
and burdens in your life go away. But notice that in all of these,
your agenda is your real lord. Jesus is just a way of getting what
you want.
The text tells us that Judas used to steal from Jesus. It could say
the same about us. We steal from Jesus when we reduce Him to some
instrumental benefit, some blessing we are trying to pry out of His
hands. But would you follow Jesus if He offered you nothing? Would
you follow Him if it didn’t seem rational? Is the love of God
in Christ enough for you?
In contrast, Mary has no expectations or goals for Jesus. She has
already learned the futility of trying to make Jesus respond to your
requests. Last time she asked Him for something, He didn’t budge.
The last time we saw Mary, she again was at the feet of Jesus, weeping.
But now she has seen Jesus raise her brother from the dead, and perhaps
she realizes that her agenda was not too big for Jesus to handle.
Now she has given up all her expectations and she can just adore Him
without an agenda. So she just lets her hair down and pours out her
perfume on His feet. Once you have given up your agenda for Jesus,
then you are free to just adore Him. When you no longer need something
from Him, then you can be lavish in your worship, almost embarrassing
in your passion for Him.
Blaise Pascal was a French mathematical genius who died in 1662. After
running from God until he was 31 years old, on November 23, 1654 at
10:30 pm, Pascal met God. He sat in a room and waited for God for
hours, and he received only silence. But he just kept waiting on God
until he finally experienced Jesus Christ. When he died, a piece of
paper was found in his coat that he had scribbled and kept about this
day. He wrote, “From about half past ten at night to about half
an hour after midnight, FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of
Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certitude, heartfelt joy,
peace. God of Jesus Christ. God of Jesus Christ. "My God and
your God." . . . Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy. . . Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.” Until you have known that kind of indescribable
love for Jesus Christ, your love for Jesus may be just an agenda or
some rational experiment. Have you ever felt His presence as fire,
as a consuming joy?
So here they are at the dinner table: two different people with two
different views of Jesus. Both of them are always hanging around Jesus.
One of them complains about what Jesus hasn’t done for him lately.
The other gives her whole self with passion and gratitude. One wants
to receive something; the other wants to give something. One requests
the rational thing; the other does the passionate thing. When was
the last time you lost yourself in love for Jesus Christ? The old
hymn comes to mind, “Lost in wonder, love and praise.”
Two different people – two different responses to Jesus. With
which one do you wish to sit at dinner? Where do you belong in this
scene?
I never have been too much of a fan of hand-raising, hand-clapping
worship – it’s not much of my style. But I will admit
that sometimes my hesitation to worship Jesus with my whole body is
really more concerned with how others will view me than it is lost
in generous and almost embarrassing passion and adoration of Jesus.
Just like Judas, we can be pretty skeptical of people who are passionate
about anything, especially when it comes to faith. It may not just
be worship styles. We get a little uncomfortable when someone seems
to be tuned into a deep love for Jesus, but somewhere deep down it’s
what we all want.
How much time have you spent lately just adoring Jesus Christ? It
will revolutionize your prayer life if you can transition your prayers
from asking to adoration. Put the prayer list aside. Just kneel and
adore Jesus Christ in all of His beauty, power, holiness and love.
The requests will take care of themselves once you are lost in wonder,
love and praise. The old African hymn expresses it best, “I’d
rather have Jesus than anything.” Once you believe that, you’ll
quit holding it in, you’ll stop the reserved way in which you’ve
been waiting to give your love to God once He meets your demands.
The only way you respond to a Savior who just keeps giving you life
is with lavish love.
It makes me wonder when Mary bought that really expensive pound of
perfume that took up a year’s worth of savings. John says that
she had bought it for the burial of Jesus. She was planning ahead.
But like a lover who had bought a gift for her beloved, and she can’t
wait to give it to Him, she went to the cabinet, got out the perfume,
let her hair down, and she gave herself completely to Jesus. She didn’t
just pour out a little of the perfume, hesitating to waste it all
on this night. I can just see Mary, turning up the container, generously,
lavishly, unreservedly pouring the most expensive thing she had ever
owned on the feet of Jesus. Nothing held back, nothing reserved. Lost
in wonder, love and praise.
John is unique in the way that he presents what it means to be a disciple.
For other Gospel writers, to be a disciple was to follow Jesus into
suffering, into servanthood, into the new way taught by Jesus, into
a whole new kingdom of God. But for John, to be a disciple is not
just to follow Jesus but to love Jesus. For John, the cross is not
so much about atonement as about the glory of God poured out in love
for the world. “For God so loved the world”,
and what God wants from us is our love. So Mary is the model of discipleship,
a woman unreservedly in love with Jesus. So John ends his Gospel with
three questions for Peter, and I believe the same three questions
for us. “Do you love me?” Peter says, rationally, “Yes,
Lord you know that I do.” It’s the kind of answer that
can lead you to deny Jesus in the next minute. Then Jesus asks him
again, “Do you love me?” “Yes, Lord, you know that
I love you.” That’s better. “Do you really, really,
really love me?” “Yes, Lord, I love you, I really really
love you.”
“Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy. . .
Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.”
So you’ve been invited to the Table. Will you stay in your chair,
or will you fall down at the feet of Jesus, with your hair down, lost
in wonder and love and praise?
April 2, 2006
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