There was Jesus.
There was a woman.
She gave him all she had, broke it right there in His
presence.
“While
he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon
the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made
of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured
the perfume on his head…”
Mark 14:3
There was Jesus.
There was a woman.
He received her offering, and he called it beautiful.
“She
has done a beautiful thing to me.” Mark
14:6
Her offering anointed him for the grave.
Her offering rose as a fragrance to an Almighty God - a God who would choose a woman like us as frail, broken,
human beings to anoint the Savior of the World.
Our brokenness literally put Christ in the grave.
Our offering our full selves is what made His death a beautiful thing.
A death that He overcame.
There needs to come a time when we do give up, when we call it quits to our own striving and our own
doing and go running to our Father.
Because He has the answer, He sent the Answer. For our arms to reach out and admit that we
are such a mess, that we have fallen so far from all we are meant to be, that
we’re undone and the unsaid is lingering too long.
To know that when we pour ourselves out as a fragrant offering,
no matter how broken or wrong or messed up we feel, we will be called beautiful.
The Savior sees, He knows, He has walked the same dirt-filled,
sin-ridden streets we have walked, yet was without sin. He is not far from our pain, our suffering,
our grief, our shame, our death-like grave…
No, he is right there close and he wants you to come as you
are.
Broken. Scared. Wrecked.
Shamed. Undone.
At
times it’s all we can do to just break before Him.
And it’s all that needs done because
by His wounds it is finished.
“She
did what she could. She poured perfume
on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.” Mark 14:8
There was Jesus.
There was a woman.
Grace was poured out from His very self as she poured out
what she had to offer.
Grace
from simple spoken words: She did what
she could.
For this we are filled with gratitude and thanksgiving because
there are no requirements for this relationship. Our Father loves us for no good thing we have
done, but for the solid Truth that for us, He sent his One and Only Son.
He welcomes us to come and pour out ourselves – all that we are,
all that we hide, all the places we feel we fall short and don’t measure up –
and measure them against the cross. The
cross that absolutely covers all that we could possibly get wrong in our
humanness. The cross that held the Sacrifice
so we could set aside ourselves and be free to receive His freedom gift.
There’s this constant aching in our knees to bow to lower
ourselves, and it’s the only posture in which we get it: the magnitude of the weight that was carried
for our sake. When we come to the end of
ourselves and cry out, the arms that stretched across the cross reach out in
our despair and pull us up out.
Our debt is paid.
His shoulders are bigger than any burden we have or
share.
“We
are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death
of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”
2 Corinthians 4:8-11
Psalm 68:19
We need to know that we can go to Him. No matter what.
There is no shame, there is no guilt, but only grace.
“I
tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.” John 6:47
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