A Place for Extravagance
Monday of Holy Week
Isaiah 42:1-7, Psalm 27, John 12:1-11
The readings today are so very heartening. They gave me a feeling of security and certainty that God has his eye on us, and His heart wrapped around us even now.
The first reading feels like God’s answer to the prayer of Jesus from yesterday. God assuring His son that it is enough. He can return to the Father and know He has done all that God could want from him. It feels like God enfolding Jesus in His arms and saying, “I love you, rest now in my love.”
In the Gospel, we meet Mary, the sister of Lazarus, again. The scene is exactly what we would expect. Jesus is at Lazarus’ home with his disciples for a meal. He is sitting with Lazarus at the table, and Martha is bustling around getting the meal. Mary comes in with a jar of expensive perfume and pours it on Jesus’ feet. Judas takes issue with the extravagance, the money it cost could have been given to the poor. No matter Judas’ motive for asking the question, it is a valid question.
Jesus responds, telling Judas to let her be. He will soon be gone and let this be the beginning of the anointing with perfumes and spices his body will receive at His burial.
Mary is all heart. We remember her from two other stories. The first was when Jesus visited, and Martha was busy about the hospitality. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, looking at Him and listening to His words. Jesus says Mary has chosen the better part. The second time we see her was when her brother Lazarus died, and Jesus comes. She runs out to Him, and the tears on her face bring tears to Jesus’ own face. Now she is found bathing His feet with expensive perfume. Her love for Jesus was deep, extravagant, and without limit. We can feel the depth of her passion; she washes his feet with perfume and dries them with her hair.
Her heart overflows with her love for Jesus.
Mary shows us how to love God. We must love with every ounce of our being, without question or bounds, to give all to our beloved. In addition, Mary is also serving as a mirror for us. Mary is showing us how God loves us, extravagantly, and without bounds. God’s love for us is beyond measure.
There is a line from a song, in the Broadway play Les Misérables, that is echoing in my heart. The words I keep hearing are sung in the finale, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Today is the day to remember all the loves in your life, to remember the very depth of emotion and feeling that love brings to your heart. The quiet tears when recalling the love of one who has gone home to God before you. Imagine that you are Mary standing before Jesus with tears in your eyes, and your love brings tears to His eyes as well. That is the depth of God’s love and care for us. Our God wraps us in a most extravagant love.
Jesus walks the dreadfulness of the experiences of Holy Week. We can do nothing to change the pain, both emotional and physical, he will experience, but we can wrap our hearts around Him in love. We can go beyond being a bystander, just remembering, to being a witness. We can be one whose heart walks the journey to Calvary with Jesus this week. We can love Jesus extravagantly. That is how God loves us, and we can do the same for Jesus this week.
Let us all pray today in thanksgiving for the loves in our lives. Let us remember, and look deeply into the eyes of the ones who have shown us the face of God.
May God’s best blessings fill you full to overflowing.
