MARY DID A BEAUTIFUL THING PT2
Matthew 26.6-13, Mark 14.3-9, John 12.1-8
This story of Mary (not the mother of Jesus) from Matthew, Mark and John reveals this fantastic story. Jesus was so impressed with this incident that He said this storey of Mary was to be told wherever this Gospel was to be preached. A monument for ever.
The Lord Jesus’ life was drawing close towards the night of His soul, the last chapter in His life was about to unfold, the very last days of our Lord were drawing near. As He sat in the loneliness of His situation, a lonely and hurt soul who only had one way to look and that was to His Heavenly Father. Today was the night before the start of the great six day roller coaster of His life in which He could not get off, because in love for the world He put His trust in His Heavenly Father, in love He saw the myriads of humans and committed His life to God the Father as a sacrifice for the whole worlds sins.
A lonely man- Jesus' own home town had rejected Him and wanted to throw Him off a cliff, Lonely- His loyal band of 72 disciples upped and left and rejected Him after misunderstanding Him, His teachings and even His motives, Hurt- synagogues kicked Him out, Lonely- as the chief priests and elders accused Him, abused Him, misunderstood Him, took His every action as evil when they were done with a pure heart, Lonely- as the Jews, the very people who should have understood the message and actions of the Messiah, misunderstood Him, maligned Him, insulted Him, persecuted Him and eventually were to crucify Him on the cross. Lonely as His disciples at times did not believe and they certainly did not understand a lot of His teachings. His closest companions through His journey to the cross were going to turn against Him. He sees the the winter was drawing near for His ministry. Lonely as His own family began to reject Him, Lonely as the accusations, the malicious gossip was heightened with the shout from the crowds for blood for the man who raised Lazarus from the dead, and shouts for heads to roll from His own, from the very Jews who should have known better. Lonely as He was about to have one of His loved disciples, one that was close to Him for three years of ministry slowly turn and twist the knife into Jesus’ soul and we see even more jabbing and twisting and turning of the knife in the back of Jesus as His ministry draws to a close and he attacks His very ministry, authority, anointing, His motives and character called into question.
Imagine it, if you can, I scarce can take it in, lonely, dark, gloomy, darkening and growing more horrible as the days go by with every dagger of jealousy, every axe of betrayal, every machine gun of cruel words of gossip and hate, every missile of actions against Him speaking louder to His soul as He sees the depths of people’s rejection, as only He can, every wave after wave of bombardment against His very fabric and makeup in His soul. And its taking its toll on our Lord Jesus as He and only He can feel as He feels with His clean and spotless heart, only He can see as He sees with His pure eyes. From the unfathomable depths of His heart He reaches out in love to those who reject Him and give Him a good kick in the guts when He was down. Full of anguish in His soul. See Him there! Begin to imagine the horrors He is going through, as only He knows about His cruel death on the Roman cross that is looming across His mind like a shadow of cruelty and fear.
Heavy minded, hardly able to comprehend the unrelenting nature of these cruel blows from the bloodhounds, Jesus was invited to a meal in Simon the Leper’s house in His honour with Mary and Martha there in the house. Jesus has received very little encouragement along the way from anyone, let alone His disciples in the last few weeks of His life. And into the house He goes. At least He was now among friends, Martha is doing what she does best, namely serving. Picture it there is Jesus’ reclining at the table with the others, in a black moment of His life and out of the blue Mary does something which is absolutely extraordinary, like a light to His soul, a warm bright and shining light in the blackness of His ministry on earth. It brought comfort to His broken heart.
