Sermon for Midweek of Invocavit
1 John 1:1-10 + John 12:1-11
We’re going to spend these five Wednesdays before Holy Week with St. John, hearing one chapter from his First Epistle each week, and walking through the twelfth chapter of his Gospel for our Lenten meditations.
This evening we begin by hearing John in his Epistle reveling in the glory of the Word of life who was in the beginning with God, but who has now been manifested—brought out into the open and revealed to the world in the Person of Jesus Christ in order to share His life with us who were dead in our sins and trespasses. You can sense John’s devotion to Jesus, his love for Jesus, and how glad he is to have fellowship with the Father and the Son, and how grateful he is to have the cleansing blood of Jesus to cleanse him and all who believe in Him from all sins and unrighteousness.
We sense the same devotion, love, joy and gratitude in Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, in the first verses of John 12. Even before Jesus had raised her brother from the dead, she showed that devotion when she sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him in her house—you remember, that time that Martha got so upset with her for not helping with the chores. At that time, Jesus praised Mary for her devotion to His word and wouldn’t let Martha take that away from her.
Now, six days before Passover—the night before Palm Sunday—Jesus is having dinner with a large group of people. Martha is there, along with the recently-resurrected Lazarus. And in walks Mary with a jar of expensive, fragrant oil. She breaks the jar open and pours the bottle out on Jesus’ feet, and, as Matthew and Mark tell us, also His head, and then she wipes His feet with her hair.
A pound of nard. We’re told it was worth about 300 denarii. If you recall Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard, their wages for a whole day of work was one denarius. So roughly a full year’s wages—what would that be? $20,000? $30,000? $40,000? More? Poured out. Used up in a few minutes. Just to give a sweet smell to Jesus’ body—a smell that would easily stay with Him for His ride into Jerusalem the next day, and probably for the rest of Holy Week, so that He still carried the scent of Mary’s anointing into the upper room on Maundy Thursday, to Gethsemane, yes, even to the cross and to the grave.
Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus’ disciples were upset when they saw what Mary had done. Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor? But John clarifies this for us. It wasn’t all the disciples. It was Judas who was upset. It was Judas who complained about the waste and criticized Mary for caring more about Jesus than she did for the poor—except that he wasn’t actually concerned about the poor. John tells us that Judas was both the keeper of the money bag for the disciples and a thief who would help himself to its contents. So it makes sense that he was upset.
It also makes sense, because Judas and Mary saw Jesus entirely differently. Judas saw Jesus as a tragic failure, as the man who got all his hopes up for a glorious earthly kingdom and then dashed his hopes by His preaching and teaching, by His prophesying of suffering and death, for Himself and for them, and by turning down every chance He had to lead a rebellion against the Romans. Jesus dashed Judas’ hopes because He came to give us eternal life and eternal happiness through cross-bearing and sacrifice and the forgiveness of sins, while Judas, like many people still today, was more interested in a good earthly life and earthly happiness. He didn’t view Jesus as the eternal Son of God, so he saw no reason to spend so much money on Him. He just wasn’t worth it.
Mary obviously thought very differently. Is Jesus worth a year’s wages? Yes, and far more than that. Not only had He given life back to her dead brother Lazarus. He had promised to give eternal life to all who believe in Him. And in order to earn the right to give that life to sinners, He would offer Himself as the true Passover Lamb. He would soon give Himself into death for the sins of the world.
And so Jesus defends Mary and won’t allow anyone to get away with criticizing her for what she did. Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial.
The sinner who recognizes his sin will surely find something precious in Jesus, something far more valuable than any treasure on earth, more valuable than a paltry year’s wages. Because there are only two ways out of this sin-devastated world: the way that leads to eternal unhappiness in hell, and the Way that leads to eternal happiness in heaven. Only through Jesus can God look at a sinner who has destroyed his life and say, It’ll be OK. I’ve redeemed you. I forgive you. You’re My child. And I want to spend eternity with you. If only Judas could have known God that way! Thank God, Mary did.
And thank God that you do, too, don’t you?
Now, what can we learn from Jesus’ words here? For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always. Isn’t Jesus “with us always, to the very end of the age”? Yes, but not in the same way, no longer in His state of humility, where He personally benefited from deeds of kindness like Mary did. We do still have the poor with us, and we can and should help them.
But is there anything we can do to show our love and devotion and joy and gratitude for Jesus? Well, if Mary could sacrifice a year’s wages all at once, surely we can spare a few hours a week to honor Jesus by hearing His word proclaimed. We can provide for those who stand in Jesus’ place in His holy ministry—even as you already do in your weekly offerings and as some of you have pledged to do for a Colombian pastor and his family and for other pastors in our diocese who stand in the place of Christ. We can provide a place for His word to be preached, and encouragement for one another. The poor are certainly a concern for us, but they are not meant to be our only or even our highest concern. Don’t ever let anyone shame you for giving your offerings to Jesus in His Church, or for spending money on the Word-and-Sacrament work Jesus has given us to do in the world, or for taking time away from worldly concerns to pray and to give thanks to Jesus. You honor Him by all these things, and He receives your honor and gratitude just as He received it from Mary.
So honor Him who is the life with the life He has given you. Pour out the fragrant oil of your prayers, offerings, hymns, and thanksgivings, and with your daily confession of faith in the world. And if you’re criticized for any of it, know that the One who sits enthroned in heaven is the One whom you’re honoring, not them, and that He smiles on you and will one day openly defend you and honor you before the world for every act of love with which you’ve honored Him. Amen.
