The Value & The Cost
1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (John 12:1-5)
What is the value of a life? When Martha and Mary's brother, Lazarus, was sick they sent for Jesus to come and heal him. But Jesus didn't come until after Lazarus had been dead four days. In those four days, the sisters would have seen their status and security disappear. By the time Jesus arrived, their despair was so great that even Jesus wept at the sight of their pain. When Jesus restored life to Lazarus that day, the lives of Mary and Martha were also restored. So, as Jesus shared a meal with these dear friends, Mary - overcome with gratitude - opened a jar of expensive oil and anointed Jesus' feet. But Judas, who had walked with Jesus and seen the miracles he had performed, but who had never been personally healed or restored, could not see the value in Mary's passionate act.
He could only see the cost.
Everything in life has an associated cost. Whether time, energy, or money, we typically can not get back what we expend, so we are constantly determining if the value is worth the cost. To Mary, no cost was too high to show her appreciation and love for her savior. The pungent fragrance of the oil combined with the closeness of an unrelated man and woman would have made everyone in the room uncomfortable. Perhaps this discomfort was the cause of Judas' rude outburst. Ironically, Judas would later place a value of thirty pieces of silver on his loyalty to Jesus (for this price he led those to Jesus who would crucify him). But Judas would find this cost to be too high as he would then take his own life out of guilt and shame. Had Judas waited with the other disciples - who, in their own ways, also would betray Jesus - he would have finally known what it felt like to be healed and restored.
Each life is priceless, and it was for the healing of our souls and the restoration of our relationship with God that Jesus gave his life. May we receive the love of God through Jesus so fully that we are unable to put the cost of loving above the value of giving that love away - in praise and gratitude to God and in service to one another.
7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. (Philippians 3:7-9)
Different Mary, same praise
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