Then Mary took three quarters of a pound of expensive aromatic oil from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus. She then wiped his feet dry with her hair.
Into the Text
There is something about Mary of Bethany that I just love.
While others were busy serving and going about the business of the evening, Mary quietly knelt at the feet of Jesus and did something that would be talked about for generations to come. She took her most prized possession, an alabaster jar of expensive perfume that was worth nearly a year’s wages, and broke it open. To the shock of all those in the room, she poured every last drop over the feet of Jesus. And if that wasn’t enough, she then proceeded to wipe His feet with her hair.
The act was extravagant. It was sacrificial. And to some in the room, it seemed a little too wasteful.
But Jesus saw her extreme act of love differently. He saw a woman whose love for Him was so genuine that she held nothing back. She didn’t calculate the cost. She didn’t worry about what others thought. She simply loved Jesus with everything she had, and she showed it. She didn’t care who mocked her or thought she was going “a little over the top.”
That is the kind of love the fruit of the Spirit produces in us. It’s not a safe, calculated, or convenient love, but it is a wholehearted, “I’m all-in-until-the-end” kind of love. It’s the kind of love that transforms how we live, how we give, and how we worship.
Mary’s love for Jesus flowed from a heart that had been sitting at His feet. She knew Him. She had learned from Him. And she had spent time with Him. It was out of that closeness that her love overflowed into one of the most beautiful acts of worship recorded in all of Scripture.