One of the greatest children’s songs we sing is:
Jesus loves me. This I know,
for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong,
they are weak, but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me. x3
The Bible tells me so.
I love singing it at our parent and toddler group with the little ones as well as when we sing it in church with all ages. It reminds all of us of how loved by God we are and how the Bible teaches us more about that love.
While the first fruit of the Spirit is love, you might be thinking our reading didn’t even mention love! Rather than explicitly mentioning love, we see love shown through Mary of Bethany’s actions.
In John 11, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. After this miracle, He was unable to freely travel around due to the religious leaders plotting to kill him. In John 12, we learn that Lazarus’s life is also under threat as people began following Jesus.
As we look at our reading today, Jesus’s ministry on earth is entering its last week. We enter into the day before He enters the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey to a great celebration, Palm Sunday.
Before riding into the city and toward His death, Jesus visits His friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in the town of Bethany, which was a dangerous thing to do.
When Jesus first visited these siblings, Martha was busy and became frustrated with her sister Mary who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to His teaching (Luke 10:38-42).
Unsurprisingly in John 12 Martha is serving Jesus, and Lazarus is hosting. Then comes Mary, holding an expensive jar of oil – worth nearly a year’s wages (300 silver coins). She uses all of it to anoint the feet of Jesus, as He reclines at the table before drying His feet with her hair.
It is extravagant.
Imagine the strong aroma that filled the whole house.
Mary doesn’t care what any of the others think of her. Her heart is focused on Jesus alone. She had listened to His teaching, and this was her response of wholehearted love.
In contrast, Judas Iscariot protests at the waste, claiming the good that could have been done but really thinking of his own personal wealth. His greed contributes to the betrayal that he will soon commit, and it would be for much less than the value of this oil – only 30 silver coins!
Do you see the differences in the attitudes of their hearts?
Mary is tender of heart, devoted to Jesus. We see her love for Him. To her Jesus is worth the most extravagant expense and so much more.
Judas is self-seeking, greedy, and hard of heart. He is interested in his own comfort. He doesn’t think Jesus is worth this expensive oil.
Jesus sees the love in Mary’s actions and says she has prepared His body for burial. His focus remains on the greatest display of God’s love, which will happen just a few days later – His death on the cross and His resurrection.
In an even greater way than Mary, God’s love for us is extravagant and costly. Jesus loves you so much that He chose to die for you. His love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). We know we can only love Him and others because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).
We are loved lavishly by God, and He calls us to reflect His love in our love for Him and others. None of us do this perfectly. However, throughout the Bible it is God’s desire that we would be whole hearted in our love for Him (Matthew 22:36-40).
Pray and ask God to help you with these questions:
- Are there areas of your life that you are holding back from God?
- In what ways is God challenging you to keep growing in your love for Him? Do you know the lavish, steadfast love of God from the Bible?
- How is God calling you to live differently and to show His love to those around you?
It is good to regularly ask, “What is my heart for God like now?”
God can take our cold, stony hearts and bring life through His Spirit (Ezekiel 36:26-27). Even though He gives us a new heart at the moment of salvation, we still need it to be renewed often by God’s steadfast love, as our hearts can grow cold and weary. May the Lord move our hearts today so that we may hold nothing back and live lives transformed by His lavish love!
I pray that according to the wealth of his glory he will grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, that Christ will dwell in your hearts through faith, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love, you will be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you will be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Now to him who by the power that is working within us is able to do far beyond all that we ask or think, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 3:16–20
