First Baptist Church Ottawa

Our Online Church School Lesson - February 25, 2024

Extravagant Love - Mark 14:3-8

Today’s Scripture: Mark 14:3-8

Today’s Theme: Extravagant Love

Opening Prayer: Dear God, thank you for allowing us to gather here today to learn more about Jesus. Please help our ears to listen, our minds to learn, and our hearts to love as we hear the stories of His work. Amen.

Today’s Lesson: Have you ever seen someone express their love to another person in such a way that it was simply over the top? Perhaps they spared no expense in a gift that they gave or prepared a really fancy party in honour of the guest. Has anyone ever done that for you?

These days, most of us have to be careful with our money. We set budgets, look for sales and try to spend our money wisely. But there are times that call for extravagant giving, extravagant generosity, extravagant service, and extravagant acts of love and kindness. There are times to go over the top when it comes to expressing your love to someone, especially Jesus.

Today, we are going to see someone who displayed extravagant love for Jesus. While we read today’s scripture, think about how YOU could display extravagant love for Him as well:

Mark 14:3-8

3 While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

4 Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages[a] and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

6 “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 The poor you will always have with you,[b] and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.

What is extravagant love? What does it mean for followers of Jesus like you and me? We need to understand three things about extravagant love.  

Number one, extravagant love is sacrificial. Extravagant love gives the very best. Extravagant love wants to demonstrate its commitment, passion, and gratefulness in such a way that it reveals how great is its love. Extravagant love is not about giving leftovers, but giving the very best. It’s sacrificial. This is what the woman was doing when she broke the alabaster jar of perfume and anointed Jesus with it.

Jesus is a few days away from being crucified. A few miles outside of Jerusalem was a little town called Bethany. In that town, Jesus was staying at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. According to the gospel of John there were other people there. Lazarus, the man Jesus raised from the dead was there along with Mary and Martha who was serving. In addition, you had the disciples there as well and probably a few of Simon’s friends and family.

Simon used to be a leper, we can safely assume that Jesus healed Simon of his leprosy. That is life changing. During Jesus’ day to be diagnosed with leprosy was a slow death sentence. It makes body parts like fingers, noses, ears, and lips fall off the body. Lepers were outcasts from society. They lived outside of the cities in the wilderness or in leper colonies. Everywhere they went they were to yell, “Unclean,” so people could stay away from them. However, Jesus was famous for healing lepers. When Jesus healed a leper, their skin would become like new, fingers would grow back, noses would return, ears would reappear and He would do this with just a word.

Somewhere along the way, Jesus came across the path of Simon and healed him. Now here is Simon the ex-leper with his family and friends with a new body and a new life. Sitting in his house is the One who made all this possible, Jesus! Can you imagine how grateful and thankful Simon was to Jesus? Do you understand why Simon would want to throw a banquet for Jesus and have Him in his house to honor Him? Simon’s heart was filled with love and gratitude for Jesus and for what Jesus had done in his life.

According to the gospel of John, Lazarus was also there. This is the man who was dead and buried in a tomb and was already decaying and was already stinking. Jesus approached Lazarus’ tomb and brought him back to life. Can you imagine listening to Lazarus tell his story about being resurrected from the dead by Jesus. I can only imagine the gratefulness and love and awe Lazarus must have had for Jesus. It would have been overwhelming.

John also tells us that Mary and Martha were there. They were the sisters of Lazarus and they loved Lazarus greatly. They would have simply had a deep love and gratitude for Jesus for bringing their brother back to life.

If this would have been your home and Jesus was sitting in your living room and He had previously healed you of cancer, brought back someone you loved from the dead, and had been blessed by Jesus in many other ways your home would be filled with awe, love, gratefulness, and gratitude for Jesus. When you understand the atmosphere of this home then what happens next makes sense.

Everyone is reclining around the table eating. This is a leisurely meal and they are enjoying each other’s company. Suddenly a woman comes in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She breaks open the jar and pours the perfume over Jesus’s head. It was unusual for a woman to step into such a scene and become the center of attention. According to the Gospel of John, this woman was Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha, although our reading from Mark does not specify this.

The woman comes in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume. This perfume was made from the essence of nard. The cost of this perfume in this alabaster jar was the equivalent of one year’s salary for a normal person at that time. In today’s prices, this bottle of perfume would be somewhere around $30,000. Although it sounds strange to us, pouring some oil or perfume over the head of a special guest was a common treatment in Jesus’ time. This sounds like a strange thing to do in our culture. If you tried pouring perfume on someone today in public, it would NOT go well. In Jesus’s day, though, it was a normal part of hospitality. This was a hot climate. People sweated. Nobody took showers in the morning or had baths every day. Deodorant had not been invented. A common courtesy to your stinky, smelly, unshowered guests was to give them a little perfume to mask their body odor. Think about how bad men smelled in this day when they were sweating, had no deodorant, didn’t have clean clothes and had leather sandals and sweaty feet. People smelled bad! Pack a house full of people for dinner and you had better get the perfume out if people are going to tolerate the body odor in the room.

Think about this woman - Mary - who loved Jesus and was grateful for Him. She is in the house listening to Jesus talk and answer questions. She is thinking about what Jesus did for Simon and healing his leprosy. She’s looking at Lazarus, her brother and thinking about that moment Jesus brought him back from the dead and restored their family. She is thinking about what He has done for her and what He means to her. The thought of putting a few drops of perfume over Jesus’ head or on his feet were not enough. She was overwhelmed with gratitude and love, and she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t pop the cork off the bottle, she broke the neck of the bottle and poured the entire content of the perfume on to Jesus. After all that Jesus had done, only a lavish, over-the-top gift that cost her dearly seemed more appropriate!

The perfume, nard, is an essential oil derived from the root of a plant grown in the Himalayas in India. It is very potent and powerful. This was not watered-down perfume. Typically, only a drop was necessary because the fragrance is so powerful. Mark says Mary poured this over Jesus’s head (which includes his beard) and John tells us that she also poured it on His feet. This perfume flowed into Jesus’ hair, down into His beard, and on to His clothes. Mary was trying to go as extravagant as she could in her gift to Jesus, because only wild extravagance began to show her appreciation and love for Jesus. The fragrance must have filled the whole room.

Breaking this jar was an act of extravagant worship. The woman did not care about the expense, she didn’t care about what others thought, the only thing on her mind was to love Jesus, worship Jesus, honor Jesus and to her the best way to express that was to give Him something extravagant. That may seem odd to us, but Jesus deeply treasured the act. One of the disciples, Judas, criticized her for it, saying the money should have been spent helping the poor. Well, that wasn’t really what Judas wanted, because he was a thief and traitor, but he acted like that was his intention. Jesus told Judas that Mary’s actions were beautiful. She had shown Jesus her love and care, and done something that was precious in His sight. Jesus appreciated that the anointing was done out of her heart and from a place of genuine care.

One other thing to keep in mind is that nard was often used in burial. In those days, people would put a lot of perfumes and embalming oils on bodies before placing them in tombs. Remember that this scene takes place during Jesus’s final week in Jerusalem. Thus, in a sense, Mary was getting Jesus ready for His death. Jesus acknowledges this in his defence of Mary, saying that she had poured perfume on his body in order to prepare him for his burial. What a sad and beautiful thing to say.

What was the reaction to those watching this display of sacrificial extravagant love toward Jesus? To begin with, Mark says in verse 4, Some of those at the table were indignant. The word indignant means to feel anger or intense annoyance at what is perceived as unfair or unjust or unnecessary. Some of those sitting around the table got mad at Mary for what they perceived as a wasteful way to express her love for Jesus. That’s why they were angrily asking, “Why waste such expensive perfume?” They saw this act of worship as a waste. They looked upon this display of love for Jesus as a squandering of money and a misuse of her wealth.

In verse 5 someone says, It could have been sold for a year’s wages and the money given to the poor! According to John it was Judas who led in the scolding. However, there were others in the room who agreed with Judas about Mary’s extravagant display of love Jesus being wasteful. The anger in the room over what had just happened began to spread and Mark says the people scolded her harshly. The word scolded means they were very angry and sternly warned her over and over. One person says, “Mary, what are you doing?” Another person says, “I can’t believe you wasted all that?” And another said, “You could have sold it and given it to the poor!” And another says, “What’s wrong with you? Think before you do something like that!” Did Simon, Lazarus, Martha, or the other disciples join in on the scolding. We are not told exactly who joined in on this, but some of them did.

Here are a few points to think about:

Some believers do not think Jesus is worthy of such a sacrifice of extravagant love. What they don’t realize is, by demeaning the woman for her act of extravagant worship, they also demeaned Jesus. For them, to honor Jesus in this way was a waste. You hear this when people say, “What a waste for them to give that much money to the church?” or “What a waste for them to support that missionary with that amount of finances” or “I can’t believe they wasted their future and career and retirement to become a missionary or pastor.” Without knowing it, they were saying, “Jesus is important, but not that important!” Extravagant love does not think like that. Extravagant love does not think about how much it can save. It only thinks about what is the best that it can give.

Some people are willing to be poor in their possessions to be rich in their worship of Jesus. Others are not and it’s that group that are usually the critics. When you display excessive love for Jesus you will get criticized. You will be misunderstood. Some of the closest people and believers in your life will scold you, rebuke you, and correct you for what you are doing for Jesus, especially when its extravagant.

Some believers have become comfortable with moderate and ordinary worship, rather than extravagant worship. Their commitment and dedication to following Jesus and loving Him is safe, convenient, comfortable, easy, and cheap. Jesus wants us to be extravagant in our worship. He wants you to take your alabaster jar, break it open, and pour on Him your time, energy, finances, thoughts, feelings, your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Extravagant love! Extravagant worship! Extravagant commitment! But to be extravagant will take sacrifice.

Jesus is not expecting extravagant acts of love and worship every day. Mary only had one alabaster jar and she used it to honor Jesus. Jesus had eaten dinner with Martha and Mary several times. As was the custom, they likely offered some type of perfume at each gathering. But this time, Mary decided to do something extravagant for Jesus. Don’t think that you have to give or do some extravagant thing for Jesus every day. That’s not the point here. At some point in your life, you will have an opportunity to display your love in an extravagant way. Others will think you are wasteful, but Jesus will receive it as an honor.

Closing Prayer: Dear God, You are more valuable than anything else. Please help us to honor and prize you. We offer you all of who we are. Help us to serve and honor you. Thank you for loving us. We love you, God!  Thank you for Jesus. In His name, Amen.