Encounters with Christ: Mary of Bethany Anoints Jesus’ Feet | Scott Sauls

today's scripture reading is from John 12 one through eight six days before the Passover Jesus therefore came to Bethany where Lazarus was whom Jesus had raised from the dead so they gave a dinner for him there Martha served and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume but Judas Iscariot one of his disciples he who was about to betray him said why was this joint manat sold for three hundred denarii aye and given to the poor he said that's not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and having charge of the money bag he used to help himself to what was put into it jesus said leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial for the poor you always have with you but you do not always have me this is the word of the Lord praise thank you Emily I want to just provide an echo two gifts recommendation to the women to take advantage of the upcoming women's retreat Trillian new bell is one of the one of the best Bible teachers in our region and just a solid soul and she's actually going to be focusing in in her subject matter on the things when were you talking about this morning one of our catechism questions asked what the chief end of a human being is was a chief purpose and the answer is that our chief purpose our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever that's going to be trillions focus and and that's our focus this morning on a woman Mary who enjoys the presence of Jesus Christ so profusely that it makes Judas feel extremely awkward so there's a lot going on in this passage at the center of it is Mary's output whirring of affection really a love gush to Jesus Christ after Jesus has raised her brother Lazarus from the dead after Lazarus has been buried for four days and so great miracles have happened and Mary is is taken by this she her breath is is taken away by the power of the resurrecting power of Jesus Christ and Judas what he does is he gives a demonstration of what happens with somebody who has an empty spiritual core when they are exposed to true spirituality and to a truly spiritual person he immediately launches into this effort to shame to criticize to discredit to shut down whatever is going on between Mary and Jesus it reminds me of a of a story I heard about Billy Graham once Billy Graham went golfing hard to picture Billy Graham as a golfer but he he went golfing with a couple of other people and there was an interviewer waiting at the 18th hole after they finished who went to one of the the people that was golfing with Billy Graham and said what's it like to spend 18 holes with Billy Graham I mean tell me the truth did he shank one in the woods and then maybe mumble a cuss word under his mouth you know give me something and and the guy's answer was this I am so sick and tired of Billy Graham shoving his religion down my throat so the interview go interviewer goes to the other person that was was part of this this golf threesome and says what could Billy Graham have said or done to elicit this kind of reaction from your friend and he said Billy Graham didn't say anything about religion or God or anything like that he was just one of us really kind shanked a few balls into the woods but didn't cuss you know things like that and what this is is really a picture of what was going on in the first century between Mary and Judas it as if Judas is saying I'm sick of Mary shoving her fanatical religion down my throat when what Mary was doing had nothing to do with Jews it Judas it was it was just her and Jesus right and then the next thing that happens in the scripture after this one can you believe this the chief priests the religious leaders plot to assassinate Lazarus who was just brought up from the dead and so there's this threatening thing that true spirituality brings to the heart of spiritually pretentious people who like their positions and their seats of power and their microphones and their book deals but for whatever reason they're really unnerved by Jesus and the impact that he has on truly spiritual people and so what I want to do in the next few moments is engage all of us in a discernment exercise to ask ourselves the question am i with Mary and Billy Graham or am i with Billy Graham's critic and Judas when the Holy Spirit decides just show up and shake things up a little bit so there are three signs of authentic spirituality that come to us in this experience between Mary and Jesus one is we will sacrifice our dignity another is will sacrifice our social-climbing and then the final one is that we will sacrifice our security when when we have a real authentic life transformative encounter with Jesus Christ and so let's start with the sacrifice of our dignity Mary is emotionally swept away and there's this love gush that happens that leads her to break all sorts of conventions that were just understood in the first century religious culture the first thing she does is she she lets down her hair now for a Jewish woman in those times two unbound her hair was scandalous Jewish women would never unbind their hair in front of men they were not married to or or boys who were not their sons it was a public spectacle of a modesty in that culture and the other thing she does is she doesn't just touch his feet she actually cleans them with her hair and you know cultural context their shoes were sandals a lot of people especially people who were poor like Jesus would walk around without sandals because they couldn't afford shoes and remember they didn't have pavement it was just dirt that they would walk in you know all week long and they would rarely shower maybe once every week or two because of scarcity of water and so on a lack of plumbing technology and so feet were so filthy that they actually had laws that protected servants and slaves from having to wash their masters feet and here we have Mary just blowing all conventions and then she pours perfume over Jesus that's so costly that it's worth three hundred denarii I know I did Denarius was was one day's pay in that time so you're looking at at a year's salary all poured out at once on Jesus and and so Judas has this reaction that exposes a whole lot about where his heart is he's very threatened bothered maybe even personally injured he feels by Mary's activity when Mary's activity isn't it doesn't have anything to do with Judas at all in the first place what's going on here it's like this so so Valentine's Day is coming up this week let's say that the tellers and the Saul's got together the day after Valentine's and Patti says to wheat my wife Patty says to wee Todd's wife what Todd do for you for Valentine's and and we'd says oh you you won't believe it I mean he he gave me a foot massage he said all these really sweet things and then he revealed to me that he had secretly learned how to play guitar last year written 12 love songs and he sang all of them to me what did Scott do for you he took me to Chipotle I am going to resent Todd in that moment even though Todd wasn't thinking of me at all when he was writing those love songs to his wife but I'm gonna resent Todd because of how his deep gushing over the top fanatical affection for his wife exposes me for my lack thereof where are we in this story could we ever be accused of being too fanatical in our affections toward Jesus Christ do we have any critics who criticize us for how fanatical we are about Jesus about his truth about his beauty about his great and glorious gift of salvation have we ever made anyone feel awkward because of how close to Jesus Christ we've become there's this section in First Samuel where Hannah the the the would be future mother of the prophet Samuel is agonizing in the temple because she's unable to conceive she's unable to have children and she so longed for a child and she's she's weeping over that and and and she's praying such passionate heartfelt prayers to God that that she can't even speak and and and and the the priest Eli sees her praying from a distance all she's all he sees is her moving her mouth and her body you know perhaps shaking a little bit and a very charismatic moment you might say an Eli the priest the professional Minister says you're drunk what's the matter with you yeah you fast-forward a couple hundred years and you got the day of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit rains down on the Church of Jesus Christ and the people of God and it says that that the effect of the Holy Spirit's presence was so overwhelming that that that that there was this gushing wind and and people of Jesus started speaking in what it calls tongues of fire languages that they'd never been trained in dialects that were dialects of another land in another country and so on preaching the gospel and languages they'd never learned and the critics like Judas are standing at a distance saying I'm so tired of these Christian people shoving their religion down my throat what they say literally is they're drunk they're intoxicated and the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 5 says do not get drunk with wine but there's an alternative to getting drunk with wine be filled with the Holy Spirit of God is there anything about my faith that would cause somebody else to to say he's out of his mind he must be drunk on something because he's so taken now here's the thing about Mary her love gush is not reckless it's very very much driven by content and substance and history there's nothing chaotic or reckless about it it's just very affectionate but everything she's doing is grounding and grounded in the truth that that the one who was and is and is to come Jesus Christ told her dead brother to live again and her dead brother lived again I mean I love how casually that the text just says now they were all having dinner and Lazarus whom Jesus had raised from the dead was there because that's what Jesus does he raises people from the dead but it's so casual it's so matter-of-fact and yeah and yet Mary she has a moment and she's she's taken who would not be amazed who would not lose their inhibition if you got your brother back you know one of one of our church members said to me after an Easter Sunday once why are we and specifically why am I so stiff he says I'm waiting for an Easter Sunday where somebody will get up right in the middle of your sermon interrupt you and look around the room and say people it's true it's true doesn't this change everything shouldn't we be doing backflips shouldn't we be leaping and dancing' because he gives us dead brother's back no Blaise Pascal no intellectual slouch philosopher founder of modern day Statistics mathematician when he died they found a note sewn inside his coat and it was his own story or accounting of an experience that he had in the presence of God and it read like this the year of grace 16:54 Monday 23rd November from about half-past 10:00 in the evening to about half past midnight fire God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob not of the philosophers and intellectuals certitude certitude feeling joy peace the God of Jesus Christ my god and your God forgetfulness of the world and everything except God one finds oneself own by way of the directions taught in the gospel there it is connecting his passion to substance connecting his affections to truth in good theology and Bible it's never disconnected the grandeur of the human soul joy joy joy tears of joy the fountain of living water this is eternal life that they may know you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent Jesus Christ Jesus Christ total and sweet theology on fire doctrine that leads to joy have you have you ever stopped to contemplate how emotive the Psalms are the prayer-book of God you've got it all you've got anger you've got doubt you've got fear you've got joy and laughter and happy feelings and sad feelings and lament you've got it all it's all there that's what a relationship is it's it's the mingling and exchanging of of emotion and feelings and thoughts it's face time you know one of our one of the members of our staff we have this sort of time of worship and sharing of stories and how God's at work in our lives once a month as a staff and this month it was mark nester who's we have chairs because of mark we are taken care of because of mark the place is clean and organized every time we entered the building because a mark and Mark had sort of a marry moment he he he talked about how you know he sees his life as one in which he's just craves crawling into Scripture and when he crawls into Scripture then then Jesus and the Holy Spirit and God the Father crawl into him and and sometimes he can't contain himself I'm happy to report to you that nobody felt awkward we had no Judas's getting all suspicious and anxious about mark's love gosh here's the thing anybody can get in on this and some people for them the love gosh is much more extroverted for others it's more introverted what do what it boils down to is a heart that that that has moments where it explodes and you can have that without raising your hands you really can and sometimes when you're raising your hands none of its going on in your heart see Judas is the external pretender Mary is the love gusher in an extroverted sort of way martha has her hands down serving but her heart is in the same place as Mary's right like a healthy marriage the foundation of faith is not the fireworks the fireworks are the exclamation point the fireworks are a sliver of the relationship built on the foundation of being face to face being side to side listening and serving but but over time true spirituality will also explode in moments of intoxication and wonder over who this God is who loves me and gave himself for me we'll sacrifice our dignity sometimes we will also sacrifice our social-climbing so Christian fanaticism fanaticism driven by the gospel look will cause us to minor on appearances and major in Thanksgiving will cause us to minor on drawing attention to ourselves minor on selfies and major on things like love and kindness and humility and servanthood so Katharine Hepburn the actress in a very transparent interview said that when she got famous when I arrived she said I dropped my husband I was a pig he was wonderful I was a pig it wasn't like he had a problem I was a pig I used him I dropped him she's describing what can happen when we get successful when we get our break when we get the call back when we get the raise when we get the promotion when we get the book deal when we get something that elevates us in the pecking order of the society around us when we get named apostle like Judas did sometimes success can poison a person and-and-and-and and create this illusion of self-importance of specialness of superiority of swag and you know that you've got a cluttered core you know that that that you've got a soul that is compromised and fragile when when you when you get elevated as Katharine Hepburn did and so transparently admitted you get new friends and the people you know the band that got you there watches you as you leave them and and take all of these selfies and have all these VIP moments with people of note with the elites with the inner ring and you discard the people who were once your most loyal friends who are no longer useful to your cause this is in me too I mean I have to admit that sometimes I enjoy the sound of my name more than I enjoy the sound of Jesus's name I admit that sometimes I walk away from here more concerned about what you think of me than I do about what you think of Jesus it's in all of us but fanaticism around Jesus creates an opposite effect you know when I first when I got my first pastor job I was an associate pastor in a church in Kansas City and one of the first things that the senior pastor of that church asked me to do was a vacuum the dead bugs out from beneath the administrators desks and I did it but I was really annoyed to have been asked but looking back what really should annoy me the fact that I was asked to do that or the fact that it annoyed me to be asked to do that here's Martha the sister of a celebrity the guy who came up from death what's it say about Martha Martha served Saint Martha with the same people serving even Judas she is serving Judas you matter Martha says yes Ryan said in the prayer Jesus is the equalizer he takes us off a high horse but he also elevates us and he puts us all on equal ground in the family of Jesus everybody matters and the family of Jesus everybody belongs equally and I think this is the reason why Christianity has historically felt most attractive to people who are losing out in the world and has felt least attractive to people who are winning out in the world but in a truth true church in a truly spiritual community people who are ignored by the world can become VIPs in here and people who are VIPs out in the world if if the marry thing is happening in their hearts they take great joy in vacuuming bugs out from beneath administrators desks and if they don't take joy in that there is a problem john stott is one of one of my heroes john stott is a very well known globally known pastors scholar leader died a few years ago and christianity today did a piece about his life and in that piece they interviewed a Latin American theologian named Rene Padilla and Rene Padilla described a trip that he and John Stott took to Argentina together and and you know they were dropped off by their cab several blocks away from their hotel and it was pouring rain and so they they had to walk in the pouring rain to their hotel they were both too exhausted they just threw their filthy muddy shoes on the floor and you know took their showers and went to bed and Rene Padilla says that the next morning he came into the commons area of where they were staying and there was john stott polishing Padilla's shoes world-famous pastor writer scholar well known all over the world all over the globe just voluntarily picking up somebody's smelly filthy shoes and cleaning them off to start the day and padilla asked him what are you doing and stott said Jesus taught us to wash one another's feet but you don't need me to wash your feet because we have plumbing technology and soap and so on and you've taken your shower but I can wash your shoes for you john stott much like mark nester made a daily habit of crawling into the scriptures until Jesus and the Holy Spirit God the Father crawled into him until he became a man of the Basin and towel until he became a man who washed feet ever heard of a man who washed feet before way up as the way down Henri Nouwen called it downward mobility the more mature you are in Christ the more elevated you are in the kingdom the lower you go the closer to the ground you are that's where the glory is and that's where Jesus is we'll sacrifice our social-climbing will you do that for Jesus will you give up some elite access for Jesus Christ will you'd give up your VIP pass for Jesus Christ will you give up backstage for him if you have to huh will you give up a Grammy if you have to where were you play the angles lastly we'll sacrifice our security in the next verse the Pharisees plan to assassinate Lazarus why do they want to kill Lazarus it says because many Jews were going away they were removing themselves from the leadership of the Pharisees and the scribes and believing in Jesus there they were losing power they were losing influence it didn't feel safe anymore because they built their whole identity on that they'd become intoxicated there's that word again intoxicated drunk on power drunk on being the man drunk on being the one who gets the greetings in the marketplace and who gets to sit at table one at banquets and stand behind the microphone a few weeks ago I talked about how if you are a Christian in China today if you go public with your faith you put your own life at risk now in the United States you don't put your life at risk when you become an extroverted Christian when you become a public believer in Jesus Christ in all the places where you live work and play when you say I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes first for the Jew then for the Gentile first for the middle Easterner then for the American when you become that person when you stop caring as Mary did what the people around you think somebody might assassinate your character if they can't assassinate your person because of the laws of our land they might try to assassinate your character and that's what Judas does with Mary Mary is free from caring what Judas thinks what Judas says or what the impact of what Judas says might have on her reputation doesn't care she's willing to lose faith to be misunderstood to be mischaracterized to be slandered even by an apostle or her peers or her community because she's like that little girl who misquoted the 23rd psalm as she stood in front of her church the Lord is my shepherd that's all I want or did she misquote she's also free from the fear of scarcity Judas is appalled three hundred denarii I this could have been sold and given to the poor but we get the commentary here we know what Judas was really after he didn't care anything about the poor he didn't care that Mary was taking potential money away from the poor she he cared that Mary was taking potential money away from Judas because Judas was the keeper of the money he was the treasure and he used to dip his hands into the offering plate and say don't mind if I do and we say we say to ourselves how awful what kind of person do you have to be to steal money from the offering player from from the poor you know the irony here is that the place where Mary and Martha had chosen to live this place called Bethany which means house of the poor they are living among the poor while Judas thus lacked of us while Judas the social-media warrior who whose activism costs him nothing personally gets irate when Mary and Martha are running circles around Jesus and their ministry among the poor see Judas is like the American Christian spirit law charity starts at home what that really is is a euphemism that means charity ends there too let's be honest on average an American Christian will give two and A two and a half percent of their income away to a combination of the church the poor and nonprofits two point five percent over half of those claiming to be followers of Christ in America gift not drunk on income drunk on net worth drunk on consumption drunk on retail therapy drunk on Mammon which you cannot love and love Jesus at the same time you see your Judas you Judas I'm Judas I am Judas I am a greedy man I'm scared of losing my financial position you turns out we're all on the hook for needing grace what Judas did actively most American Christians do passively steal from God Malachi chapter 3 I'm thankful I can say this while our church is way ahead in the budget this year so you see you don't you can't read in like I'm desperate you know for you to open up your pockets I'm not the least bit desperate I am NOT after your money I believe with all my heart that Jesus is after your heart and he will fight for your heart by getting in your face and say you're stealing from me and you say back to him how are we robbing you and he will say just as he says in Malachi in your tithes which literally means your tents your 10% that in those days was to go to the temple and your offerings your contributions above and beyond to the poor to the needy to your neighbor to spontaneous gifts of joy than generosity well do you know that was the law that's the Old Testament look the death burial and resurrection of Jesus had not happened the fullness of the grace of God in the gospel had not been fully revealed yet what should grace to make us less generous or more than people who were living under the law of Moses test me this is the one place in all the Bible where God says test me test me in this and see if I don't pour out so much blessing on you you won't know what to do with it and then he goes on to define blessing this isn't a prosperity gospel teaching this isn't a health and wealth thing where you put it in and you're gonna you sow your seed and then you're gonna get you know tenfold that that's not at all it you may lose your job after you start to give the economy may tank after you start to be generous that's not the point the way that he interprets his own words God in Malachi 3 of I will pour out blessing on you is this through the meeting of your needs as he defines them we can't define our own needs because here in affluent opulence 372 1:5 America our understanding of need is way different than what a need is in the third world so we need Jesus to come in and define what our need is and our greatest need is to be able to be open handed and open hearted like Mary was otherwise we are so poor we are so poor I can have a 9 figure Net Worth and be one of the poorest people in my city because my hands are closed my fists are tight and I'm dipping my hand either actively or passively into the coffers of God and taking what's his what is Mary doing she's giving up a lesser security because she's confident that she has a greater one in Jesus the one who sacrificed himself the one who washed filthy feet Lazarus is here reclining he wasn't looking for a book deal or if a TV appearance he's here as one of the folk reclining at the table Jesus is the hero of Lazarus's story Jesus is a hero of everyone's story but the way that he became a hero was by setting a table by allowing his body to be shattered and shredded in his blood to be shed to finish the work not to give ten percent but a hundred percent 100 percent liquidation gave up his dignity gave up his power gave up his social status to make a place of belonging for lepers and prostitutes people are mentally ill blue-collar people disabled people with special needs all of them and he gave up his security he said to the father not my will but yours be done make me vulnerable take my power so that we can say the Lord is my shepherd that's all I want so where we at I love you let's pray riches I heed not nor man's empty praise thou mine inheritance now and always heart of my own heart whatever befall still be my vision o ruler of all the Lord is my shepherd that's all I want Lord may this be our cry make us rich in the true essential sense of the word in your name we pray it

Channel: Christ Presbyterian Church

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Keywords: bible, gospel, jesus, presbyterian, reformed, scott sauls, christianity, Christ Presbyterian Church, Christ, Living

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Length: 36min 57sec (2217 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 10 2019