Extravagant worship

While Jesus was eating, a woman came in with an alabaster jar full of a very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus’ head. Some of the people there became angry and said to one another, ‘What was the use of wasting the perfume? It could have been sold for more than three hundred silver coins and the money given to the poor!’ And they criticised her harshly.  (verses 3b-5)

Read Mark 14:1-11

It is tempting to believe that elaborate worship and costly religious devotion make no sense in a world on the brink of social and ecological collapse. Common sense is clear about where the church’s priorities should lie: we should be concerned about issues of social welfare, human rights and environmental justice.

But this story suggests that extravagance in worship is not necessarily out of place. Jesus welcomes this costly act of devotion, declaring it to be ‘a fine and beautiful thing’. Some criticise the woman. Some call her worship a waste. But Jesus receives it, because it proclaims his saving death in dramatic form: ‘she poured perfume on my body to prepare it . . . for burial’ (Mark 14:8).

Your participation in worship is not senseless. Your costly devotion to Jesus is not a waste. Extravagant worship proclaims the Lord who gave himself extravagantly for all.

Lord Jesus Christ, give me your Spirit so that I may give my life extravagantly for you. Amen.

by Adam Cooper, in ‘New Strength for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 1998)

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