Often in the Gospels, the true worshipers of Jesus are those who are willing to make a scene for him. They yell. They plead. They run. They reach. They do whatever it takes to be near Jesus, whatever others may think.
A few men rip up a roof to get Jesus’s attention. A mother weeps and wails after him and won’t take no for an answer. Unclean women burst through crowds and enter Pharisees’ homes uninvited. A respectable man climbs a tree, and blind beggars won’t stop shouting. In each of these scenes, love for Jesus does not mind looking undignified, even outrageous, in the eyes of a lukewarm world.
But Holy Week gives us one of the most scandalous displays of all. A few days before Jesus lays down his life, while he eats in a home near Jerusalem, a woman comes carrying a jar of “very costly” perfume, pure nard worth a year’s wages (Mark 14:3). She holds in her hands the labor of three hundred days, the kind of fortune you keep hidden.
Conversation pauses as Jesus’s disciples and friends watch the woman step closer. What is she doing? they wonder. Then, in a few decisive movements, she breaks the neck of the jar, lifts it over the head of her Lord, and pours out every drop.
Why This Waste?
As the perfume drips down Jesus’s beard and pools at his feet, some of those present begin to get angry. Their response follows a typical pattern in the Gospels: When true worshipers make a scene, others disapprove, object, and move to restore order. In this case, Mark records their protest in three steps.
First, they calculate. They assess the size of the jar, they smell the perfume, and the sum becomes clear: “The ointment could have been sold for three hundred denarii” (Mark 14:5).
Second, they agitate. “[They] said to themselves indignantly, ‘Why was the ointment wasted like that?’” (Mark 14:4). The ointment wasn’t their ointment; it didn’t represent a year of their labor. So why the indignation? “The poor,” they reply (Mark 14:5). But something seems left unsaid.
As many of us can testify, a lukewarm heart cannot look upon true worship without feeling silently rebuked. Such extravagance threatens us; it seems to weigh our own worship and find it wanting. So, we would like to keep all religion moderate, not just our own. We would keep all sacrifices small, all devotion measured, all perfume safe in the jar.
Third, they not only calculate and agitate but also berate. “And they scolded her” (Mark 14:5). Inward indignation not enough, they look at this adoring woman and let her have it. They would not merely think her worship a waste; they would tell her so.
Such a scene has played itself out many times in the centuries since Holy Week. A student brilliant at mathematics decides to attend seminary. A family with four kids under five moves overseas. A couple with children already grown takes in another. A young man gives evenings and weekends to discipling others. And professors, parents, neighbors, or friends, calculating the cost, say, “Waste.”
Often, they haven’t miscalculated the cost. But neither have they included all the variables. For while onlookers focus on the worth of the sacrifice — the perfume, the career, the youth, the comfort — worshipers focus on the far greater worth of the Christ.
Behold This Beauty
So there the woman stands, a year poorer and perhaps wondering if her worship has gone too far. Have I been a fool? But then Jesus steps in and removes any doubt: “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me” (Mark 14:6).
Where they saw loss, he saw love. Where they saw waste, he saw beauty. Why? Because our Lord finds beautiful whatever we do in response to his beauty. And his beauty alone had broken her jar:
You always have the poor with you . . . but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. (Mark 14:7–8)
Did she know she was anointing his body for burial? Maybe not. But even still, she seems to have sensed that something was about to change. “You will not always have me.” And the sight of his worth sent her looking for some way to pour out her love. If the world would not anoint him, hail him, adore him, then she would. Her broken jar was simply a picture of her devoted heart.
And it was also a picture of his. Within the week, he too would pour out his most valuable treasure, this time on her and all his people. But the jar would be his body and the ointment his blood. And while some would look at that breaking and see waste, we look and see beauty. While many see loss, we see unfathomable love poured out, a life worth infinite wages.
She saw dimly what we now see more fully: No worship is too extravagant for the Lord of Calvary. And no such worship is a waste.
Pour Out What’s Precious
No week in the history of the world has called forth more “waste” than Holy Week. The Lord of the cross and empty tomb has humbled worldly plans, has squandered fortunes once earmarked for self, has cast aside comforts, has sent countless saints along the path of suffering love. For when we see his own heart poured out, we can’t help but pour our most valuable treasures upon him.
Why do we have any such treasures in the first place? Why money, why youth, why home, why strength, why skills, why beauty? So we have some tribute to bring to our King, some jar to break for his sake, something to “waste” for his worth.