We Are Not Good People
Video: https://youtu.be/UfkOjS4q3AM
Mark 14:1-52
For the last few weeks as we go through the Gospel of Mark, we have been talking about the overthrow that Jesus wants to do. How he wants to overthrow the world and our hearts to establish a whole different kingdom. To some degree we understand this, we know the world needs to change and to a minor degree we might need to too, but do we really understand that everything is in a drastic need of change. I have so often heard people say, “But I am a good person or my friends or family are good people”. Today, Jesus challenges that. We can get away with saying we are good people because we are usually not faced with the hurt we cause. The internet, mass industry, globalization and our mobility have separated us from one another in a way that the suffering, hurt and death that we cause either through our action or inaction are isolated or at least distanced to such a degree that we don’t see our hand in it. Yet, when suffering comes whether it is for us or for someone we love, we usually show our stained hands. We doubt the faithful God who has been there for us the whole time. We protect ourselves or those we love. We blame others and we lose track of what is really important. Jesus shows us another way. It is simple and yet profound. It is to say to God, “Not my will but yours be done”
We start with this difficult passage about a woman anointing Jesus at Simon the Lepers house. This costly perfume for an average person would have been worth a year's wages. So you could imagine people’s outrage. This kind of extravagance was what they were fighting against. This is what the Pharisees and the Scribes did, what Herod and Pilate would do daily. Is Jesus selling out and becoming like them? Couldn’t this have been better used for the poor? It is so easy to think God is misusing his authority, because we have so many bad examples.
The people present argue that selling this perfume could have done so much for the poor and to some degree that is right, but that is missing something and those gentle shifts of the truth can make such a big difference. These people whether it was Judas who was stealing from the common purse, or religious leaders who were stealing from widows, or the disciples who had already been given so much by God and would soon betray him, or we who have so much to spare but often don’t use it for God or our neighbor, we all like to make great claims about generosity and self-sacrifice, but what does that actually look like in the end. Are we putting our wealth, our bodies, our honour on the line to the point of sacrifice?
Yet it is this woman who does. She becomes another vision of that widow’s might. Here is a woman who is likely not elite. There is no mention of status or position, unlike the wealthy man, or religious leaders, there is no description given to her. In this gospel she isn’t even named, though in another we find out her name is Mary. This perfume was probably the most expensive thing she ever owned and who knows how she got it. Her life could have looked very different by selling it and yet, in a moment she uses it to anoint Jesus. Why? We don’t get a reason from her, but what is obvious is that she believes Jesus is worth it. Do we believe Jesus is worth this much?
Yet we know that there are many good reasons for this anointing. Jesus is dining in the home of Simon the Leper. Simon was probably healed by Jesus but if not then by God. Many were healed, many in this church have been healed, I have been healed. I remember asking myself many years ago. If God has healed me and given me everything I really love, why haven’t I been willing to give it back. True thankfulness is a great reason and I am sure Mary had much to be thankful for. Yet there is still more reason for this anointing.
Jesus is about to die and as much as we should care for those that are dying, Jesus is going to die in a special way. This is the reason Jesus gives. He has already used his whole life to bring us closer to God and now Jesus will use his death to wash us from our sin and to adopt us by his blood. This woman is anointing him before the hardest thing anyone has ever had to do. She is also anointing him as a king and priest as he will become the sacrificial passover lamb that is sacrificed for us and the king that is raised up on a throne of wood. We will dig into that more later.
As great as these reasons are, there is still more. The two greatest commandments start with Love the Lord Your God, with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. It is only when we give everything to God first that we can truly care for ourselves and one another. We see this because everyone at this meal will fall short. They might have a great intent, but when push comes to shove, they will push, shove, run away and worse. They can not love as they should, because they do not love God first with all that they are; we cannot love others as we should until we love God first with all that we are, willing to give it all. This woman is the one who gets closest and we hear three Marys going to care for Jesus' dead body later.
We see Jesus loving us as we should love him. At this passover meal, as I have already mentioned to the kids, Jesus knowingly sits down with those he knows will betray him, deny him, abandon him and go back on every promise. These are those closest to Jesus and yet even they don’t know how to love God and others as they should. Yet, Jesus knowing all of this, sits down with them and tells them that he is going to die for them. That this bread and wine should forever become for you not just a reminder, but a realization of His loving sacrifice to make us whole, to give us the potential to actually love Him like he loves us. Jesus uses his last few moments of freedom and comfort to serve them, to show them what will happen, to prepare them and to feed them with his very life. He is loving them even knowing what they are about to do. That is a love we would all struggle with, at least I have. There is more in the last supper, but we need to move ahead.
We come to the Mount of Olives. Jesus has been warning them again and again that he is going to die. He outright told them the order of events three times and then he told them with parables, he showed them through anointing, through bread and wine and now when the time has come they aren’t even able to stay awake with Him. Their bodies come first over God and the hardest night in Jesus’ life. Their faithfulness falls short when it matters most, over such a simple thing as sleep.
How is Jesus able to love in such profound ways? How is He able to be good in the face of such sin? We hear that Jesus is deeply distressed and troubled and that he is grieved to the point of death. What wrestling and pain he must be going through. We hear that he doesn’t want to go through it. He prays to his Abba and Father in heaven. He knows His Father is powerful and could find another way. And yet his strength, trust and love is professed in a few simple words, “Yet not my will, but your will be done”. Could we say this at our hardest hour? Could we give so drastically when we are already hurting? Could we give to God, when we know what it means for us? Jesus struggled and yet He was willing to trust and follow God, to give everything to God. This is why Jesus could love so profoundly, because he loved God first and even he was overthrown by the things of God.
Jesus is then betrayed by a kiss - an intimate act by one we love and trust. Yet, Jesus once again accepts it and responds with love. When it seems like a fight is going to break out, Jesus stops it. Protecting both the religious and political authorities who were about to imprison, torture and kill him, but also the disciples who were about to betray, reject and abandon him. Jesus shows that he has always been a man of peace and yet when we are scared, we come at God with fists, clubs and swords.
Again and again, what a profound love God has for us. What a profound love to freely choose to become human and to go through all of this suffering to show us how deep his love goes. And yet they all flee. There is one man who was only wearing a single garment, who when seized is left running away naked without it.
The hard truth is that when we come to realize the love that God has for us, even while we are still sinning, while we are not good, it does strip us bear. It shows us our shame, our guilt. It reminds us that we are the ones hiding from God, naked in the garden, having loved ourselves more than him. I know many times in my life I have been scared of the silence or being alone, because a part of me knows that God will show me his love and as a result I will have to see my shame.
We all need God to be the love that this world needs. We all need to be overthrown and transformed by the love we meet in Christ. Even we who are closest to Jesus. When we look at the world and try to offer them Jesus Christ as the only way to find freedom, life and love. It’s not that we are right, because the truth is that we have been drastically wrong, it is that Jesus is right and that we all need him more than we are willing to admit. There are no good people, we have never been good people and being a better person isn’t what is needed. Jesus was the only one good person and thanks to him we have met and known a love that shows us the way to truly love. We have met God’s love that powerfully meets us in the midst of our brokenness and weakness and is trying to transform us by the sacrifice of His body and blood. Let us together grow into these words and say them even in our hardest moments, “Not my will God, but your will be done”
