Resurrection Day – 8: Holy Waste?
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
John 12:3-11
Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them[a] with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot,…said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”…7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it[b] so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
Eight days before Jesus rose from the dead, Mary opened a jar. In that jar, a pound of pure nard. Expensive. Rare. The kind of perfume you don’t splash on. The kind you save for later. For a wedding day. For a once-in-a-lifetime moment. Mary didn’t save it. She poured it on Jesus’ feet. Then she did something even more shocking: she wiped his feet with her hair. This was bold. This was love with the volume turned all the way up.
And the house filled with fragrance.
That’s what extravagance does. It doesn’t stay quiet. It doesn’t stay hidden. It spills into the air so everyone knows: something beautiful just happened.
But Judas didn’t call it beautiful. He called it waste. “Why wasn’t this sold and given to the poor?” he asked. But Jesus could hear the cold clink of a calculator behind the words. Here’s the hard truth: we can use “wisdom” as a mask for stinginess. We can call it “being careful,” when really we’re afraid to love too much, give too much, or surrender too much.
Jesus said,
“Leave her alone.”
Mary wasn’t trying to impress a crowd. She wasn’t buying God’s approval. She was responding to Jesus. Lazarus was alive. Hope was in the room. And Mary understood something the others didn’t: the cross was coming. Jesus understood it too.
“She kept it for the day of my burial,” Jesus said.
This isn’t a waste. This is worship. And sometimes worship needs to be extravagant. Not because God needs our worship. But because love needs expression. Because gratitude needs a channel or it does not do its good work in our soul. Because when you realize what Jesus has done for you, “just enough” doesn’t feel like enough.
Honestly, the world needs more extravagance. Extravagant forgiveness. Extravagant love. Extravagant joy. Extravagant service. Extravagant hope. You get the picture. So, here’s a question. Where have you been too careful when you could have been extravagant? What “jar” have you kept sealed? Open it. Pour it out. Let the house fill with the fragrance of a life that says, “Jesus, you are worth it.”
