Spikenard
His bare body wrenches a new wound with every gulp of air. The past twenty four hours have tested the limits of human endurance. As our Redeemer hangs there on the cross, every breath brings Him closer to death. Every gasp is agony.
Yet every breath renews His surrendered determination.
With another hoist and heave, His lung's cry for oxygen is appeased, and so is His heart's cry for reassurance. Jesus remembers last Wednesday clearly.
The faces surrounding Him. Loving friends, scheming enemies. Self-righteous host and stingy, confused disciple. But one stands out, hidden behind shame and a bright red veil.
Mary Magdalene. She had been through so much. Despised and condemned by the very men who had led her into sin. Thrown at His feet for divine sentencing, He lifted her up instead and told her to leave her sin behind. She was so beaten, so torn. The vessel of the demons of shame, bitterness, lust. Forgiveness is an empowering life changer. Now she kneels at the fringes of the dinner guests, not out of shame, but humble, quiet adoration. She slips between dusty feet and tasseled hems.
From her robe appears a flask. The payment of all her years of sin held in a fragile alabaster jar. And with tears of gratitude and thankfulness she pours her life on His feet and crowns His head with the pungent sweet aroma of spikenard. The precious oil that makes other scents linger, clinging with memory to beard, to face.
Just two days later, His dying breaths still remind Him of Mary, and in a way remind Him of you.
He is dying for Mary. He hangs on that cross so that her repentance is actually worth something. He is suffocating naked in front of the world so that she can live up to His expectations.
But look more closely. He's dying for you. Every mistake. Every time you swear that it's the last.
The aroma of your future holds Him to that cross.
Yet every breath renews His surrendered determination.
With another hoist and heave, His lung's cry for oxygen is appeased, and so is His heart's cry for reassurance. Jesus remembers last Wednesday clearly.
The faces surrounding Him. Loving friends, scheming enemies. Self-righteous host and stingy, confused disciple. But one stands out, hidden behind shame and a bright red veil.
Mary Magdalene. She had been through so much. Despised and condemned by the very men who had led her into sin. Thrown at His feet for divine sentencing, He lifted her up instead and told her to leave her sin behind. She was so beaten, so torn. The vessel of the demons of shame, bitterness, lust. Forgiveness is an empowering life changer. Now she kneels at the fringes of the dinner guests, not out of shame, but humble, quiet adoration. She slips between dusty feet and tasseled hems.
From her robe appears a flask. The payment of all her years of sin held in a fragile alabaster jar. And with tears of gratitude and thankfulness she pours her life on His feet and crowns His head with the pungent sweet aroma of spikenard. The precious oil that makes other scents linger, clinging with memory to beard, to face.
Just two days later, His dying breaths still remind Him of Mary, and in a way remind Him of you.
He is dying for Mary. He hangs on that cross so that her repentance is actually worth something. He is suffocating naked in front of the world so that she can live up to His expectations.
But look more closely. He's dying for you. Every mistake. Every time you swear that it's the last.
The aroma of your future holds Him to that cross.
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