A Beautiful Life

  Today, I speak to you about the life of Jesus. And the one thing I give you to hide in your heart, turn over in your mind, and meditate on in your prayers is this: it was a beautiful life. Yes, I know there are many surprising things about Jesus according to the four gospels. They are all worthy of your reading, thinking, and believing. But after it is all done, after considering these things for more than 55 years, after preaching, thinking, and writing about the life of Jesus all this time, the last thing on my mind is this: it was a beautiful life. And if you and I follow Jesus, our lives will be beautiful; and if our church behaves like Jesus, we will have a beautiful church; and if our religion—Christianity—patterns our life together after the manner of Jesus, our religion will be beautiful, God will be honored, and people everywhere will be blessed. To expound this idea and this conviction, I offer you the story told in the 14th chapter of the gospel of Mark, of the woman who anointed Jesus just days before his death and burial. Let’s begin today with a fresh look at this story. I. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem for the last time. He knows this and has said things to his entourage, his peeps, that hint at what is coming. This journey is the familiar route, around the Sea of Galilee, south along the meandering Jordan River, to near Jericho, where the Roman road turns west and up. It is a steady climb, an ascent to Jerusalem. The Book of Psalms contains a section called the Songs of Ascent, psalm129-134. “I lift my eyes to these hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”  Jesus and his peeps would have recited these psalms as they walked slowly up the slope. Before Jerusalem, they came to Bethany. It is on the back side of the Mount of Olives. Here Jesus often stayed in the home of his friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Here, also, he called out to Lazarus who had been dead three days, “Lazarus, come forth!” And here, Jesus went into a private home to rest. There are two versions of this story: this one in the Gospel of Mark and another one in the Gospel of John. It is the same story: on his way to Jerusalem, in Bethany, a woman pours out a jar of expensive ointment. There are some differences in the two stories: in one is it in the home Simon but in the home of Mary and Martha in the other; in the one, it is an unnamed woman who pours the oil but in the other it is Mary; and in one version, it is poured on the head of Jesus while in the other is the feet of Jesus. I don’t know how to reconcile these details but neither do they bother me. What I love is the story of the anointing, the lingering aroma of the perfume, and the words that Jesus spoke: “She has done a beautiful thing.” Jesus said that because others in the group—men, the text explicitly says—criticizes the woman for wasting the valuable oil. This is how we know it was the beginning of a Baptist church: somebody does something special and others sit around and criticize her! But Jesus said, “Stop it! Leave her alone! She has done a beautiful thing.” That Greek word can be translated many ways beside “beautiful”—good, right, honorable, precious, and fitting. Any of those words will do. But I like the word beautiful. It refers not just to physical appearance or pleasing sound, but it touches on motive, and sacrifice, and memory. John’s account says this, “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” Years and decades later, people remembered how it smelled, they could recall the fragrance. Centuries later, Rudyard Kipling wrote, “Smells are surer than sounds or sights to make your heart-strings crack.” The people remembered, and we need to remember! There are many episodes in the gospel stories more dramatic, more amazing that this one. Healing the sick, raising the dead, and feeding the hungry. These more sensational signs of the spirit-filled life of Jesus no longer attract my attention as they once did. Then and now, they are presented as proof of the messianic mission of Jesus, evidence of his divinity, early signs pointing to the greatest of all miracles, the resurrection. I believe them all, but I do not treasure them like I do this extravagant act of devotion and the words of Jesus, “She has done a beautiful thing.” II. It is the beauty of the life of Jesus that compels my faith, that is the last thing on my mind. The woman with the alabaster jar of expensive ointment did a beautiful thing, but Jesus lived a beautiful life. Jesus was a beautiful person. My ambition is to be like Jesus and live a beautiful life, to be a beautiful person, to have somebody stand up at my funeral and say, “Dwight Moody was a beautiful person and lived a beautiful life.” Is there time yet for this to happen? How can you do a beautiful thing and how can you live a beautiful life? We can study this simple story in our search for beautiful qualities. We can look at the life of Jesus and ask, “What made his life beautiful?” and we can even turn our attention to others we know and say, “She is a beautiful person and lives a beautiful life.” Can I name three qualities that we can pursue? First, there is hospitality. If there is one practice that we notice everywhere in the stories of Jesus is this: he welcomed people. All people. People others would not recognize. Religion then and now makes rules, draws boundaries, and declares some people clean and some people unclean. Why religion, including our own, is drawn to this practice I do not know. But I feel that temptation deep in my soul. Draw the circle to keep them out. But look at this story. It illustrates how the practice of Jesus had shaped the practice of his people. Jesus and his people were guests in the home of Simon the Leper. None in those days were more excluded than the lepers. To touch them was danger, to be near them was forbidden. We know what this is like, having just come out of a pandemic. The rule was, stay away, do not touch, even wear a mask! But Jesus and his people were right there, at the table of Simon. Perhaps Simon had been healed, I don’t know. Perhaps his disease was in remission. Nevertheless, Jesus was there in the home of Simon the Leper. Then the woman comes and pours the ointment on Jesus’ head or feet or maybe both and maybe everything in between. John says, she wipes it with her hair! That is scandalous even in our day! That kind of touching is verboten. “Receive the stranger” our Lord says to us. That is a beautiful command, and when Jesus people practice this kind of hospitality to all sort of people, especially to those often pushed to the margins, it is a beautiful thing. I’ll tell you another thing about Jesus and his people that is beautiful. Generosity. Jesus was a generous person, pouring out his life for us, offering his many gifts for our well being, sharing with us all that God had given him. We call this grace. “Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,” says the old gospel song. He gave his time to even the least of these; he gave his wisdom to all who listened; he gave food and health and even life itself to those around him and also to us. What else did he give? Forgiveness! We live in a world filled to the brim with revenge, retaliation, getting even. This makes the world ugly and repulsive and dangerous. But not so Jesus. “Father, forgive them, because they really don’t know what they are doing.” That was his attitude long before he hung on the cross. And that was the command he gave us: forgive your friends and your enemies. It is right there in the Prayer. Are you nurturing a grudge? Are you remembering a slight? Are you stewing over a mistreatment you did not deserve? You want to be a beautiful person and shine a beautiful light in this dark world? Forgive. It is one thing that made Jesus beautiful. When the men criticized the beautiful woman, Jesus rebuked them for not forgiving her for this wasteful extravagance. Forgiveness makes us beautiful. One more thing: courage. I think it took courage for that woman—whoever it was—to pour out such an expensive gift of this man about to die. How different than the man I read about who paid a large debt by writing a check and slipping it in the casket of the deceased! No, she “wasted” all she had, perhaps her entire 401K—imagine that—when she anointed Jesus with the holy oil. It takes courage to offer your best to the Lord. It takes courage to sacrifice something valuable for the wellbeing of others. It demands courage to go against the grain of opinion in the world and even in the church. Jesus needed courage to defend the woman. Then and now, it is easy to criticize the women. But Jesus defended her and rebuked her critics.  That took courage. It is the same courage he needed to stand against the traditional teachers of the law, to push back against the ignorance and indifference of his own disciples, and to turn down what the devil offered him: personal fame and fortune. It took courage to be the messiah, to be the spirit filled rabbi he was called to be, to be the leader of a movement destined to change the world. It took courage. When I read the gospels, it is not the spectacular things that grab my attention and cause me to believe. No, it is the beauty of his life that inspires me. Some people focus on what is true—they search for the truth, but it is beauty that captures my affection. Some people value what is good—they labor for justice, and that is also good. But it is the beautiful life and the beautiful person that inspires me, that is the last thing on my mind. III. “She has done a beautiful thing,” Jesus said of the women in this story, whoever she was. She did a beautiful thing because she loved a beautiful savior, Jesus our Lord. Are we a beautiful congregation? I don’t mean, is our art beautiful or is our singing beautiful or are the flowers we cultivate and display beautiful. These all have their place, and I am grateful for them. But as we gather around the Lord’s Table today, let us pray, “O Lord, make us beautiful, like Jesus. Fashion in us the desire to be beautiful like our savior: welcoming to all you send our way, extravagant in share what you have blessed us with, and courageous to bless those who need the blessing and to do what needs to be done, even if runs against the grain of our religious culture. Do you want to be a beautiful person? Like the seven-year-old Ruby Bridges whose picture so long ago bravely walking between two officers still inspires us. Like Mr. Rogers who welcomed everyone to his neighborhood. Like Roselyn Carter who never outgrew her simple lifestyle while serving people around the world. Don’t you want to come to the end of your days and hear the Lord say of you, “You have done a beautiful thing! You have lived a beautiful life. You have helped shaped a beautiful community of faith. Go in peace.”