Bring Treasure

We don’t know her name only her love. When Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him with an alabaster flask of costly fragrant oil and poured it on His head.  Set free from torment and now living with new hope, she came to pay her debt the best she could. But some disciples including Judas asked why the fragrant oil was “wasted?” GK Apoleia” Literally “ruined to perdition.” 

300 denarii was close to a year’s wage. That is extravagant worship. You can’t accurately ladle out worship, so she poured it out.  Worship is wasteful; it is always excessive, even over the top. You can only pour it out unmeasured. Extravagant worship always exposes the hard, pragmatic, selfish or merely natural mindset.

Judas also asked why her passion and devotion were not used to help the poor. But worship is not about being helpful or alleviating need. Meeting a need is a good thing to do at any time but it is not worship.  Worship is given to the One who has no need - we worship because it is we who have the need to worship.

Tellingly, when Jesus was describing Judas later, as the “son of perdition”, he used the exact same word "wasted", meaning “ruined to perdition.”  When a man calls wasted a thing that God esteems, God who wishes to esteem every man's life, may call it wasted.

Friends, the extravagance of our worship and how we rejoice in extravagant worship by others, is a good indicator of our heart and our future.