Broken Things

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. -- Mark 14:3

An alabaster jar filled with a rare and expensive liquid would be, I'm sure, a beautiful thing.  It is one of those things we might buy for ourselves and never quite find the right occasion to use it.  Once the flask is broken, no matter what we do, it will never be quite the same.  We have a life, and it's filled with the Spirit - whether we realize it or not.  Of course, we like our lives to be whole and complete.  We like to keep things neat and pretty, to have it all together. 

I seem to have a lot in common with the critics who were there at Simon's house around the table:  There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that?  For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her.

I have some friends who have a ministry.  That's about all they have.  The wife is afflicted with a auto-immune disease like lupus and suffered though a recent bout with cancer.  She was, at one point, a highly-paid corporate executive, but she walked away from that and poured all of her money, time, and energy, without any reservations, into their work.  She has no insurance to cover her medical bills or the expensive drugs she has to take to keep her alive.  They are essentially welfare cases.

To old hard-headed, hard-hearted, self-sufficient, self-reliant me, that's all but criminal.  It's a waste that somebody as talented and intelligent as this woman -- whom I have known since she was a high-school student thirty years ago -- should be praying that the government would approve her request for help buying the medication she needs.  This is just stupid. 

What good is a broken bottle, a broken body?  That's what I'm looking at.  The woman in Simon's house was standing there and, from Luke's account, weeping with the empty jar.  Everybody focused on that worthless broken thing.  Nobody was looking at Jesus.  That's where the costly anointing oil had gone.  Nobody noticed the sweet fragrance filling the room, emanating from the Master. 

My friend's life is in pieces.  She was very like that alabaster flask, physically perfect, dainty, delicate and exquisitely beautiful.  Now she is a husk, an empty shell, bloated, crippled, ruined, hopeless, ready just a few months ago to die, all but indigent and homeless, forced to live with other friends, unable to care for herself. 

But my attention is on her rather than on Him.  I'm missing what poured out of that beautiful cask and where it went and what it did.  The woman in Simon's house did not want everybody's eyes turned on her.  She was probably mystified to think that anyone would mind what she was doing when Jesus was reclining there.  All of her being, like her treasure, was given to Him.  If I'm not careful, like those poor Pharisees, I'll miss the point.