MondayMatters Lent Day 41: That About Say’s It All
John 12:1-11
I think they are called microcosms, those snapshots of life that pretty much sum up the whole thing. We had one this morning. I was getting Amos ready for school. He’s 3 and ¾. (Do NOT forget the ¾’s. In fact, he says he is 4 already and will not be told otherwise. His birthday is late June.) So, we are getting ready but he informs me he will not be going to school today because he has a cough. Now, we’ve been playing hard together all weekend and this is the first I’ve heard of a cough.
“Amos,” I said, “You will go to school today.”
“That’s alright,” he responds. “I will just not go tomorrow. I’ll cough on all the other kids and make them sick so they will not have school.”
That is a microcosm of our week with the younger grands. They are too smart for us to keep up with. They have an answer for every objection. They come up with exceptions for every rule. And whatever the debate, they are one step ahead of Mimi and me. It’s been quite the week.
Today’s Lent reading from my prayer book, “A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants,” is John 12:1-11. It is famously called, “The Anointing at Bethany.” Jesus is on His way into Jerusalem. He stops at a house that He frequented often, the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. They throw a big party for Him and at that party, Mary breaks into their burial perfume, and prophetically, anoints the feet of Jesus, not even knowing how appropriate her actions were. In less than a week, she would be doing the same thing to put Him in a tomb.
It is a beautiful, extravagant, worshipful, wasteful, controversial scene. Some people probably cheer her as she uses her hair to wipe clean the Savior’s feet. Others are aghast and appalled that He would allow such a thing to happen. Even in His own inner circle there us division. Judas says, “We could sell this and help the poor,” actually a pretty rational, practical suggestion.
I built two churches in my pastoral career. Both times we moved from old, worn out, austere facilities to very nice, attractive, not opulent but elegant, new auditoriums. And in both cases, there was this struggle between providing a nice, worshipful space that honored Jesus, and doing the bare minimum so we could give more to missions. If you think I am going to settle that debate here you are sadly mistaken.
The point is not so much what happened in the anointing story, but that the story is a microcosm of the ministry of Jesus, and while we are at it, our own spiritual journey’s.
Here’s the summary:
Jesus does good stuff. He raised Lazarus from the dead.
Jesus is honored and applauded.
He is worshipped and adored by those who knew Him best.
And He is betrayed by one who knew Him best.
Jesus says really cool things, some of them hard to understand.
The crowd wanted to follow Him.’
The crowd wanted to kill Him.
That about sums up the whole of Jesus’s time on earth. I could have told Amos and Caleb that whole story in the time it took me to address the cough. It is a microcosm, a snapshot, a moment in time that tells you most of what you need to know about the rest of the time. And, it has some lessons. Here are four.
- No matter what the crowd is saying, just keep doing what you are supposed to do. Jesus helps people at the beginning of His ministry. He helps people at the end of His ministry. He helps them when the crowd cheers and He helps them when they turn against Him.
You may be experiencing all of those things. Doesn’t matter. Just keep doing good stuff for God’s sake.
- Don’t be surprised when those who love you love you. And don’t be surprises when they don’t. My dad used to make this cynical statement when he as pastoring small churches in the south, “The ones who move you in will be the ones who move you out.” People are fickle. They change their minds and their allegiances. Take their praises with a grain of salt and take their attacks to Jesus.
- Whatever you say, you will be misunderstood. That’s just the nature of the beast. I think I am a pretty good communicator. (If you are reading this you may totally disagree.) But I can’t tell you how many times I have said things that have either been taken out of context or totally misunderstood.
I had a pastor who used to say, “People that love you don’t need explanations, and people that don’t, won’t believe them anyway.”
- Last thing, who you are, what value you have, your worth and contributions in life will never be measured by the size of the crowd. I have known people who could draw a big crowd by changing their socks. I have also been blessed to have some people pour real depth into my life that never really made much of a name for themselves. If I have a choice, I would rather be the latter.
Just keep doing good things. Keep speaking the truth. Keep loving the ones that love you and the ones that don’t. And know that God “loves you with an everlasting love.” He says, “Well done,” over you. And that is all that matters. That about says it all. It’s all summed up in this little diatribe. And if you don’t like it, that’s okay. I’ll send Amos to cough on you.