Good afternoon everyone,

John 12:1-3-Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table. 3 Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

Throughout the gospels whenever you read about the sisters Mary and Martha they are always distinguished by what they are doing. Mary seems to always be worshipping and savouring Jesus while Martha is always serving. Of course in "church circles" one would think that serving isn’t bad at all, as a matter fact we could always have more servants to do work and help out. Yet when you think about Jesus and His mission to fulfill the Father’s will at the cross, the only influnece that would count God worthy to be worshipped was for Jesus as the Son of God to demonstrate it. In other word’s Jesus’ service throughout all the gospels of feeding and healing people came first from His loving worship to glorify His Father.

Just like Martha it is easy to be caught up in doing "good acts of service" because you can visibly see and admire your own accomplishments. Yet we can still have the presence of Jesus Christ in us and not worship, but be distracted by all we have to do. When that is the case, serving at home, work, church, etc becomes joyless and burdensome. So if people see that "spirit", Christianity looks like another responsibility that they have no time for, almost like a job I don’t like to go to, but feel I have to. Martha symbolizes someone who gets their identity from what they do and how faithful they are in doing it, joyful or not. Rather than taking time to savour the presence of Jesus before her as her first priority before serving.

Mary is a worshipper of the Lord, and by worshipper I mean someone who sees Jesus as "the fountain of life" from which everything in her life flows from, so worship must be the priority for her. This is why the expensive perfume was no big deal for her to pour on Jesus feet, because it symbolized the priority that she does not consider anything more precious than Jesus. Not her self-image (by wiping His feet with her hair), family, friends or career. This is right after seeing Jesus raise her brother Lazarus from the dead, and instead of going back to serve like Martha, she savoured Him and showed Jesus how much He is worth to her. And from that act of pouring out her perfume, it filled the room, and everyone literally "sensed" that she was a worshipper of the Lord! I challenge myself and ask you to do so as well, by asking yourself "can people sense that I worship the Lord Jesus?" Or "do people just think I’m a good person because I like to serve others?"

In His Love, Ld