Worship like Mary of Bethany

There are a lot of Marys in the New Testament. In fact, Mary (the mother of Jesus) also had a sister... named Mary! I'm not joking. That must've gotten really confusing growing up!

 

There's some debate (because we aren't sure if some of them are the same person) but there are at least six and as many as nine Marys in the New Testament.

 

Mary of Bethany is the sister of Martha and Lazarus (the one Jesus resurrected). She is known for sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to his teaching (Luke 10:38-42) and for anointing Jesus with expensive perfume (John 12:1-8).

 

It's those two events I want to focus on. It's important to note that when John wrote his Gospel, his readers (really listeners, since most people were illiterate and the texts were read aloud) already knew Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

 

We all know the story about Mary sitting at Jesus' feet, while her sister, Martha, was busy-bodying around the house, trying to take care of Jesus and all the guests. While Marth was doing a good thing, when Martha chastises her sister Mary for not helping, Jesus praises Mary for choosing the better thing.

 

The way Jesus wants to be served isn't just about doing stuff for Him, but He's best served when we allow Him to serve us. When we sit at His feet, and feed on His words.

 

He's best served and honored when we receive the gift He came to give us.

 

The Son of God came to us not so that we could serve him, but so He could serve us.

 

That's why Isaiah depicted the Messiah who was coming as a "suffering servant" (42:1–9; 49:1–6; 50:2–9; 52:13—53:12.)

 

I know it rubs a lot of people as strange. The want to focus on how we can serve the Lord, and think it presumptuous to suggest that the Lord should serve us.

 

But that's what He came to do! He came to suffer for us. To bring us a gift, the Gospel, and to lead us into truth. It's quite astounding!

 

The Creator of the Universe bent His knee to serve His creatures.  

 

Now, even though John is the first to record the incident when Mary of Bethany comes and anoints Jesus' feet with nard (an oil that would have cost an entire year's worth of wages), the incident was well-known regardless.

 

In John 11:2, the he explicitly identifies Mary of Bethany as "the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair" before the actual event is recorded in detail in John 12:1-8 

 

It was such a noteworthy act of worship that people knew about it, and had been talking about it for years (actually decades) before John actually recorded the event!

 

It was controversial, too. Judah (yeah, that Judas) criticizes the act as wasteful. He tries to make the case that the nard could have been sold and the money given to the poor.

 

Jesus' response is to honor Mary's act of worship.

 

I think the events are connected. Mary sat at Jesus' feet and learned. She listened. She received the gift He came to give.

 

Because of that, He accepts this extravagant act of worship.

 

All worship is an expression of gratitude. Honestly, there's nothing about our "praise" that God really needs. He's not sitting up in heaven with a low self-esteem or something, needing us to tell Him how awesome He is.

 

He accepts our worship when it is offered in a spirit of gratitude. Genuine worship is always a response to what God's service. It's actually a part of allowing Him to serve us the was He wants, it's how we really receive the gift!

 

If someone doesn't say "thank you," when you give them a gift, you might think they kind of missed the real substance of the gift. If there's no gratitude, they miss the entire point. We give gifts because we value someone, we love them, not because we just really, really, want someone to have something we bought for them.

 

Gratitude/worship is the way we fully embrace what the gift actually is, it's a gift not of "something" but of "someone." Every gift is ultimately a giving of oneself to another. Even when we buy someone a present, that physical object is just a token of what we really are saying when we give a gift.

 

The real gift behind every gift is an offering of oneself.

 

That's what Jesus is giving when he teaches, and Mary sits and listens. It's what she shows she actually received when she responds to His gift with the most extravagant kind of worship she can imagine. It proves that she received not merely the teaching (as valuable as it is) but that she truly received her Lord.

 

My teacher, the late Dr. Norman Nagel, wrote this in the preface to a hymnal (a book about worship):

 

Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise. Music is drawn into this thankfulness and praise, enlarging and elevating the adoration of our gracious giver God. (Introduction, Lutheran Worship - 1982).  

 

That's the secret of Mary of Bethany's amazing act of worship.

 

It's really the secret behind every act of worship.

 

Have you ever been in church and noticed some people are just really, genuinely, into it? Others, though, are just kinda going through the motions?

 

That's not just because some people get carried along with emotional music (though that can happen to some folks, I suppose). The people who really appreciate and get into worship are usually those who've also spent a lot of time at Jesus' feet, listening to Him, receiving Him.

 

That's because genuine heart-felt worship is a response to our Lord's giving of His gifts, His giving of Himself!

 

The more we receive, the more we praise. The more we embrace Jesus in our lives, the more we sit at his feet and listen, the more we can't help but raise our voices or even our hands in praise.

 

Fun fact. That's actually why we call our gathering a "service." In America, we've sort of combined the English Reformed idea of worship as worth-ship (ascribing worth to something) and the German idea of Gottesdienst (God's Service). So, we have a "Worship Service." The German idea, though, was that God comes to us to serve us. That's why in Lutheran churches (with their German heritage) their hymanls refer to their order of the day as a "Divine Service." The English Reformed word "worship" focuses on our response to that. In truth, both God's service, and our response, are what make a genuine Christian worship service.

 

I mean, look at how into it Mary of Bethany was. She doesn't just pour the expensive oil on Jesus' feet (a year's worth of wages suggests that this was a token, a gift, a giving of Herself to Him) but she weeps and actually wipes Jesus' feet with her hair. It wasn't considered "proper" for a woman at that time to let her hair down in public, but when she worships Jesus she lets is all go. She's not bothered by cultural expectations, or what other people will think of her. She just expresses her gratitude to Jesus the best way she knows how.

 

So if you've been going to church, and you find your mind wandering, if you've been going through the motions, and just aren't that into it... the problem probably isn't the quality of the music, or the entertainment value of the service. In fact, that's not what it's about at all.**

 

Ask yourself, have you truly been sitting at Jesus' feet? Have you truly received the gifts He's giving you? Have you been in the Word and in regular prayer?

 

If you don't follow Jesus every day, if you don't walk through life at his feet, then why would you really have much exuberance at all about worshipping God during the service? You see, worship isn't about working yourself up into a feeling. That can happen, for all kinds of reasons. Genuine worship is about responding to everything Jesus has done for you.

 

It's about receiving the gift of Him, and returning to Him the gift of You in gratitude. All we can do is offer whatever we have to offer, a broken hallelujah, the best praise we can muster... but it's the heart behind it, the recognition that we have nothing that we can truly offer God of comparable worth to the infinite gift He's given us.

 

David expressed this truth in Psalm 116:

 

What shall I render to the LORD 

 

for all his benefits to me? 

 

I will lift up the cup of salvation

 

and call on the name of the LORD,

 

I will pay my vows to the LORD

 

in the presence of all his people...

 

...I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving 

 

and call on the name of the LORD. 

 

I will pay my vows to the LORD

 

in the presence of all his people,

 

in the courts of the house of the LORD,

 

in your midst, O Jerusalem. (verses 12-19, ESV)

 

 

You see, that's what David's saying. All we really can offer to God is a sacrifice of thanksgiving. That's what we render to the Lord on account of all the gifts/benefits He's granted us.

 

That's when we experience the kind of worship that Mary of Bethany expressed. When we receive his gifts, recognize that we have nothing that he requires or is truly fitting, so we given him ourselves, our praise and thanksgiving a token of our entire lives.

 

In Jesus name,

Judah

 

** That said, we should give Jesus' our best offering. Our music should be from our best musicians who have Mary of Bethany hearts. But if our "best" is someone who sometimes gets a little off-pitch, or misses a few notes on the piano, guitar, or organ (I don't care what instruments you use)... worship can still be amazing when we're all joining together with Mary of Bethany hearts.