Today's passage is Matthew 26:1-16.
Jesus concludes his talk with is disciples--chapters 24, 25--by saying that he'll be crucified during Passover. The chief priests, meanwhile, plot to arrest and kill Jesus. At Simon the Leper's house a woman pours expensive perfume on Jesus while he's having supper with the disciples, who all exclaim at the waste of her gesture.
Jesus says she did a beautiful thing and prepared him for burial. Judas makes a deal with the chief priests to betray Jesus.
The disciples betray their selfish and humanistic thought by complaining about the woman pouring expensive perfume on Jesus' head.
Her perfume could've been sold and the money given to the poor, they say. And since the disciples are all poor, guess where a good portion of that money would've gone.
To them, of course.
Although I join with Jesus in chastising the disciples for their shortsightedness and lack of spiritual understanding, I find myself more in their camp because I too struggle to understand this event in terms of redemptive history.
I see that Judas couldn't overcome his focus on the world. He felt Jesus had betrayed him with his spiritual focus on salvation.
I feel sad that Judas could not see that salvation is more important than anything else. I feel sad that he thought he could end world poverty with money.
I feel sad that his anger at Jesus for not being what he wanted Jesus to be would so overwhelm him that he saw murder as the only solution.
I feel sad that I'm so much like Judas.
Judas and the other disciples did nothing to prepare themselves for the true Passover into salvation. The woman did.
She anointed Jesus, the real Passover Lamb, preparing him for his coming sacrifice.
She spent a fortune preparing herself for salvation.
Her alabaster jar was her pearl of great price.
What of me?
How does what I don't see stop me from making the egregious gesture to God?
Where is my alabaster jar?
What do I pour out to God because nothing is more important?
In my worldly life, what do I value the most?
I think my alabaster jar is time.
I value time more than money because I've learned that money comes and money goes and enough money can always be found.
Not so with time. Once it's gone, I can't get it back.
It just keeps ticking on. Deadlines, agendas, appointments, meetings, schedules rise up before me like alps ascending on alps.
But instead of staying put, they march towards me.
There's never enough time to get things done!
For eight years I've been worshipping at Wooridle Church.
For eight years I've been going to Sunday worship, Wednesday worship, attending mokjangs, doing training courses, going to weddings, going to funerals, and struggling with daily QT.
For years I chafed at those time consuming events running me over.
But then they become important markers in my life and worldly events bounced off them.
But daily QT remained a problem.
Why was QT a problem for me? I think because it required the most self-discipline.
For everything else, I just had to show up with varying levels of preparation.
QT, however, was an entirely different level of commitment.
For QT I have to sit down and then take off myself and put myself on the table like a cup of coffee.
Then I have to put the Bible in front of myself and see myelf through the Bible.
It's hard and it's uncomfortable. I'd rather not look.
But if I don't look, I won't see.
If I don't see, then I won't notice my sins and repent, which is my ongoing salvation prepartion.
And that takes time.
For seven years, my QT was betrayed by my view of time.
It had to be fast because I wanted my time for other things.
My QTs were never on the homepage because there was nothing to put there.
Then God intervened.
I had to put my QTs on the homepage, not just a few notes in my QTin.
That meant I had to commit to an hour or two to the task.
And that meant I didn't have that time for other things, for worldly things that didn't help me with my ongoing salvation at all.
So, every day, with God's grace, I pour out my time from my alabaster jar as an offering to God, the Passover Lamb who gave me salvation.
Lord, continue to pour your grace on me so that I can pour out my time to you. Let me not fret at the expense of it but see it as a special time with you. Prepare me every day, I pray.
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