Alabaster Jar

Good Friday is one of my favorite holidays

For me, it's usually a day of reflection and meditation on what Jesus did for me over 2,000 years ago. I'll always love Him for it, I'll always love Him for His selflessness and humility. His death on the cross was no doubt the most beautiful, heroic thing ever done, in all of history.

But yesterday, instead of focusing on the death of Jesus during my reading, I was lead to read the whole precession of how He got to the cross, from the last supper all the way up to the tomb.

The Alabaster Jar

As soon as I read Mathew 26:6-13 I was struck with conviction. The  unnamed woman with the alabaster jar of perfume, wasted all of it on Jesus. Just poured it out, dumped it over Jesus's head. The perfume was worth a 'year's wage.' In today's world that's roughly forty thousand dollars.

Forty thousand dollars just poured over Jesus' head with no expectation of return. I assume this bottle of perfume was her most prized possession, she probably had it hidden away in her house somewhere. It probably brought her a great amount of peace and security knowing that she had the equivalent of a year's pay tucked away in her cupboard somewhere in case she ever needed it. 

But suddenly her security wasn't important anymore. This woman, who will be remembered through all of history, was so overwhelmed with love for Jesus that her most prized, most loved possession was worthless in comparison to Him. She poured it out. All of it. She no longer saw her earthly prize as valuable.

 He was now her wealth, He was now her security, He was now her prize.

It really hit me. For obvious reasons like the fact that the thought to just drain out my most prized possessions before Jesus has never even occurred to me. I have thought of giving them to the poor, or to my church but never just to seemingly waste it on Him and Him alone. 

So last night I asked Him to fill me with that kind of love. A love that says all earthly wealth is completely worthless in comparison to Jesus.