I'd Rather Have Jesus: A Second Look at First Love

Introduction I remember once kneeling at the feet of my father and praying as I tried to clip his toenails. With his third-stage Parkinson's disease, he was not able to do things like this for himself, and with the muscle weakness in my hands from Lyme disease, I was afraid of cutting him since he bled so easily. The pain of my mother's heart failure and precarious recuperation weighed down both of us, and I could almost hear my father's lonely sobbing still echoing from the silent walls. As it turned out, I slipped and did cut him, and he immediately began to bleed. In grief, I cried out and pressed the flow. As I rested my head on his feet in the repentance of stricken love, I marveled: as if tiptoeing into a sanctuary, I felt enwrapped in profound stillness and peace. Those feet had walked with God.

I cannot imagine sitting at the feet of Jesus like Mary of Bethany did so many times. Luke writes of how she sat at Jesus' feet to listen to His teaching, while Martha scurried about to feed Him. Unlike Martha, Mary understood that she was the one who needed to be fed (Luke 10:38-42). After Lazarus died, John writes of Mary running to meet Jesus as He approached Bethany four days later. She fell at His feet weeping, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died" (John 11:32). Jesus wept at this word, groaning in the depths of His Spirit. He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!" Lazarus indeed came forth at Christ's trumpeted command-- incontrovertible proof of every syllable Christ had uttered in that blessed Bethany home.

John writes how, a few weeks later, Mary once again knelt at Jesus' feet, worshipping this time with her costliest sacrifice. When John writes Christ's indictment of the Ephesian Church (Revelation 2:4-5), he knows that Mary's are the First Works of First Love that Ephesus left behind.

The Cause: The Purity of Mary's Devotion

It was a holy day, one day before what would become Palm Sunday. The chief priests and Pharisees had given the command that anyone who knew of Jesus' whereabouts must tell them so that they could arrest Him. They sought to kill both Jesus and Lazarus because a resurrected Lazarus had caused many of the Jews to believe on Jesus. This Sabbath day found our Lord sitting in plain sight in Bethany in the house of Simon the Leper. Having withdrawn to Ephraim for a time, Jesus had returned to ground zero, no doubt protecting Lazarus from a second death.

To what extent Mary knew of the treachery against her Lord Himself we do not know, but she knew He deserved her highest honor for returning her beloved brother to the table of fellowship. The meal was served. The men were lounging and talking as men do--small talk at such a time as this? Mary puzzled how the Resurrection and the Life had told them weeks before that He must die. And here He was, reclining. How could this be? Watching her brother gaze purely into His eyes sent a thrill of wild devotion without a name. Her gratitude for this gift--this miracle of life itself-- had broken all bounds of doubt and grief, putting death to shame.

Mary reached for the prize she had reserved for this exact moment--her glowing alabaster box, amber with ethereal devotion. She broke the seal. Coming from the high elevations of the Himalayas, this oil of spikenard had reached its eternal destiny at the Messiah's head and feet.

The Cost: The Peace of Mary's Discernment

Peace is not the absence of conflict. Mary knew full well that all men's eyes would shame her (Mark 14:3)--save the eyes of the Lord Himself as He looked around the room. Jesus would know exactly what she was doing. But did Mary know what she was doing? How did she know this would be her best chance to do what no other woman ever did? How could she know that tomorrow would become Palm Sunday and that only six days later, Jesus would be crucified and buried--and that anointing Him on Easter would be too late?

But Mary had not sat at the feet of Jesus for nothing, despite her sister's gibes. Martha's managerial peevery to make even Jesus rebuke her had failed--for Jesus disagreed--and Mary had discerned her purpose: in perfect peace, she would learn from Jesus. And her discerning focus would not fail her now. Through anointed eyes, she saw centuries in an instant: now at this electric, destined moment--whether prophetically self-conscious makes no difference. Mary was the Holy Spirit's pure nard of first-love devotion. But with this love she broke her own reputation. She not only knelt at Jesus' feet; she put her head beneath His feet in humility and full submission.

Judas, right on cue--wiseacre that he was--spat on Mary's "waste." He scorned her failure to sell this costly oil to feed the poor. But Mary, breathless with excitement, had felt as it were the clicking latch of history's gate. Time closed behind her; the moment was sealed. Destiny had kissed the truth from which the Gospel would forever flow. "Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always," Jesus put Judas firmly in his place (John 12:7-8).

But Judas didn't know his place. The thief with his hand hidden in the bag couldn't read the clock of his own midnight. Doing this for Jesus was wasteful. Why should any worthy woman pour on Jesus' head and feet an oil worth 300 denarii--a whole year's wages? And why did that bent up widow give her last mite? But Judas sold his soul to sell Jesus for a slave's mite: a mere thirty pieces of silver.

And Mary--why had she not already lavished this costly perfume upon her beloved brother when he died? How could she know it would indeed have been "wasted" then--scenting the tomb a mere four days? But Mary's heart knew if her mind did not; it knew what no one else at Simon's table knew: today I must anoint Jesus--for today is always the only time to worship Him.

The Crown: The Power of Mary's Destiny

When Mary rubbed this fragrant oil on Jesus' feet, she worked the perfume of sacrificial love into her own hair, a woman's crowning glory. Crowned also with Jesus' praise, she proved that love's pure devotion is the Gospel itself distilled: "Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her" (Matthew 26:13).

The fragrance that filled the room that Sabbath day also wrapped Jesus in a crown of adoration the very next morning as crowds lined the streets, waving palm branches and shouting, "Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord" (John 12:13). Although their praises would turn to shouts of murder within the week, Mary's "first work" of "First Love" would last not only as a memorial but as a testimonial which Jesus bore with Him in Pilate's Hall as He stood condemned. The highly concentrated essential oil of spikenard was known to linger for many days, and Jesus carried His burial perfume ahead of Him to the grave.

What meant this waste? Judas fell headlong, his body bursting open in the Field of Blood. Could there be a greater waste than a soul lost to betray the Christ who died to save men's souls? Jesus' words voiced on that triumphal Palm Sunday proved tragically ironic indeed: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it: and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal" (John 12:24-25).

This is First Love. Lazarus had been that corn of wheat--as had both Mary and her treasure box. First Love? A picture of Christ the Lord, they died to self, disappeared in the soil of infinite love, and rose again to flip the script the thief had penned. By pretending Jesus' Second Commandment was First Love--that, to love one's neighbor as oneself, supersedes one's love for God--Judas proved "first love" for neither one--as did the Church at Ephesus, who left Jesus far behind to die themselves with traitors' shame. But Mary? Mary would rather have Jesus than anything. And wouldn't you?