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 applied pressure to stop the bleeding. 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. He 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 Jesus. Mary understood that she was the one who needed to be fed (Luke 10:38-42). John writes of Mary running to meet Jesus as He approached Bethany after her brother Lazarus had died. Seeing Jesus, she fell at His feet in unspeakable sorrow, weeping, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died" (John 11:32). Groaning in His spirit at this word, Jesus wept. John writes again of Mary a few weeks later once again kneeling at Jesus' feet, and this time she worships our Lord with her costliest sacrifice to prepare Him for His own burial. This is the First Works of First Love that Ephesus had left behind (Revelation 2:4-5).

The Cause: The Purity of Mary's Devotion

It was a holy day, one day before what would become Palm Sunday. This Sabbath day found our Lord sitting in plain sight in Bethany in the house of Simon, the Leper. The Pharisees had sought to kill both Jesus and Lazarus because the raising of Lazarus--Jesus' greatest work to date--had caused many of the Jews to believe on Him. The chief priests and Pharisees had given the command that anyone who knew of Jesus' whereabouts must let them know so that they could arrest Him. Although Jesus had withdrawn to Ephraim for a time, He had now returned to ground zero of the controversy, no doubt protecting Lazarus simply by His being there.

To what extent Mary knew of the treachery against Jesus we do not know, but she knew that the Lord deserved her highest honor for returning her beloved brother to the table of fellowship. Her gratitude and adoration for this miracle that had broken all bounds of doubt and grief converged with her love for the Lord Jesus Himself as the Resurrection and the Life--the title He had revealed to Martha (John 11:25-26). She reached for the prize she had reserved for this moment--her alabaster box glowing amber with ethereal devotion--before she broke the seal to release this ointment of pure nard. Coming from the high elevations of the Himalayas, this oil of spikenard had now 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 but unswerving purpose amid conflict. Mary knew full well that she would be the focus of scorn if she followed the devotion of pure love and poured this sacrifice on Jesus. But the eyes of her heart saw only one Person in the room. And she saw that this moment was her best and last opportunity to do what--as it turns out--no other woman would do: anoint Jesus for His burial. Even the women who came eight days later to anoint Jesus' body in the tomb were too late, for He had risen. How did Mary know that her timing was critical? This sacred Sabbath would soon turn into the first Palm Sunday, and only six days later, Jesus would be crucified and buried. Mary had not sat at the feet of Jesus for nothing, despite her sister Martha's criticism. Martha had even wanted Jesus to rebuke Mary, but He would not. She had discerned her purpose: to learn from Jesus. And now at this precise moment, she discerned her focus: to worship Jesus with His inevitable destiny in view. Mary also knew as she poured this oil on Jesus' head (Mark 14:3) that letting down her hair to wipe His feet would shatter her own reputation; for the "first work" she was about to do was nothing short of scandalous. But she held her peace, knowing her mission was holy. And this time, she not only knelt at Jesus' feet; she put her head beneath His feet in humility and total submission. When the oil flowed out of the broken vessel, Mary knew that Jesus Himself would be broken and spilled out in unspeakable shame as a sweet-smelling sacrifice for us. But how did she know?

There are more ways of knowing than the spiritually ignorant will ever know. Mary's spirit felt this electric moment--a moment towards which all of history had leaned and from which the truth of the gospel itself would flow. But Judas, wiseacre that he was, spat on Mary's "waste" and scorned her failure to sell this costly perfume to feed the poor. Once again, Jesus intercepts the complaint: "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" (John 12:7-8). To Judas, doing something just for Jesus was wasteful. Why should Mary pour on His head and feet an oil worth 300 denarii--an entire year's wages? For that matter, why would a widow give Him her last mite? But Judas was about to sell Jesus in history's darkest deal for a mere thirty pieces of silver--the price of a slave.

Perhaps most amazing of all is Mary's choice to reserve this perfume strictly for Jesus. Why she had not already lavished it upon her beloved brother, only her discerning heart could know. But she hadn't. And it would indeed have been "wasted" then, for Lazarus was dead only four days. Even if Mary had been saving this costly oil as a dowry for her wedding, she now believed that fate to be unworthy. Lavishing her greatest treasure on Jesus proved Him the greatest Treasure of all. Perhaps all those at Simon's dinner that day knew this down deep in their hearts, but not even Jesus' disciples knew what Mary knew: she must anoint Jesus for burial before--not after--He died. And with first love's defiance, she took this costly risk.

The Crown: The Power of Mary's Destiny

The cost of Mary's devotion to Jesus purchased her own crown of glory. When she rubbed this fragrant oil on Jesus' feet, she worked the perfume of sacrificial love into her own hair, a woman's crowning glory. She also received the crown of Jesus' praise following His rebuke to the soon betraying Judas: "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 power of this one good deed would perfume the ages with the beauty of first love.

The fragrance that filled the room that Sabbath day 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 a week, Mary's "first work" of "first love" would last forever--not only as a memorial eternally intertwined with the gospel--but as an anointing of personal devotion with which Jesus would perfume Pilate's Hall as He stood condemned. This highly concentrated essential oil lingered on Christ all the way from the Cross to the grave.

Waste? What happened to Judas? After rejecting the "blood money" he gained to sell Jesus, he ended his own life. Hanging himself on a tree, Judas fell headlong, his body bursting open in the Field of Blood. Could there be a greater waste than a lost soul for whom Christ died? But what a tragically ironic fulfillment of Jesus' words voiced that triumphal Palm Sunday, "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). Lazarus had been that corn of wheat. So had both Mary and her alabaster box. So is Jesus. And so must everyone be who would follow Him.

But Judas flipped the script, pretending Jesus' Second Commandment--to love one's neighbor as oneself--should come first. This way, he wouldn't have to die to himself in the way that Jesus' First Commandment requires--in order to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. No doubt, Ephesus had done the same. But that church died. And Judas died alone. By putting Jesus second, they put Him last and lost it all. Mary would rather have Jesus than anything. Would you?