April 07, 2025

Week 14: Costly Worship | Pray Through the Gospel of Mark

WEEK 14 – Costly Worship

For the next 10 minutes or so, we are going to turn our attention to God in prayer. He desires to meet with us today. To talk to us. To share His heart with us. Take a few deep breaths and say the following prayer:  

God, You are here, now. And I am loved by You.   

Now take a moment and pray this simple prayer that can be said in the span of a breath. 

You are my light & salvation, whom shall I fear?  

As I read the following passage from Mark listen with the expectation that God is moving towards you, to speak to you, through these Spirit-inspired words today.  

It was two days before the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a cunning way to arrest Jesus and kill him. 2 “Not during the festival,” they said, “so that there won’t be a riot among the people.” 

3 While he was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured it on his head. 4 But some were expressing indignation to one another: “Why has this perfume been wasted? 5 For this perfume might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they began to scold her. 

6 Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a noble thing for me. 7 You always have the poor with you, and you can do what is good for them whenever you want, but you do not always have me. 8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body in advance for burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” 

10 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. 11 And when they heard this, they were glad and promised to give him money. So he started looking for a good opportunity to betray him.  

Imagine Jesus at the center of a dimly lit room, surrounded by onlookers as a solitary woman approaches Him.  

The mood in the room tenses. Does she not know her place? Who does she think she is?  

Tears stream down her determined face as she breaks open the bottle with no intention of saving any for herself. A year’s worth of wages poured out.  

Fragrance fills the room, and indignation fills the hearts of those who cannot see that her offering is not wasted, it’s worship.   

In Mark 14 we again see the disparity between someone who recognizes who they are with and those who don’t.

Every gospel has a version of this account. The details vary slightly, but the heart is the same. Extravagant, costly worship. 

For a frame of reference, imagine encountering a lion or a bear in the wild. You wouldn’t wonder why the people you’re with are terrified, you’d be terrified too! You’d recognize the reality and the risk of the encounter and respond accordingly.  

Just like the appropriate response to seeing a lion or bear in the wild would be fear, the appropriate response to seeing Jesus is worship. This woman’s worship is a waste to those who don’t see Jesus for who He is.  

This story should raise questions in our own hearts. Would we be indignant at such a display? Would we question her motives? Would we stay quiet? Would we admire her sacrifice?   

Take a moment to reflect on this with the Lord. Open your heart to Him. Ask Him if there’s anything He wants you to know.  

Let’s pray.  

Lord,  

A reasonable response to who You are will look unreasonable to those who don’t know You, who don’t recognize You.  

Costly worship looks wasteful.  

And at times I have wanted to explain away devotion, to maintain a safe distance, to not look too extreme.  

But there’s no use trying to walk the line between comfort and conviction.  

What would it look like to break open my life and pour it out for you? To give You full access and hold nothing back?  

You said I will not be disappointed with the outcome, that when I lose my life, I will find it.  

My life is Yours.  

Hear the Word of the LORD:  

2 CORINTHIANS 2:14-16  

14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in Christ’s triumphal procession and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of him in every place. 15 For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. 16 To some we are an aroma of death leading to death, but to others, an aroma of life leading to life. 

AMEN.