“She Did What She Could”

Mark 14:8-9

Ask yourself this question, are the things I’m living for worth Christ’s dying for? You must remember that one day you will stand before God. We all have a one day; no one is exempt, not even Jesus was exempt from His one day. On that day the Lord will ask you, “What did you do with your life?” How will you be remembered? What kind of legacy are you leaving for your family?

The Gospels tell of a woman who lived a life worth remembering. Jesus was dining at the home of Simon the leper when a woman approached with an alabaster jar of costly perfume. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus’ head and feet. Lovingly, she wiped the perfume from His feet with her hair, weeping as she did so. Jesus, aware of what was to come, accepted it as His anointment for burial.

Others, who were present, including the disciples, were bothered by this. Some questioned the waste of expensive perfume when it could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Others wanted to look at her "past", her “mistakes”, her “sins”. Jesus’ host for the evening, a Pharisee, said, “This man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner” (Luke 7:39). Isn’t it amazing how blinded we can be? Here is a Pharisee, a member of an ancient Jewish religious group who followed the Oral Law in addition to the Torah and attempted to live in a constant state of purity, who is also a leper which according to the very Law he practiced in Lev. 13 and 14, deals very specifically with this and states in Lev. 14:57: “to teach when they are unclean, and when they are clean. This is the law of leprosy.” Here is a man who by his very condition is unclean according to the Law he preaches and yet he is thinking to himself what an unclean sinner, this woman is and if Jesus truly were prophetic, He would see this obvious condition she is in and stay clear. 

While all this is happening here, this woman not only did “what she could”, but she also did it in the face of criticism. Imagine her shame and embarrassment as, while she was washing Jesus’ feet, others in the room called her a sinner. Now this was not news to her, she knew who she was better than anyone in the room, save for Jesus. Isn’t it amazing how many people will criticize you when you start to do something for Jesus? Her critics attacked her. They accused, “What you’re doing is a waste and yet, she did what she could.”

In Luke, it says that she “stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil” (Luke 7:38). In that one verse is a list of five things that she did for Jesus, and they all regard His feet.

She stood at the feet of Jesus.

She washed the feet of Jesus.

She dried the feet of Jesus.

She kissed the feet of Jesus.

She anointed the feet of Jesus.

Jesus was so moved by this woman’s passionate worship that He forever immortalized her. “Wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her” (Mark 14:9). Due to Simon’s indifference, he too, was immortalized as “Simon the Leper”. Her life became memorable not for the things that she couldn’t do, but for the fact that “she did what she could” (Mark 14:8). Jesus confronted Simon on the fact that what he could do, he didn’t do, in Luke 7:39-43. Know this, God will never ask you to do what you can*t do. If He asks you for something, it just means He’s already put in you the ability to do what He*s asking. Don’t insult God by telling Him you can’t do it.

For God to use you, you will have to pass the praise test and the criticism test. How do you pass these tests? You learn to give the praise and the criticism you’ve received to God. Jesus immortalized this woman because of her extravagant worship. He was moved when she broke open the alabaster jar of expensive oil to anoint His head and feet.

Proverbs 27:9 says, “Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart”. 

Incense is a metaphor for prayer or asking.

Perfume is a metaphor for praise or giving. 

Notice the order Perfume then Incense, Giving then Asking. Perfume is to change a person, where as Incense is to change an environment. Get yourself together, then I will change your environment from the inside out.

It’s all about the attitude. Simon the leper was comfortable with his issues. He didn't want to change and as a result, when the great physician left his home, he was still a leper. Mary’s attitude was “I don’t care if it is your house, I don’t care what you think or who you think you are, I know who I am and who Jesus is and what He has done for me!”

Please understand this, just because Jesus shows up, doesn’t mean you’re going to get what you need! You have to open your mouth and praise Him… You praise Him because you have issues, NOT because you’re perfect. 

Now I want to tell you that I do not believe that Mary came in Simon’s house to praise and worship Jesus for delivering her; but, rather, she knew His time was near for death. Although she was a sinner, she was still a Jew and knew the Law and the Prophets. She had heard and experienced for herself the love power of the Messiah, and I believe that she discerned the times that Isaiah wrote of in Chapter 53: vs.3: “He was despised and rejected…, a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering. Vs.4: He took our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken, smitten and afflicted by God. vs.5: He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our infirmities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.” I believe Mary put the pieces together; that is why she used nard, a Jewish ointment used at the time of burial. It states in John 12:7(NIV): “… [It was intended] that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial”. Just as Jesus was moved to help another Mary, His mother, turn the water into wine before His time; we now see another Mary moved to help another, Jesus, before His time. That it may be a testimony to who He was and is. He was all man and yet He was all God. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2Cor. 4:7). You and I are the earthen vessels, and the treasure on the inside is our worship, our gratitude, our adoration to God. If people are going to know about your love for Him, there must be brokenness. Just as the alabaster box was broken, not poured. We, too, must be broken in order to offer Him praise. When we are broken, we lose control of where our aroma goes and where our oil flows. You have no control of where you are used, whom you will touch and as such there are no limits, no boundaries that can contain you. If in doing so you can win one soul, then you will have lived a life worth remembering for all eternity in God’s eyes.