The Week That Changed the World Devotional March 3

MARK 14:3-9 | ³ While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. ⁴ But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? ⁵ For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. ⁶ But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. ⁷ For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish, but you will not always have me. ⁸ She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. ⁹ Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

Intimacy implies and requires vulnerability. To know someone well and deepen a bond of friendship with them, means opening your heart and expressing your feelings. Intimacy with Christ is the same. The woman in our passage had been impacted by Jesus. Maybe she had been changed and blessed by His teaching. Perhaps she had been healed of a disability, a disease, or an emotional wound. She takes the step of offering her public devotion to Him, anointing His head with costly nard in the middle of a meal. Her love and gratitude overflowed into gift and action, but also exposed her to comment and criticism.

Is your devotion to God inhibited or uninhibited?

Gracious God,

Intimacy with You requires vulnerability. Let me take the risk of adoration and devotion, in private and in public.

Amen.