In these turbulent cultural and political times, intimacy with God must be central. The fruit of lack of devotion to Christ is barrenness of souls. It is no mistake that the body of Christ, with her nuanced and convoluted divisions thinks it okay to demonize and degrade respective opposition. This is a rotten fruit of relying on human strength and human zeal, rather than the Spirit of God. Mary of Bethany embodies love-sick devotional posture of a child of God who knows their Father’s heart. She exemplifies importance of ever growing obedience toward God, relationally. I believe she was ahead of her time, per-say; this little girl met Jesus and came in contact with something few of His disciples understood (At that time). “Communion with God is the end for which we were created.” (Piper. Web). Holy-hedonism (enjoying God) is the great ambition of the Christian soul. Far too often we find ourselves steered by action without intimacy; we lose sight to which we were created for, triune-fellowship. Let us peer past the clichés and delve into her depiction of devotion, why Jesus memorialized her, letting the “Good Part,” drive motivation for social-justice and missional works.
DEPICTION OF DEVOTION
War is waging within the hearts of humankinds (Rom. 7:23). Ultimately, Satan wants Christian’s to suffer alongside him; graciously, God’s mercy applied saves sinners form hell’s fate. Satan’s ambition in the heart of the Christian is thievery of their devotional-life with God the Father (Jn. 10:10); thus crippling love-sickness, and hands-to-plow acts of devotion. Oh my America! We are a culture of busyness, and like a moth to the flame, onward the path of death without an inkling of what is to come. Busyness, while seemingly productive, withers slowly the soul of its high calling to gaze upon the beauty of God, diminishing one’s devotional-life to nothing.
Mary’s response to Jesus must be understood as revelatory, she has been spiritually raised from the dead. Crisis struck, a young girl who had already lost her parents, now faced with losing her brother, Lazarus; climaxing with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Her heart emotionally gravitates from agonizing defeat to bursting forth with life and joy at the raising of her previously-dead brother. Thereby, her response is to pour upon Jesus, her earthly inheritance: “Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” (ESV Jn. 12:1-3). This costly act of devotion comes only when the salvific power of Christ lay upon the human heart, delight. Her encounter with the Christ as Messiah led to an immediate act of “foolish” worship; Mary must have said to herself, “Only all I have in this world will suffice to lay at the feet of Jesus.” Mary’s extravagant devotion, as we will see, was instantaneously vocalized as time-wasting, and financially ignorant. Is it any different in our day?
JESUS MEMORIALIZED HER DEVOTION
Modern Western Church often finds itself frenzied and frazzled keeping up with the latest strategies to reach the lost and disciple its members. On one side of the proverbial ditch, intimacy without works, on the other, works without intimacy. Biblical application requires both. In this story, Martha is perpetuated typically as who not to imitate; however, something much deeper is at hand. Jesus and his disciples were in Martha’s home; the Messiah to whom moments before, raised her brother from the dead. If your brother died, and Jesus raised him from the dead and was now sitting in your living room, you would seek to honor Him with food and refreshments. Martha is not the enemy of this story. The lesson of this story is not the forsaking of service, yet to learn devotion as the foundation for service. Martha’s blunder is her pitting Mary’s devotion against her service, not service itself. Yet, why memorialize such an event and call for one’s to make mention of her wherever the Gospel is preached: Devotion to Christ is costly, and children of God must know this.
Imagine with me, Mary, a young girl whose parent’s death still vibrant within her heart, has only an inheritance given her, a brother, and a sister. The glory of God beckoning this young girl, breaks her alabaster jar, all she has of any worth, wasting it as an offering upon the feet of Jesus. Worthy of it all she exudes! Her alabaster of oil, this inheritance, could have sold for three-hundred denarii, about one-years wages (Jn. 12:5). Let that sink in! Mary of Bethany encountered the God of her salvation, then marvelously lavished her future unto His will; self-preservation up in smoke! One-years wages, gone. My generation applauds gratification-al, self-preserving, Christianized “American Dream” pursuits. Not this girl. In this moment, Mary publically cast her life unto the will of God; whatever hard times or fear may pry, she trust the Father-heart of God with her heart and life in Christ.
Mary of Bethany is a picture of grace upon the child of God who prioritizes extravagant devotion to Jesus, regardless of cost. This is why work not founded on devotion ultimately does not last. In light of the greatest commandment (Matt. 22:36-40), Mike Bickle says, “Serving God and others without a foundation of extravagant devotion to Jesus often leads to burnout and disappointment. Thus, our service is not sustained over decades. Without encountering Jesus’ heart in love (intimacy with God), we often work as slaves instead of a bride who is refreshed as she labors. Loving Jesus in our work and obedience frees us from striving” (Bickle. Web). Jesus memorialized Mary of Bethany, namely, for the sake of all generations setting centrality of intimacy with Jesus as the supreme ambition of their lives. When we forget the good part, God aims to remove our mantle, lest we destroy ourselves and others (Revelation 2-3).
LET THE “GOOD PART,” DRIVE MOTIVATION FOR SOCIAL-JUSTICE AND MISSIONAL WORKS
The paradoxical, seeming contradictory elements of desiring God with intimate devotion, and putting hands to the plow, should not assume so much as quagmire. The child of God does both. Strange as it sounds, as a youth I had fellowship with my parents and washed the dishes. It was not about whether I enjoyed it, it was about honoring my parents even when I did not want to. The child of God has unique privilege to know divine, untarnished fellowship, at least on the Father’s end. Through this untarnished experience of perfect love, we serve with hands, feet, and plow, from a position of honor to the Father of glory.
Displaying the Father-Heart with hands and feet is important. I have no interest to condemn those committed to Christian social-justice; I served on foreign mission fields for more than thirteen-years, premising the greatest social-injustice of all, people group’s without access to Jesus’ Gospel. What I wish to do is show how works can be the very thing distracting us from intimacy with God. Let us see how the disciples were indifferent at the sight of Mary of Bethany’s act of devotion: “And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor” (ESV Matt. 26:8-9). Jesus’ own disciples were indignant. Jesus responds, saying, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (ESV Matt. 26:11-13).
The Christ memorializes Mary of Bethany as to awaken a generation like ours out of dead works-based obedience. The Christ memorializes Mary of Bethany as to awaken a generation like ours, who cannot sit still to save their own lives, and beckons us come and rest at His’ feet in adoration. The children of God must come to know the Father-Heart of God in such a way which promotes perpetual personal commitment to adoration and worship. Furthermore, Christ called her act of adoration and costly devotion, “the good part” (ESV Lk. 10:38-42). I want the good part! You want the good part! The good part is found in the secret place, in the closets of personal prayer and meditation upon the Word of God. Jesus did not memorialize the Apostle Paul like He did Mary of Bethany. Mary of Bethany did not make it into the book of Acts. God left it at that. It should strike us as odd that we idolize Paul, whom Jesus did not memorialize with His words, yet we ignore Mary of Bethany and Jesus’ memorialization of her. Children of God must be about the Father’s business; however, service void of authentic love-sick devotion to God in prayer and relationship catalyze burnt-out, dead religion.
CONCLUSION
If one is to be in obedience to Christ and His commands, this is the foundation for which it starts. Children of God need not be worried about legalism if their hearts are soaked in lovesick devotion. Children of God need not be worried about legalism if they have poured out their alabaster jar and wept upon the feet of Jesus. Children of God need not be worried about legalism in their acts of social-justice, missional works, their feeding and clothing the poor, their voices for the voiceless, should their hearts be soaked in love-sick adoration of the Father of glory. I do not want to feed the poor, leaving their bellies full and hearts empty; I do not want to build homes for the poor, wells for the thirsty, or clothe the naked, without displaying and proclaiming the glorious riches of Christ Jesus. The testimony and memorialization of Mary of Bethany is the dual divine calling to know God intimately and make Him known. Sadly, many Christians either expend their lives working without intimacy, or neglect the Great Commission (Mt. 28:18-20), narcissistically using private devotion as justification.
My greatest fear for the world our children are growing up in is the subtle reality we all face, fighting for freedoms disconnected from the Jesus, who is the divine source (by the Spirit) of human freedoms. While certainly, being mostly observational this year is not without its scrutiny, what I have observed at large are human zealots disconnected from the reality of intimacy with God. Intimacy with God is not passive, it doesn’t mean stay silent; it doesn’t mean turn a blind eye. Rather, intimacy with God is the source by which humility in conversation and social justice work prevails. If social justice prevails without the fruit of intimacy with God, which is love and humility, God may not accept it as a victory; God is not always on our side-even if we win. The nation is divided in ways which may never be undone outside of the mercy of God. And when simple-minded dorks like myself can observe hatred, narcissism, violent reactionaries on both sides, perpetrating elitism, entitlement, envy, selfishness; all leading to justifying gaslighting and demonizing one another. These are not the fruits of a church proclaiming to have intimacy with Christ. Paul defines this clearly in Galatians 5:19-21, writing, “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissentions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” Then Paul writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another” (5:22-26). Alas, fruits of the Spirit are not worked out in human zeal, they are worked out by growing in depths in intimacy with God, and thus learning Spiritual zeal. Yet we are surrounded by people who mock and laugh at depth of understanding. We are surrounded by people who think experience with God is more important than knowing God. It is both. Y’all created that box by trying not to be fit into a box. The Emergent Church movement has lied to you and caused you to subscribe to a more postmodern interpretation of the Bible. You say things like, “No one person or Church has all the answers.” And while this is true, many of you use this as a justification to not wrestle with absolute truths of the Bible which are easily understood. When you don’t like what a person or Church has to say, you reduce it to opinion, rather than wrestle with God’s Word with God given thought and prayer. Many of you have spent so much time deconstructing the Word of God to fit current pop-culture, many of whom have never spent much time in the Bible, that you have no idea you are interpreting your positions based on the world. Many of you look at the faults of 2000 years of Church history, you accuse it in arrogance and pride, not realizing the progression of Church understanding is something which comes at the mercy of God. You have no idea what common grace is. There is now little to no understanding of the war between Spirit and flesh. We think utopia is possible without Jesus returning. We hold people accountable to things which may never change until Jesus returns and makes all things right. We hold the Church to standards not possible until the fullness of Christ is revealed, while allowing abundant grace upon grace for ourselves. We are full of filth and think God is always on our side. We have idolized maturity, health/healing, and money at the expense of those affected by mental health issues, people affected by intellectual and physical disability, and the poor. We have idolized the American Dream at the expense of the global poor. And, the little we know about God is far too often what we have memorized from shallow worship music, cultural cues, and political parties. And, we have made for ourselves every justification possible to live in our own echo-chamber, which is the central issue of the Garden. Adam and Eve declared, rather than trust God, they would eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thus become like God. The fruit of this is shame. And the human response to shame is to eradicate shame. Thus, what started in wanting to be like God, where shame eroded and human tendency is to hide shame, we decided to eradicate God’s Word in order to avoid shame. This is what it means to build a God after our own image. The term, though sometimes used appropriately, “That’s not the Jesus I know [or worship],” is far too often spoken by many people who have developed Jesus in the image of themselves, thus forsaking the Jesus of the Bible [Unrelated to Beth Moore]. And to be sure, there are many problems in the Church, from racism to sexual abuses which we should hate and seek to eradicate. This is not a passive rant to ignore Church injustice, rather, it is a call to again find the God of intimacy and activate social works and mission and ministry from a place which is Gospel…not humanized postmodern interpretations of the Bible. Our current predicament will fail like many before us if all we do is offer blaming shifting fingers without a deep prayerful attention to intimacy with God. The Gospel is community, not individuality. While certainly, individuality has a place, our deep seeded pain and rejection of authority, in response to parents, Church, business, politics, and so forth, it has created an isolated version of individualism which is not consistent with the life God calls us forth in and to. Find a community, love and be loved, disciple and be discipled, submit to one another in love. When injustice bears down upon your head, love your life not unto death. Be sacrificial, prefer others above self. And to do these things, dependent upon the Spirit of God and one another for help. You and I are incapable of growing in faith and love, and getting outside ourselves, if and when we rely solely upon the individual self.
These proverbial ditches cannot be further from the truth. Let us attend to the preaching of the Gospel, feeding the poor, serving the widows and orphans, fight for unity and racial justice, and save women and children from Sex Slavery; and, let us attend to the ministry of adoration in Jesus first and foremost. In this we glorify God in ourselves, thus, we glorify God outside of ourselves in service to others. The disciples were indignant, and the Christ rebukes their indignation. What is to be said of this? It shall be said that if we are to put hands to the plow, if we are to champion social justice causes and missional evangelism and discipleship, if we are to represent Christ appropriately, we must do so from a heart soaked in adoration to Christ. In this we see that Jesus memorialized Mary of Bethany for all saints everywhere believe, as John Piper so wonderfully describes, saying, “Love is doing whatever you have to do to help people see and treasure the glory of God as their supreme joy—to help people see and be satisfied with the glory of God” (Piper. Web). And to properly perform love in such a manner requires a soul surrendered in satisfying devotion to Christ above all else. “I want to be like Mary, sitting at Your feet, Lavishing my love upon You. How I choose that one thing, I give all for love, surrendering everything for You. You are my great reward, You are who I am longing for, my beautiful inheritance, Jesus”(Reynolds. 1). The most satisfying social justice of our time is the great commission, to preach the joy and satisfaction of faith in Christ-all else is a warped battle, teetering to and fro, until the great and terrible day of the Lord; when Jesus returns and makes all things new, and right.
Works Cited
Bickle, Mike. Mary of Bethany: Choosing Extravagant Devotion to Jesus (Lk. 10).
MikeBickle.org Notes ed. Kansas City: Forerunner. 8 July. 2011. Web. 6 Jan. 2016.
http://mikebickle.org/resources/resource/3109
ESV Bible. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway, 2001. Print.
Parnell, Jonathan, and John Piper. "Communion with God: What, Why, How?" Desiringgod.org.
Desiring God, 21 Mar. 2012. Web. 6 Jan. 2016.
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/communion-with-god-what-why-how
Piper, John. "This Illness Is for the Glory of God." Desiringgod.org.
Desiring God, 10 Sept. 2011. 6 Jan. 2016.
http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/this-illness-is-for-the-glory-of-god
Reynolds, Christina. "You Are My Great Reward." Single. Kansas City:
Christina Reynolds, 2013. 1. Print.