To Lovers of Jesus–an Example

To Lovers of Jesus–an Example

(No. 1834)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, APRIL 12, 1885,

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON NOVEMBER 2, 1884.

"She has worked a good work for Me." Mark 14:6.

THIS holy woman had displeased the disciples. She must have been very
sorry to do that. She would not have willfully grieved the least
servant of her Lord. But she did so without the slightest blame on her
part–it was the unexpected consequence of a most blessed action and
the fault lay with those who complained of her holy deed–not with her.
I do not know whether all the disciples felt grieved, but we are told
by Matthew that, "they had indignation," and he seems to speak of them
as a body, from which I gather that those who love Jesus much must not
measure their conduct by that of Christ's ordinary disciples. Indeed,
it might fare ill with them even if Apostles became their judges! They
must not tone down the fervor of their zeal to the lukewarmness of the
general order of Christian men. They must not measure the consecration
of their lives by the little which many professors present upon the
altar to God. No, my Brother, or Sister, you must not be too much
distressed if the best of the household misjudge you, for it has
happened to many favored sons before you.

You, O man, greatly beloved, can not abide to be lukewarm, but be not
surprised if the lukewarm cannot agree with you! Count it no strange
thing if, in your ardor, you should come to be accused of fanaticism,
lack of prudence, rashness, forwardness. Do not break your heart over
it if they should even call you mad, or suspect that you have more zeal
than knowledge, for Mary, whom we would be glad to imitate, came under
this kind of censure! And David, and your Lord, the Son of David, were
each thought to be madmen!

This honored woman performed a notable act which is to be rehearsed
wherever the Gospel is preached and yet, she thereby stirred the wrath
of the brotherhood of the disciples–of how small account is the
judgment of men!

Chiefly, she called down upon her head the censure of Judas. As far as
Judas was known to his brethren, he was reckoned among the best of
them. They never suspected him of playing the traitor or they would not
have approved of his being their treasurer–they once had indignation
at James and John–but the shrewd Judas had their respect. I should
think he was the most businesslike man of the whole company–which is
not saying much for business, is it? He was a leading spirit among that
little band. He was one who would be selected because of his
prudence–and that is not saying much for prudence, is it?

Doubtless Judas abounded in that cool, calculating shrewdness which
makes a man fit to deal with moneys and purchases. He had far more
business ability than impetuous Peter, or affectionate John, or
thoughtful Thomas. He was the right man in the right place, if he had
but happened to have been an honest man. Wonderful it was that he could
conceal the deep meanness of his spirit from all his fellows during the
years in which they lived together. But he had done so and, therefore,
his opinion carried weight with it. Among the Apostles the censure of
Judas meant the calm condemnation of a judicious person. His judgment
was not what you and I would esteem it to be, for we should think
nothing of his censure, now, because we know that he betrayed his
Lord–but the disciples could not foresee this–and, in their judgment,
that which Judas would condemn must be very censurable. At least it
must not be businesslike; it must lack common sense; it must be
imprudent and wasteful. Was not Judas the perfect model of economy? Was
he not the sort of man who, in these days, many a father would point
out to his boy as an example? Hear him say, "Boy, if you want to get on
in the world, imitate Judas Iscariot. He is the model man. He is a
Christian and yet he has a keen eye for his own advantage and is a
sharp man of business."

It was a hard thing for a timid woman to bear such a censure from one
so highly respected in the college of Apos-tles–but she had this
solace, which I will guarantee you put quite out of her mind all care
about the censure of disciples, even of the biggest of them–she
pleased her Master! She could see, by the very look of Him, that He
accepted what His followers condemned. She knew in her conscience that
she had the approbation of the Lord, even though she had the
disapprobation of the servants. And oh, Brothers and Sisters, let us
always carry our case into the highest court and live before the Lord
and not as the slaves of men! If we are conscious that we have
sincerely done what we have done as unto the Lord and if we feel sure
that He has approved our service, it is of the smallest possible
consequence what men shall say about us! Let us never provoke our
Brothers and Sisters to be ill-tempered with us, neither let us do
anything that can be rightly censured–but if we have gone somewhat
beyond common custom in the fervor of our spirit, let us reply with
young David to his envious brethren, "Is there not a cause?" The
opinions of other men are no rule to us–we have our own obligations to
discharge and, as our debt of love is larger than usual, let us take
liberty to be as full of love and zeal as we can be–only regretting
that we cannot go still further in the way of sacred service.

"Well," says one, "but do those who love Christ encounter the frowns of
men at this time?" Oh, yes, and of their own Christian Brethren, too!
If you consort with the common Brethren and travel on the road to
Heaven so slowly that it is a question whether you are going there at
all, then you will escape criticism! If you keep with those who
practice the snail's march, they will call you a good, easy man–a
right respectable person! But if you run for it. If you put out all the
energy of your nature and are determined to live at a high pitch for
Christ, you will get the cold shoulder, even from many of His
disciples, for you will be practically condemning their
half-heartedness–and who are you to be such a troubler in Israel?

The more prudent among your Brethren will say that your pride and the
naughtiness of your heart make you so forward and presumptuous–and
they will try to put you down, or put you out! You cannot commit a
greater crime against some people than to be more useful than they are!
When a person reckons himself to be the standard of holiness, he looks
upon one who excels him as guilty of a kind of blasphemy. If you outrun
others, do not reckon upon smiles, but count upon black looks. You will
be called impudent and thought impertinent. Bear it all and fret not!
Go to your Lord and tell Him that you have done and are doing all you
can as unto Him and entreat Him to smile upon you. Crave His acceptance
of your poor doings and then go about your business, working till He
shall come. Sow the seed of duty and care not whether, in human
judgment, it shines or rains. "He that regards the clouds shall not
reap." If you regard not the clouds at all, you will do your sowing and
your reaping with the comfort of true faith–and God will bless you.

I am going to talk about this blessed woman at this time with this
hopeful desire–that you and I may imitate her ever-memorable example.
I shall have nothing to say but to open up the meaning of our Lord, as
far as I know it, when He said, "She has worked a good work for Me,"
or, "in Me." The passage might be rendered thus–only the translators
do not like to use the term–"She has worked a beautiful work for
Me"–a comely work. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." This was a
thing of beauty which is a joy forever to the Church of God, in that
constant memorial of her which is blended with the preaching of the
Gospel of Christ, for as long as the Gospel is proclaimed, this Mary of
Bethany shall have a memorial because of what she did. What was there
beautiful about her work–the breaking of the alabaster vase, and the
pouring out of the liquid nerd? What was there beautiful about that? I
will try to show you.

I. There were seven beauties in it and the first and chief beauty,
perhaps, was that IT WAS ALTOGETHER GLORIFYING OF JESUS. She meant,
when she poured that ointment on His head, to honor Him personally–
every drop of it was for Him, out of reverence for His actual
personality.

She was not so much thinking of His deeds of love, or of His words of
Truth, as of His own unrivalled and most precious Self. She had seen
His deeds of love when Lazarus was raised. She had heard His Words of
Truth when she sat at His feet. But now she felt an adoring reverence
for His thrice blessed Person and she brought that box of precious
spikenard and offered it to Him as her Teacher, her Friend, her Lord,
her All. Suggestion was made that she should have sold it and given it
to the poor, but she longed to present one offering to Him, direct, and
not by any roundabout method. Doubtless she was not behindhand in her
gifts to the poor, but she felt that when she had done that, she had
not satisfied the cravings of her grateful heart towards Him who had
become poorest of the poor for her sake.

She wanted to give something to Him–something suitable for such an One
as she conceived Him to be–something suitable for the time and
circumstances then present with regard to Him. I think this holy woman
knew more about our Lord than all His Apostles put together! Her eyes
had peered within the veil. You remember that only a day or two after

this, He rode in triumph through Jerusalem a proclaimed King. Should He
not first be anointed? And who would visibly anoint Him to the kingdom
with oil but this consecrated woman? She was come to give Him a royal
anointing preparatory to His proclamation in the streets of His capital
city! At any rate, her spikenard must be poured out only for Him. She
forgot the poor, just then, as she quite forgot the disciples. Martha
was busy at the table waiting upon them all, disciples and Master, but
Mary had concentrated all her thoughts on Jesus. She "saw no man save
Jesus only." Blessed exclu-siveness of vision! What she did must not be
for Peter and James and John with Jesus, but it must be for Him, alone,
who indeed is alone, above and beyond all others, worthy of a homage
all His own! Because she had a love for Him beyond all others that she
had ever heard of, her heart must find expression in a deed of love
which must be entirely, wholly, only towards Himself.

Now, this is, as we have read the text, a beautiful thing. It will be
beautiful on your part and mine if, having taken care of the poor
according to our ability, having discharged the claims of our
relationships to our fellow men, we then feel that we must do something
for Jesus–distinctly for our Lord. Do you ask me what you shall do for
Him? Yes, but, Sister, I must not tell you–your own heart must
originate the thought, as your own hand must carry it out. "Oh," cries
a Brother, "tell me what I can do for Jesus!" Yes, but, Brother, I must
not tell you! The better part of the whole matter will lie in the
hallowed ingenuity of your spirit in inventing something for Him out of
your own fervent soul. The holy woman's deed would have been somewhat
spoiled if there had been a command for her to bring the alabaster box
and pour the ointment on His head–her love commanded her–and that was
better than a formal precept. Her deed had not possessed half its worth
if Simon had suggested to her, "I have not sufficient spikenard to
anoint our guests. Fetch a box from your home." The very glory of it
lay in the spontaneous suggestion of her own heart that she must do
something which should be all for Jesus.

She must do it herself, personally, and not by proxy. And she must do
it unto Him distinctly, directly, openly. Others might smell the
spikenard. That she did not wish to prevent, but still, the perfume was
never meant for them, but for Him exclusively. She poured it on His
head. She poured it on His feet. She would anoint Him from head to foot
with this token of her intense and reverent gratitude and her boundless
love. She felt wrapped up in Him, her Lord and her God, and so her
willing offering was for Him and for Him, alone. What a joy to be
permitted to do anything for Him whose great love holds us fast! I feel
as if I would gladly, at once, retire from all of you to indulge my
heart in this rare luxury.

Alas, good Lord, how little have You of this devotion in these
calculating days! Instead of, "all for Jesus," how seldom we do
anything for Jesus! Brothers and Sisters, when you sing your hymns, do
you "sing a hymn to Jesus"? When you are in prayer, do you pray to
Jesus and for Jesus? Is it not written, "Prayer, also, shall be made
for Him continually, and daily shall He be praised"? When you come to
this communion table, I pray that you may forget all that are with you
in this assembly and cry, "I will remember Fou." In the chief place, at
any rate, let Jesus fill your thoughts. Set Him, alone, upon the
Throne, and think only of eating His flesh and drinking His blood–and
receiving Him into your very self, that there may be a vital union
between the Christ of God and your own souls.

To my mind this is the beauty of our fellowship in the Holy Supper,
that we feed only on Jesus. Let us make Him our soul's sole meat and
drink–and then let us live for Him. My heart craves, now, to know what
I shall do that I may imitate her who gave to "Jesus only" that box of
spikenard, very costly. Oh, you lovers of my Lord who have been washed
in His precious blood, who owe your all to Him, think of His matchless
beauties, now, and as you look up into that face where shines your
Heaven, think to yourselves, "What can we do for Him–for Him
absolutely, directly and personally?" There is the first beauty of this
woman's act of homage–it was for Jesus, for Jesus only, for Jesus
wholly.

II. A second beauty lay in this, that IT WAS AN ACT OF PURE LOVE,
altogether of love to Jesus. The other woman–blessed was she, also,
among women–I refer to that woman who was a sinner–she also came and
brought an alabaster box and did much the same thing as this Mary of
Bethany. But she did what Mary did not do–she mingled weeping with her
ointment–she washed His feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs
of her head. That was a beautiful act in its own way, but Mary's deed
is a beautiful thing in another way. In this lies the
distinction–there does not seem to have been, in Mary's act, any
remembrance of personal sin, though, doubtless, that feeling was in her
heart and had brought her to the higher stage of adoration of her
pardoning Lord. Her sin was put away long ago.

Mary had sat at Jesus' feet and had chosen the good part. The matter of
pardon for sin had been transacted a long while before and now,
although in her heart there is deep gratitude for it, and for the
raising of her dear brother, Laza-

rus, yet it seems to be quite absorbed in the deeper thought of her
soul, for she had attained to an all-consuming love of Jesus. She never
would have known that kind of love if she had not learned to sit at His
feet. To sit long, there, has a wonderful operation on the human
mind–it causes even things that are good in themselves to be
overshadowed by matters that are less and less in relation to self. It
is a blessed thing to love Christ because we escape from Hell by Him.
It is a blessed thing to love Christ because He has opened the Kingdom
of Heaven to all Believers. But it is a still higher thing to forget
yourself and to contemplate with delight the ineffable perfections of
Him whom Heaven and earth acknowledge to be chief among 10,000 and
altogether lovely! "We love Him because He first loved us." Here we
begin and this beginning always remains, but on it we pile tier after
tier of precious stones of love which are crowned with pinnacles of
inexpressible affection for the great Lord, Himself! He in Himself has
won our hearts and carried our spirits by storm! And now we must do
something which will express our love to Him. That love is not only a
gratitude for benefits received from Him, but an intense affection for
His glorious, adorable Person.

Come, dear Friends, do you feel that kind of emotion in your hearts at
this time? Do you, even now, feel that so perfectly has Christ won the
verdict of your understanding, so completely has He bound, in silken
fetters, every movement of your affections that you need to be doing
something which shall have but this one aim–to express your love to
Him who has made you what you are? Indulge the emotion! Crown it with
action and continue it through life! In this point be not slow to be
imitators of the sister of Martha and Lazarus. O sweet love of Jesus,
come and fill our souls to the brim and run over in delicate personal
service!

III. The third beauty of the action was that IT WAS DONE WITH
CONSIDERABLE SACRIFICE. There was an expense about it and that of no
trifling character to a woman who was neither queen nor princess. I
shall always feel obliged to Judas for figuring up the price of that
box of costly nerd. He did it to blame her, but we will let his figures
stand and think more of her for his calculations. I would never have
known what it cost, nor would you, either, if Judas had not marked down
in his pocket-book that it, "might have been sold for much." How he
grudged that, "much"! He calculated the value at 300 pence. He did well
to put it in pence, for his sordid soul reveled in small moneys which
make up the pounds. Pence, indeed, when the expense is for Him to whom
the silver and the gold belong!

Yet I like his calculation in pence, for it is suggestive, since a
Roman penny was a day's wages. Take a day's wages now–say 4s–and you
get some £60. It was a large sum of money for a woman in her state of
life in Bethany. It was £10 of their money, but money, then, was of a
different value from what it is now, and it was a great sum for her to
expend in one single deed of love. Her gift was costly, but the Lord
Jesus deserved to be served at the best rate and at the highest cost.
There was a woman who served the Lord at a higher rate than this–she
only spent two mites in the doing of it, but then, you know it was all
that she had. I do not know how much Mary had, but I feel persuaded
that it was pretty well all she had and that all she could get together
seemed to her to be far too little for the Lord Jesus Christ!

If His head was to be anointed, plenty of ordinary oil might have been
procured at Bethany. The Mount of Olives was close by. But she would
have scorned the thought of pouring common olive oil on Him–she must
find an imperial ointment such as Caesar might have accepted! If Jesus
is to be anointed, there is nerd to be bought in the bazaars at
Jerusalem at a very reasonable rate. Why must you, Mary, seek after
this liquid ointment of the East, this oil distilled from myriads of
roses, of which it needs leagues of gardens to make a drop? Why must
you buy the "very precious" nerd and spend such a large amount of money
upon that which will only last half an hour, and then the wind will
have carried it away, and its perfume will have vanished?

Yes, but the glory of service to Christ is to serve Him with the best
of the best! He deserves, if we serve Him with sermons, that we preach
the best discourses mind can frame or tongue deliver! Or if we serve
Him with teaching in the class, He deserves that we teach in the most
tender fashion and feed His lambs with the best nourishment! Or if we
serve Him with the pen, that we write not a line that may need to be
erased! Or if we serve Him with money, that we give with liberality of
the best we have and much of it! We must see to it that in everything
we do not serve Christ with the lean sheep of the flock, or with such
as are wounded, broken, or torn by beasts–but that He has the fat of
our offerings! We should not be content, if we are rich, to give Him
out of our estate the cheese-parings and candle-ends such as we dare
not keep back for very shame.

Usual donations have little beauty in them–those moneys dragged out of
people by importunity–that guinea dribbled out by custom because it is
a respectable amount. There is nothing to satisfy love in the slender
oblations which

come forth like an unwilling taxation–which a miser could scarcely
withhold. But oh, to give to the Lord Jesus freely, richly, whatever it
is with which He has entrusted us, whether it is gold or genius, time
or words–whether it is the minted coinage of the purse, or the living
courage of a loving heart, or the labor of an earnest hand! Let us give
our Well-Beloved the best we have and He will call it beautiful! Mary's
gift was all for Him and all for love. And it was done at great expense
and, therefore, it was beautiful.

IV. Next, remember that part of the beauty of Mary's action lay in
this, that IT WAS DONE WITH PREPARATION. We are told by John what we
should not, otherwise, have known, "Against the day of My burying has
she kept this." "Kept this." It was not that seeing Jesus there at the
feast and being seized with a sudden thought, she rushed back to her
stores and fetched out the little vase of spikenard–and broke it in a
passion of affection which, in cooler moments, she might regret. Far
from it! She was now consummating the long thought of weeks and months.
We have known warm-spirited Brothers and Sisters both say and do and
give grandly, under a certain spur and impulse, what they would never
have thought of doing when they entered into the assembly.

I shall not blame them. Rather do I commend them for obeying gracious
impulses, but it is not the best way of doing service to our
ever-blessed Master. Passion seldom gives so acceptably as principle.
Mary did not perform a thoughtless action under a tempestuous force of
unusual zeal. No, she had kept this. She had kept this choice ointment
on purpose till a fitting time should come for putting it to its most
appropriate use. My own belief is that when she sat at Jesus' feet, she
learned much more than any of the disciples had ever gathered from His
public preaching. She had heard Him say that the Son of Man would be
delivered to the scribes and Pharisees and that He would be spat upon
and scourged–and they would put Him to death and the third day He
would rise again–and she believed it. She thought it over and she
studied it–and made out more of the meaning of it than any one of the
Apostles had done.

She said to herself–He is going to die as a Sacrifice at the hands of
wicked men and I will, therefore, render Him special honor. I should
not wonder if she began to read the Old Testament with that light,
"This is He whom God has sent, upon whom He has laid the iniquities of
us all, and He shall be given up to judgment, and He shall bear the sin
of man." Then she thought within herself, "If that is so, I will get
the spikenard ready to anoint Him for His burial." Perhaps she intended
as much as that, for so the Lord, Himself, interpreted the deed. At any
rate, she thought, "Alas, for my Lord! If He dies, He will need to be
embalmed and I will be ready to aid in His burial." Therefore she kept
this.

"Against the day of My burying has she kept this." Brothers and
Sisters, there is great beauty in an action which is the outcome of a
long time of loving, careful consideration. It is ill to delay a good
deed which might be done at once, but if a deed must be delayed, it is
well to be doing it at once by preparing for it. When a person feels,
"The time is not yet, but I will be prepared when it does come," it
shows that the heart is occupied with a love of a very engrossing
character. We sing–

"Oh, what shall I do My Sa vior to praise?"

And it were well if the question were constantly in our minds. Let each
man resolve in his heart–"I will not offer my Lord the hasty fruit of
impulse, or that which shall cost me nothing, but I will consider what
I can do for Him. Of what will there be a need? In what direction can I
do Him homage where He might lack that honor? I will turn it over and
meditate and consider–and then I will perform."

This last the preacher would repeat with emphasis, for oh, my Brothers,
it is a custom with many of us to get a grand thought and then, as we
turn it over, to let it evaporate without its leaving even a drop of
practical result behind! This holy woman was no mere planner and
purposer, but a doer of holy deeds! She could keep her alabaster box as
long as was prudent and yet she did not arrive at the tempting
conclusion to keep it altogether. She allowed her heart to weigh the
project and the more she weighed it, the more resolved she became to do
it–to do it when the due time came. When she believed that the hour
had come, she did not delay for an instant! She was as prompt as she
had been thoughtful. The Passover was drawing very near. It was within
six days and so she brought out what she had held in reserve. Blessed
are the punctualities of service which are the result of earnest
endeavor to honor the Lord in the best possible way!

There is something beautiful in seeing, as we have seen, some poor
woman saving her little bits and putting them by for years till she
could accomplish a secret purpose by which Jesus would be glorified. It
is striking to see, as you and I did see, a woman of moderate wealth
discarding all the comforts of life, that she might save enough that
there might be an

orphanage in which children might be cared for–not, as she said, for
the children's sake–but for Christ's sake, that He might be glorified.
The Stockwell Orphanage is the alabaster box which a devout woman
presented to her Lord! Her memory is blessed. Its perfume is recognized
in all parts of the earth at this moment, to the glory of the Lord she
loved.

Such a thoughtful deed is what Jesus would call a beautiful thing. Let
us abound in such beautiful things! For a man to say, "There will come
a crisis when I shall have to stand out for God and His Truth and it
will be a serious loss to me." And then to ponder it so as to be almost
eager for the occasion is a beautiful thing. To feel like the Lord
Jesus, "I have a baptism to be baptized with and how am I straitened
till it is accomplished!" is a beautiful thing. A courageous,
self-sacrificing decision for the Truth of God is a beautiful thing,
when its action is well considered and carried out with enthusiasm. God
give us to mix thought and impulse, reason and affection, and thus
serve Him both with the mind and the heart!

V. There is a fifth point of beauty. MARY DID HER GREAT DEED WITHOUT A
WORD. Dear Sisters, you will pardon me for commending this holy woman
for her wise and fitting silence all through her gracious act. She did
not talk about it beforehand. She said not a word while she did it and
she said nothing afterwards. Martha was the worker and the talker, too,
but I think that all you will find Mary saying is, "Lord, if You had
been here, my brother had not died." And she was so scant of words that
she had to borrow those from Martha. Martha said a great deal more than
that, but Mary was quite satisfied to be as brief as possible. She was
a great thinker, a great sitter at Jesus' feet and a great learner–but
not a great talker. When the time came, she was a great worker, for it
is very curious, though Martha bears the palm for work in our ordinary
talk, yet Mary, the thinker, did more than Martha, the worker!

"She," said Christ, "has worked a good work for Me," which He never
said of Martha, good as Martha was. He censured, a little, the elder
sister for being cumbered with much serving. But Mary's work He
commended and decreed that it should be remembered as long as the world
stands. Though she does not bear the name of a worker in the vulgar
judgment, yet is she the queen in the kingdom of good works! Yet, I
remind you, she did not say a word. There is such a thing as spoiling
what you do by making so great a fuss, before you do it, that when the
mouse is born, people are only astonished that such a small creature
should be the only fruit of the dreadful throes of the mountain!
Moreover, there is such a thing as talking so much afterwards of what
we have done that it spoils it all. It seems as if we must let all the
world know something about ourselves–whereas the joy and bliss of it
all is not to let yourself be seen, but to let the oil go streaming
upon the Master till He is anointed with perfume and we, ourselves,
sink back into our natural insignificance. Silent acts of love have
musical voices in the ears of Jesus! Sound no trumpet before you, or
Jesus will take warning and be gone!

If we could all do more and talk less, it might be a blessing to
ourselves and, perhaps, to others. Let us labor in our service for the
Lord to be more and more hidden! As much as is the proud desire to
catch the eye of man, let us endeavor to avoid it. "I should like to
know," says one, "how to do holy work." Go and do it and consult not
with flesh and blood! "I have done my work and now I should dearly like
to hear what you think of it." You should rise above such idle
dependence upon man's opinion! What matters it to you what your fellow
servant thinks? To your own Master you stand or fall! If you have done
a good thing, do it again! You know the story of the man who comes
riding up to the captain, and says, "Sir, we have taken a gun from the
enemy." "Go and take another," said the matter-of-fact officer. That is
the best advice which I can render to a friend who is elated with his
own success!

So much remains to be accomplished, that we have no time to consider
what has been done. If we have done holy service, let us do it a second
time and do it a third time–and continue to do it, always praying the
Lord to accept our persevering service. In any case, let our
consecrated life be for our Lord's eyes, only, a spring shut up, a
fountain sealed! Anything like sounding a trumpet before us is hateful
to the lowly Lord! Secrecy has a charm for Jesus and the more carefully
we preserve it, the better.

VI. Next, and sixthly, there was this beauty about the action of
Mary–that SHE DID IT IN REFERENCE TO OUR LORD'S DEATH. The Disciples
shrank from thinking of that sad subject. Peter said, "That be far from
You, Lord." But Mary, bearing her Master's heart very near her own, and
sympathizing with Him in His glorious enterprise, instead of drawing
back from the thought of that death, performed her work in connection
with it. I am not certain to what degree she was conscious that it was
so, but there is the fact–the anointing had reference to the burial of
the Lord. It seems to me that the best and most tender duty that
Christians do for their Lord Jesus is that which is touched with the
blood-mark–which bears the stamp of the Cross.

The best preaching is, "We preach Christ crucified." The best living
is, "We are crucified with Christ." The best man is a crucified man.
The best style is a crucified style–may we drop into it! The more we
live beholding our Lord's unutterable griefs and understanding how He
has fully put away our sin, the more holiness shall we produce. The
more we dwell where the cries of Calvary can be heard, where we can
view Heaven, earth and Hell all moved by His wondrous pas-sion–the
more noble will our lives become! Nothing puts life into men like a
dying Savior! Get close to Christ and carry the remembrance of Him
about you from day to day and you will do right royal deeds.

Come, let us slay sin, for Christ was slain. Come, let us bury all our
pride, for Christ was buried. Come, let us rise to newness of life, for
Christ has risen. Let us be united with our crucified Lord in His one
great objective–let us live and die with Him and then every action of
our lives will be very beautiful.

VII. The seventh beauty, to my mind, is this–you may think it a little
far fetched, but I cannot help mentioning it,

for it touches my heart. I believe that MARY HAD, IN THIS ANOINTING OF
THE SAVIOR, SOME LITTLE

GLIMPSE OF HIS RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD and of His later existence.
For I would ask of you–Why do nations at all embalm their dead? Why
not consume them in the fire? A mysterious something makes the ordinary
Christian shudder at the thought of cremation. That must surely be an
acquired taste–unsophisticated Nature does not court the furnace, or
covet the flame–we prefer to lie beneath the green hillock with our
fathers. Many nations of antiquity, and especially the Egyptians and
other Orientals, took great care to anoint the bodies of the departed
with precious perfumes and to lay them asleep in gums and fine linen.

Why? Because there darkly shone upon their minds some thought of the
hereafter. There remained with man, long after the Fall, a glimmering,
undefined belief in immortality. That truth was so universally received
that the Old Testament takes it for granted. The existence of God and
the immortality of the soul lie at the basis of Old Testament teaching.
The after-life of the body was accepted, also, in a manner more or less
clear. Immortality was not brought to light, but there it was, and they
who reject that doctrine go back into a darkness denser than that in
which the heathens, themselves, dwelt! Why did the Egyptian king embalm
his father and lay him in spices, but that he thought that somehow or
other there was another life and he would, therefore, take care of the
body? They would not have wasted precious linen, gems and spices, if
they had thought that the body was mere rottenness for worms to consume
forever.

Mary had deeper and clearer thoughts than that, for she expected that
something would happen to that blessed body after Christ had died and
she must, therefore, anoint it and bring the most precious spices that
she could procure for His burial. At any rate, let your service of the
Lord Jesus be the service of a risen Christ! Come not here to worship
One who died years ago–a hero of the past–but come to adore the
ever-living Jesus!–

"He lives, your great Redeemer lives." He will certainly come in His
own Person to reward His saints. And before He comes, He sees what you
are doing. "We live," said one, "in the great Taskmaster's sight." I
care not for that title. I have no Taskmaster! It is far more an
impulse to my life that I live within the sight of Him whom, having not
seen, I love, because He loved me and gave Himself for me! If this does
not quicken you, what will? If this does not nerve you to tireless
diligence in holy service, what can? Our Lord Jesus Christ lives! Let
us find some way of anointing His dear and reverend head–some way of
crowning Him who wore the crown of thorns for our sake! Ours it is to
know that He lives and that we live in Him. On Him would we expend the
full force of our being, counting it all joy to spend and to be spent
for His sake.

I am not going to stir you up, my fellow Christians, to do anything for
Christ, for I fear to spoil the freeness of your love's life. I do not
want to be pleading with you to enter into His service more fully, for
the work of pressed men is never so much prized as that of happy
volunteers. Yet as I love you, I would have you love your Lord more and
more. It is so sweet to belong to Christ, that the more fully we can
belong to Him, the more free we are! I like that saying of Paul, where
he calls himself the doulos of Christ, the slave of Jesus! He says
exultingly, "Let no man trouble me. I bear in my body the marks of the
Lord Jesus," as if he gloried to think of himself as the branded slave
of His Lord! He had been beaten and scourged and he retained upon his
back the marks of his lashings and, therefore, he was known to say to
him-self–and smile all the while–"these are my Master's marks. I am
branded with His name." Oh, sweet service, in which if it were slavery
it would be joy! I would not have a hair of my head that was not my
Lord's if I could help it, nor a drop of my blood that did not flow for
Him if I could help it. My liberty–and I speak for you all–my
liberty, if I might

choose it, would be liberty never to sin again; freedom to do Christ's
bidding and that alone! I would gladly lose my free will in His sweet
will and find it again as I never found it before in having yielded it
up completely to His command!

I will not, therefore, so much intrude upon the sanctity of your
heart's love as to suggest what you can do for Jesus. As the best juice
flows from the cluster with the least pressure, so shall the best
service be that which is most spontaneous. Do not let me push you on,
or draw you on, or drag you on–be eager on your own account! Say to
the Lord, Himself, "Draw me: I will run after You." Have you not a
certain private reason why you should love your Lord better than any
other of His redeemed? I repeat it, I will not pry into your sacred
secrets, but leave you to commune with your own heart and with your
Lord. Only let us so love Him that when we look at Him, He shall say,
"You have ravished My heart, My sister, My spouse; you have ravished My
heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck." Then shall
we know what to do for our Well-Beloved, and, what is better, we shall
do it without further exhortation.

There I leave it. May the Holy Spirit bless the word! As for you that
do not love the Lord Jesus, God be merciful to you! I will not
pronounce upon you an Anathema Maranatha, but I tremble lest it fall
upon you. I am sorely grieved for your sakes. I am, moreover, sorely
vexed for Christ's sake that He should be deprived of your love and
service. What has He done that you should slight Him? Oh, blind eyes
that cannot see His beauties, and deaf ears that cannot hear the charms
of His voice! God be merciful to you and help you to trust your
Savior–and then you will love Him for His salvation! It is no wonder
that the saved ones love their Lord–it is a marvel that they do not
love Him 10,000 times more! The Lord be with you for Christ's sake!
Amen.
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The Man Christ Jesus