Brown's Daily Word

Good Morning,
Praise the Lord for this Wednesday of Holy Week. There will be another prayer service tonight at 7:00 PM in Binghamton at First Assembly. There will be prayer for the families of victims, and for survivors of last Friday's massacre. Thank you for phone calls and e-mails inquiring about the situation here. We had a call from our friend, Karen, from the Billy Graham Association in Charlotte, who said, "Our sovereign God is going to use this tragedy to bring many others to faith in Christ." Indeed, our Lord changes our "Good Fridays" into Easter mornings.
I was given special permission to visit one of the victims yesterday in one of the local hospitals. Her husband and son were with her. I had the privilege of praying with the family and trusting God for complete healing.
According to Mark's Gospel, where there is given a chronology of Christ's last week - Holy Week - on Wednesday the focus was on Bethany. There Jesus was invited for a banquet at the home of a leper. A woman brought there an alabaster jar, which she broke open, and poured out the ointment that it contained over Jesus' head. Witnesses record that Jesus was deeply stirred by this extravagant action. The unmeasured generosity of her giving moved Jesus. It was a glorious maximum of sacrifice, which never stopped to calculate what might have been an acceptable minimum. It was self-giving, in "good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over."
In this act of devotion and sacrifice the Lord teaches us how to become gracious recipients. Often we become reluctant to allow others to bless us, because we do not want to become debtors to them. Very often our pride steps in, and we say that we can take care of ourselves, rather than to perceive the needs and gracious desires of the giver to pour out their love in a generous action. Further, in our giving we often become cold and calculated, measuring out what we "can get away with". Mary, on the other hand, teaches us the joy of reckless abandon in selfless giving.
The Lord affirmed that she did this anointing for His burial. Jesus foretold the coming of His death repeatedly to His disciples. The men did not "get it", whereas Mary intuitively knew about the coming death of her blessed Lord, and she anointed His body before, rather than after, His death. The Lord teaches us to love people while they are alive, and to give them gifts while they can appreciate them. Our Lord Jesus affirmed Mary's act of Love when He said, "She has done a beautiful thing to me." (Mark 14:6) We perceive the warmth of our Lord's defense. As Steve Green sang, "Broken and spilled out."
Mary's devotion was and is a thing of beauty, and has become "a joy forever".
May the Lord provoke us to be reckless in showing our love, mercy, and kindness to others around us. May we become "broken and spilled out" for the sake of the Savior, that we might become a sweet aroma before Him and before others. William Barclay says, “It occurs in the simplest things—the impulse to send a letter of thanks, the impulse to tell someone of our love or gratitude, the impulse to give some special gift or speak some special word. The tragedy is that the impulse is so often strangled at birth. This world would be so much lovelier if there were more people like this woman, who acted on her impulse of love because she knew in her heart of hearts that if she did not do it then she would never do it at all. How that last extravagant, impulsive kindness must have uplifted Jesus’s heart” (Mark).
We serve Jesus by serving people. A wealthy American traveler visited a hospital in Southeast Asia. He walked in just as a young missionary nurse was cleaning the sores of a sick, dirty, elderly man who had been found lying in a gutter. The rich man said to the nurse, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.” She answered quietly and firmly, “Neither would I.” Money couldn’t buy her extravagant devotion to Jesus. Her life was broken and spilled out for the love of Christ. Plan to attend the mid-week services today, wherever you may be. We will meet tonight at 6 PM for a meal, Bible study, and choir practice. Those who live in this area, please join us.
In Christ,
Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6Fl_nqGJc0