A DIFFERENT KIND OF BROKEN
A contrite heart overwhelmed with gratitude motivates true worship. It cares little for etiquette, opinion, or reason, but desires only to be expressed.
In fact it will almost certainly incite a myriad of responses from onlookers. True worship has the power to polarise people. Witnesses can be inspired and offended all at once. Quite incredibly, their judgements are effectually negated altogether simply because the object of that worship is the defender and cover.
True worship is extravagant
She came to him, Jesus, and poured out an offering worth a year’s pay. I once asked myself, “When was the last time you gave something worth a year’s wages?” I was undone and compelled with a desire to give like her.
In a place where she was not welcome, giving an offering that was despicably inappropriate, according to some. She brought the best, most precious she had and emptied it out on his feet.
Two and a half cups of perfume from an alabaster jar. She’d been saving it, I know not for what kind of occasion. Yet this day she’d decided she would bring it and give it to him.
They watched her, indignant. So disapproving of her wasteful act. The same man who criticised her for not feeding the poor was the man who sold Jesus the next day for a few coins worth just half a year’s wages. Clearly the value they each placed on Jesus was different; and I doubt whether he intended to give his scornful silver coins to the poor either.
I’ve learned that critics are rarely givers.
And here she was, under all their gaze, lost in her irrational expression of love. Weeping.
Under his gaze as well. Received by him. Defended by him.
A jar made of gypsum or calcite, resembling white clay with marble-like accents running through it. Common. Just a jar. Just an alabaster jar used to store ointments, oils and expensive perfumes. Sealed permanently shut to resist flies and pests.
A common vessel. An ordinary vessel. Preserved for the day of it’s intended purpose at which point the seal would be broken by the shattering of the vessel itself.
Once opened it had to be used – broken and spilled. Once committed it could not have been re-used, spared, saved or reallocated. There was no Plan B.
Too many people have a Plan B.
Too many wonder why his defence does not come.
You will never experience all God has until He has all you are.
There is no time for holding back.
“I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing.”
2 Sam 24: 24 & 1 Chron 21: 24
True worship has to cost you. It will bring you to tears. Not tears of pain or resistance but tears of grateful expression.
“I weep not because this hurts, though it may, I weep because I finally get to do this.”
It is a life of complete abandonment.
The laying down of opinion, option, preference and pride.
The picking up of blind trust, unwavering commitment and certain humiliation.
If humiliation before men is the cost of blessing my Saviour then that is a price I am willing to pay.
I choose every time to have arms raised over having arms folded
To be on my knees than on my backside
To sing rather than judge
To give rather than keep
To stretch rather than preserve
To leap rather than sit
I choose to be a different kind of broken
Here she was on her knees, giving her best in a desperate attempt to say, “Thank you. He picked up all my broken pieces, once upon a time, and mended me back together. Now I willingly spend my life being a different kind of broken.”
She is my measure. I choose to be poured out - poured out extravagantly, elaborately, excessively. Given completely with no Plan B.
Misunderstood, misrepresented or judged by man makes no difference to me.
There is only one measure by which to express worship… and that is broken and spilled.
Read Mark 14: 1-11
