Greater Beauty

During Iowa’s recent warm streak, I’ve had the chance to play catch with my son. I’m sure he’s grateful, but at times I noticed his scowl and called him on it. He’s upset about throwing issues and I’m encouraging him to focus on what he’s grateful for and what he can do about his issues.

In my esteemed experience and maturity of wisdom, I’ve reminded him of how I cherish my memories of my dad playing catch with me. I shared how he used to work 80 hours a week as a doctor and was rarely home until he lost his license and a host of trials when I was twelve opened the opportunity for him to spend more time with me and my brother. Well, mostly me, because I was cooler.

Anyway, my precious boy, newly 11 years old and riding a growth spurt to look like his team’s Mike Trout in Center, well, he’s expecting big things. When they don’t turn out like he’d hoped, he resorts to anger for his “comfort.”

Similarly to how Jesus speaks of beautiful things while onlookers are caught mid-scowl, I’m trying to disciple my son to see beauty in life like God sees. To do so will give him peace, joy and the enduring character he needs to forget the last pitch and focus with a steady heart and mind on the next.

If you open to Mark 14:1-9, you’ll see this scene where Jesus and the Holy Spirit inspired author show us true beauty in sacrificing this world’s treasures.

For my son, I hope he will learn to allow those broken throws to glory God for eternity. As we reflect together, I’m hoping we’ll gain God’s view on the treasures we seek and acquire. When they break, I pray we’ll see beauty and turn their destruction into God’s glory.

Mark sets up our timeline as “two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread” (v1). Consider the meaning of the Passover and how God instructed the Jews to keep these traditions to remind them of how God sees beauty. In the first Passover, God’s people shed precious lambs to paint their doors with the sacrificed blood. Verse one already has us in a gospel mindset of God’s beauty prioritizing a cleansing of sin so that His people can be saved from this broken world.

I counseled someone who recently started experiencing panic attacks and summarized what I’ve learned in Mark to help them. Mark’s first chapter shows how Jesus has unique authority even to casting out demons. Chapter two extrapolates that power to meet someone on the opposite end of the spectrum: a paralytic. Do you remember which problem Jesus took care of first when he met this man dropped in from the severed ceiling?

To the crowd and possibly the paralytic, the most beautiful thing Jesus could have done was heal his body. Jesus informed them that the true beauty in that opportunity was to cast aside the idol of good health to lift up the greater beauty of the man’s forgiveness from his sins. In order to show the world that Jesus had power to forgive man of their sin (for only God could do that), was to bring a person with the “worst” earthly problem and heal them of something they didn’t realize was worse.

Even the house where our scene in Mark 14 takes place is at the “house of Simon the leper” (v3). I’ve felt like a leper with my chronic pain and the years of suffering, but in my counsel, I’ve learned that a greater beauty than healing my body is that I would break the idol of health in the name of trusting God.

It’s possible God wanted us to reflect on this as a reason this moment took place in Simon’s house. Even he had opportunity to glorify God in his suffering, by showing the world how in his leprosy he had the Lord, and that was beautiful and good forever.

As the story goes, “a woman” breaks her “flask (of) very costly” nard (perfume) and poured it on Jesus’s head (v3). If I’m remembered for anything in history, I’ve no doubt hoped that my name would be included. Jesus understands this and will satisfy that for believers when he gives them the “white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it” (Rev. 2:17). Since that gift will be far more beautiful than for this woman to have her name included, I too am willing to leave this world nameless. More important, and viewed through God’s eyes, is the beauty of we can give up to glorify our God.

Which brings us to Jesus’s response when some scolded her for her offering. He said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me” (Mk 14:6). Jesus stood up for truth in this moment, and having the same mind as he means we should to. As I counseled my friend, when a wrong view of your situation troubles you, stand up for truth. Preach the gospel to yourself and consider life from God’s point of view.

Jesus proclaimed truth that the ointment was not wasted because they would always have the poor. She saw her situation with God’s eyes and acted on a unique opportunity to glorify Jesus before he died to be our spotless lamb shedding blood for our sins. “She has done what she could” ought to encourage us to see opportunities with faith that God can be glorified (v8a). It’s not a “bad pitch” that we should focus on, but how we will respond when we throw the next. As I tell my son, if you can throw another pitch, rejoice! Throw that one so well they forget about the last one.

Mark 14:9 “And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

The woman had accumulated enough wealth to obtain this flask of expensive nard. Whether or not she struggled in her heart on if she should “waste” it on Jesus, we know from her action that she chose to do what would be beautiful in His eyes. Her view set His pleasure above the approval of others and the wealth of their world.

Lord, please bless us with the spiritual wisdom and insight to not throw Your glory away for a few pieces of silver. May we rejoice when trials come, breaking this world’s treasures to see something more beautiful.