Disciple – The Anointing

Disciple Series — The Anointing”

Sermon by Caleb Campbell, Desert Springs Bible Church, March 13, 2021

Today we’re continuing in a series from the Gospel of Mark called Disciple, where we’re looking at and exploring what it means to follow Jesus as one of his disciples.

If you’re joining us in the room, I think you guys maybe got a handout with the text.  Did you guys get that?  Help me out here.  You guys got the handout with the text?  OK, great, perfect.  The reason we’re doing those printouts is so you can make notes, draw on it, and things like that.  I would encourage you all to do that.  If you have a print Bible, you could do that, and if you want to mark that up, that’s awesome.  If you don’t own a print Bible and would like one, we’d love to give you one.  There are some available on the tables in the back.  Just grab one of those as our gift to you.  And for those of y’all joining us online, I’d encourage you, if you have a print Bible, to grab one and follow along with this.  Again, Mark Chapter 14. If you don’t have a print Bible, just go to bible.com.  We’re using the Christian standard version of the Bible today.

Before we get into the text, I did want to mention that Easter’s coming.  We’re going to do it again this year like we have every year for a couple thousand years.  We’re really looking forward to celebrating Easter together.  We wanted to let you know that at both of our Easter services, 9:30 and 11:00, we’re going to be doing baptisms.  Baptism is an outward expression of a life devoted to Jesus.  When we go under the water, it connects us to and recognizes Jesus’s death and burial just as He went into death, went into the tomb.  So, we, too, go into the water and then come out of the water.  It signifies and connects us to His resurrection — the new life that we have in Jesus.  Just as Jesus went into the tomb and then was resurrected to new life, so we go under the water and then are brought up into new life.  It’s a way to proclaim, “I’m all in with Jesus.”  So, if you’d like to be baptized, we will baptize you anytime. But if you’d like to be baptized on Easter, let us know.  If you like to know more about baptism, let us know.  Again, you can use those Next Steps cards, or for those of y’all joining us online, you can use that Next Steps link.  We’d love to let you know more about baptism here at DSBC.

All right, so we are in Mark Chapter 14.  What we’ve been doing through this series is we’ve been kind of going almost chapter by chapter.  We’re going to change it up a bit, in that we’re going to skip ahead to the last half of the Gospel of Mark.  Actually, the majority of it will be in Chapter 14 and 15, although we might dip into 11 a little.

What we’re going to do is we’re going to zoom in between now and Easter on the last week, so to speak, of Jesus’s ministry prior to his crucifixion and resurrection.  We’re going to zoom in on that so we can kind of prepare ourselves for Holy Week, which is Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday.  Then after that — after we celebrate Easter together — we will go back and hit up the stuff that we skipped over to get here in the Gospel of Mark.

That’s going to be a lot of fun.  And when I say fun, I mean it, OK?  I mean it.  This is tons of fun.  I love this stuff. OK, so now I’m going to read the Gospel of Mark Chapter 14 verses one through 11.  I want to encourage you — you don’t have to — but I would encourage you not to read along, not just yet.  In fact, I would encourage you to hear the Bible.  Maybe it’s helpful to close your eyes and to imagine what’s going on.  We know that the majority of Scripture, if not all the Scripture, was artistically designed to be read aloud in a setting like this and then heard.  I would actually argue it was artistically designed also to be imagined — to have it fire on all aspects of your brain.  And so, we encourage you to hear the Word and then we’ll get into the text.   One little request is just to be attentive as you hear — just to be attentive to what the spirit of God may be speaking to you as you hear, and even imagine the Word this morning.  Just notice what’s going on inside of you as you hear it. This was the Gospel Mark, chapter 14 verses one and on.

“It was two days before the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread.  The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a cunning way to arrest Jesus and to kill him.  ‘Not during the festival,’ they said, ‘so that there won’t be rioting among the people.’

Now, while He was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume of pure Nard.  She broke the jar and poured it on His head.  But some were expressing indignation to one another.  ‘Why has this perfume been wasted, for this perfume might have been sold more than 300 denari and given to the poor.’  And they began to scold her.

Jesus replied, ‘Leave her alone.  Why are you bothering her?  She has done a noble thing for me.  You always have the poor with you, and you can go and do what is good for them whenever you want.  But you do not always have me.  She has done what she could.  She has anointed my body for burial.  Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.

Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them, and when they heard this, they were glad and promised to give him money.  So he started looking for a good opportunity to betray him.”  This is the word of the Lord.

Here in this text, we have two responses to the Kingdom of God.  In this text you have two responses that, frankly, couldn’t be more different than one another.  Two responses to Jesus, and it’s in a sandwich.  Doesn’t that sound delicious now?  This particular sandwich is here in the text.  If you have your print Bible, you might just notice it really quick.  Notice in verse one and two what’s happening.  People are trying to plot to murder Jesus.  Then notice at the bottom part of the sandwich, verse 10, Judas Iscariot going to those who are plotting.  Then they hatch a plan to murder Jesus.  And in the middle of the sandwich, there is this profoundly beautiful and yet somewhat perplexing story of an unnamed woman who gives an extravagant gift to Jesus and does something that’s mystifying, even to those who are present in the room.  You have a lot of confusion in this text.  You have even some cruelties.

In this text you have two responses to Jesus, and I’d like to tease them out a little bit for you today.  I think the Bible is super cool.  I think that there are so many things that — when we read our Bible over and over and over together when we’re in community with one another — all of this stuff just starts sparking and coming alive.  My hope is that today and through this study, that these somewhat familiar — I think if you grew up in church settings, these are somewhat familiar stories or accounts — my hope is that they will just catch on fire — especially as we lead up to Holy Week, as we celebrate Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  My hope is that we might have a vivid imagination of what it is that we’re celebrating and remembering.  So that’s my hope.

Now notice — here’s the setting.  It was two days before the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread.  What is the Passover or the Festival of Unleavened Bread?  It was a memorial.  It was a holiday or a high holy day, remembering this event all the way back in the Book of Exodus.  If you go home today and read through your whole Bible — which you totally should — this first book of your Bible is Genesis. It starts like this, “In the beginning …”  That’s how you know you’re in Genesis.  In Genesis, God forms the people from this dude named Abraham.  He says, “Out of you, I’m going to make a great nation and you’re going to bless all the nations or ethnic peoples of the world.”

They go to Egypt to avoid starving to death.  But spoiler alert: This people that God has promised to make into a great nation to bless all the other nations, they become slaves in Egypt.  The king or pharaoh of Egypt enslaves this people group that’s supposed to be a great nation, blessing all the other nations.  But guess what their current status is in Exodus?  They are slaves.  OK, so the question is how they will grow into a great nation and bless all the other nations of the Earth,  This is the dramatic tension of Exodus.  God sends a dude named Moses to lead the people out of Egypt and exit, or an exodus. Hence the name of the second book, Exodus.  Excellent, OK, you guys are tracking.  This is great.

Moses goes to Pharaoh, who is the king of Egypt, … and let me ask you a question.  Is it economically sound for Pharaoh to release his labor force?  No, in fact, in the kingdoms of this world, nobody wants to do that. This would hurt the economy, and so Moses goes and say, “Let my people go.”  And Pharoah says, “No bro.  We ain’t gonna do that.  That’s stupid, right?”  And so, God sends –and I know that this is crazy, I know that this is violent, and I’m not going to resolve the tension, and we’re just going to deal with it — God sends ten plagues upon Egypt in order to release the people.  And we were just going to let that stand. And the last of the plagues was the death of the first-born son.  God says, “Let my people go.  Otherwise, I’m going to kill the first- born son in every household.  It doesn’t matter whose household.  It’s indiscriminate, except if you take a lamb and you slay the lamb  — I know this is violent and gory and we’re just going to deal with it —  you slay the lamb, you take the blood of the lamb and you put it over the door post so that the Angel of Death or the destroyer will pass over your house.  Hence the name of the holiday.

This is the Passover feast, where a lamb dies in the place of the child.  You guys tracking so far?  So here Jesus is in Jerusalem.  The city, by the way, is likely swollen to ten times its size, because all these people come into Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover and the Festival of the Unleavened Bread.  The reason that it’s unleavened is because they were commanded to quickly flee.  During the exodus the people are told, “You gotta go like grab your stuff.”  And there’s all this hurriedness including, the bread that you can make right quick.  “Don’t even leaven it, just get it and go.” When we eat communion, we generally eat unleavened bread.  It’s connected to the Passover — God’s deliverance from slavery and oppression in Egypt. OK, so just notice the setting. When are we? We’re in Passover week, right?  A high holy day remembering God’s deliverance. OK, so this is going to create some dramatic tension. Let’s watch.

The chief priest and all the scribes say, “We’re looking for a cunning way” — interesting language — “a cunning way to arrest Jesus and to …”  What?  All chief priests, throughout your Old Testament, are supposed to be the good guys, not the bad.  They’re supposed to be the good guys, especially the chief priests, right?  And the scribes were people who were familiar with the Scripture.  Their job was to know the Scripture inside and out.  That was their job.  Are these people supposed to be good guys or bad guys?  In anyone’s mind in that day, this was the good team.  In fact, we all expect, as we’re reading the text, we expect the Romans to be the bad guys.  They’re the occupying force.  They’re the ones shoving spears through our people, right?  We want the Romans to be the bad guys.  But notice the shocking reality that it is the religious elite who are doing what?  Plotting to do what?  Arrest and kill Jesus.  In the Gospel of Mark, they’ve been trying to do this since the first three chapters.  There is constantly resistance coming Jesus’s way, not predominantly from — in fact, almost never from the Romans, who we all want to be the bad guys.  It’s almost always coming from, shockingly, the people we expected to be the good guys.

But one of the things we notice is that the people who we expect to be the good guys think of themselves as people who are insiders who deserve the Kingdom of God.  Therefore, they have a particular response to Jesus.  What is their response to the proclamation of the Kingdom of God that Jesus makes?  That’s response number one.  When I hear the good news of the Kingdom of God that God has created me, that He loves me, as Richard said, He wants to be with me and that He calls me to turn.  There’s this word called repentance, which just means a change of mind and direction.  I’m going my own way, I’m selfish, I’m focused on myself.  I’m sinning.  Repentance is turning to God.  That’s what we’re called to do — to repent.  And to believe what?  The good news or gospel that Jesus is the King, and that the Kingdom has come.  This is the good news.  The good news — contrary to many American people’s misperception — the good news is not, “Say a prayer, so God will let you go to heaven when you die.”  That’s not the gospel that Jesus proclaims.  It’s not the good news Jesus proclaims.

I’ll prove it to you.  Read the Gospel of Mark.  He doesn’t ever talk like that.  He’s consistently saying here’s the good news, everybody.  There’s a new Kingdom.  In fact, it’s the Old Kingdom.  It’s the first Kingdom.  It’s the Eden, Paradise Kingdom where God rules and reigns and humans and God are in union with one another. But because humans sinned and turned their backs on God, we have these two kingdoms now.

But Jesus comes in and says,” I’m reestablishing my domain so that I can be your God and you can be my people.”  The Kingdom of God is pushing back the kingdoms of darkness in the Gospel of Mark.   And there are two possible responses — turn to the King or turn against the King.  Notice what the religious elite are doing, by and large, in Marks gospel.  They’re saying what Pharaoh said, “Nah bro, that’s going to cost me too much.”

OK, let’s keep going.  “Arrest Jesus and kill him. Not during the … “  This is the first part of the sandwich, right?  Notice there’s the first part, “not during the festival.”    Yeah, they said this so that there won’t be a riot among the people.  What was the general disposition of the masses towards Jesus?   Positive or not?  Generally speaking, the masses really wanted Jesus.  They crowded around Jesus.  In the Gospel of Mark, there are thousands of people crowding around Jesus.  And the religious elite know that if they have him killed, there’s going to be a riot.

1. Let’s keep going. Notice that they’re having no moral qualms about putting a man to death. Notice there’s no one here wrestling with his murder.  I read once in Leviticus that we’re probably not going to do murder so well, probably badly.  Not no one wrestling with murdering a rabbi.  Their concern is, “We don’t want to get caught.”

While He was at Bethany — which is a neighboring village just right down the way from Jerusalem — at the House of Simon, the leper … *** TV timeout.  Leprosy was used, generally speaking, in your Bible to cover a variety of different diseases that become manifest on the skin. You definitely don’t want to get in proximity with a leper.  Because especially in the ancient mind, not only might the disease get on you, but also if you were Jewish, especially if you were a Jewish rabbi, you didn’t want to become unclean, because touching someone who had visible signs of death on them would tarnish you.  Then you’d have to do a purification, a ceremonial washing in order to make yourself clean again.  It wasn’t only moral.  It was also just you can’t stand in the presence of God with death on you.  ***

And yet, where is Jesus?  Where is He’?  In the house with Simon the leper.  Now we don’t know, at least from my studies, we don’t know who this dude is.  We know one thing about Simon.  Actually, a couple things.  He’s got a table in a house, and he’s got some kind of a history of leprosy.  Maybe Jesus healed him, or maybe he presently is a leper.  Nobody knows it but Mark’s readers, reading decades after this happened.  Maybe his original hearers they knew who Simon the leper was.  He’s a leper.  It’s interesting to note that Mark here teases that out.  He could have just said Simon  of Bethany.  But he intentionally leaves this out.

Where is Jesus?  The chief priests and the scribes are in their palatial estates, plotting murder, whereas Jesus is with Simon the leper, right?  And He was reclining at the table.  By the way, this idea of reclining at table — it wasn’t like a lazy boy.  They would lean up against each other at dinner time, so if you’re a “personal space” kind of person, you definitely would not like this.  You would definitely be touching.  You would lean up against the person next to you as you ate.

He’s reclining at a table where?  At the leper’s house.  And if you’re a follower of Jesus, by the time you’re in Chapter 14, you’re again thinking, “Always, Jesus taking us into somebody’s house that we don’t want to be with.  Fine.” (Sarcastic tone.)  If you’ve been following along with this in the Gospel of Mark, you’ll remember that when Simon Peter gets called to be the disciple of Jesus, the very next thing Jesus does to Simon and Andrew is to take him to a tax collector’s house and makes them recline at table with him.  Listen to me.  If you’re a disciple of Jesus, I need you to hear me on this.  Jesus keeps taking his disciples and shoving them into community with people they do not want to be with.  Now, I’m not going to do any application today.  But I wonder.  I just wonder aloud if that might have any implications on who I let sit at my dinner table and whose invitations I say yes to.  I just wonder.  No application.

Let’s keep going.  Now imagine the scene.  What are they doing at the table?  They’re reclining at table, right? They’re all up in each other’s business, and they’re eating. And as He was reclining at the table, a woman came in with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume of pure Nard.  This is, by the way, not ordinary.  It’s not ordinary for a person to disrupt a meal.  Has this ever happened to you?  You’re out at a restaurant and you’re having a great time, in a deep conversation with an old friend.  And then your neighbor is also in the restaurant, and you know what’s going to happen.  They’re gonna walk over and it’s gonna be one of those weird awkward times.  “Oh, this is so and so.”  Is this ever happened to you?  You guys know it’s abnormal.  In fact, it’s breaking social norms.  You’re not supposed to barge in on a private meal and start doing stuff.  You guys  tracking so far?

So, in comes a woman with an alabaster jar.  You know what’s weird is just the woman coming in and interrupting their meal?  What’s exceptionally weird is that she’s carrying a jar of very expensive perfume of pure Nard.  And then she breaks the jar.  What?  BREAKS the jar?   Can you imagine this?  You’re just talking, “Hey Jesus.  Yeah, cool.  Passover is coming up soon.  What do you got planned?  Are you guys gonna hit Florida?”   Then this woman comes in, and everyone goes quiet.  I don’t know how she did it.  The Bible doesn’t say, but, somehow, she breaks the jar.  Time out.***

*** Is that abnormal for you to have a very expensive liquid in a container and then to break the whole container?  Is that normal?  Well, not normal.  In fact, some of us may be thinking, didn’t they know about corks?  Yes, we have archaeological evidence par excellence that this is not the normal way to open a jar.  I know there are a lot of commentators who are trying to make sense of it.  It was so expensive.  You would never ever, think to use the whole thing at once.  This stuff is expensive!  How expensive?  This perfume might have been sold for more than 300 denari, which is about a year’s wage.  ***

Now, here’s what we don’t know.  We don’t know the social status of this woman, but I think there are clues in the text that would lead us to believe that this is the most expensive thing that she has.  In fact, it may have even been an heirloom.  And there almost certainly would have been a way to cut the cake.  There almost certainly would have been a way to do that.  But what does she do?  She breaks it, which means she is totally devoting this gift to Jesus.  It has one use in her life.  It has one recipient.  She’s not going to take this most treasured, possession and dole it out to people all throughout her life.  She is giving total and utter devotion to Jesus.  She is.

Notice what’s happening to this this unnamed woman.  She breaks the jar, pours it where on Jesus?  On His head, OK.  By the way, have you guys watched football?  You know when the team wins?  When they pour the Gatorade.  Where do you think they got that from?  That’s right.

What are the responses, so far, to Jesus?  The chief priest’s response to Jesus is rejection, right? Utter rejection and resistance. What is the woman’s response to Jesus?  Utter devotion.  The chief priests and scribes are responding to the message of the Kingdom of God, looking for self-preservation. What’s the woman’s response to Jesus?  Self-sacrifice.  There are two responses to Jesus.

Notice the disciples’ response.  Some were expressing indignation to one another, gossip.  Why has this perfume been wasted?  They can’t see it, huh?  Why has this perfume been wasted?  They’re saying this perfume might have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor.  Here’s why I say it in that tone of voice.   So far in the Gospel of Mark, these disciples have not exhibited much generosity, if any at all.  At least to this point, by and large, they’re not known as a generous people.  It seems like what they’re doing is they’re using a social justice issue — like caring for the poor — as an excuse not to see the Kingdom of God in this woman’s life.  They’re bickering, they’re mocking her.  “This could have been sold and given to the poor.”

Jesus replied, “Leave her alone.”  Sometimes it’s the people who think they’re closest to Jesus who find themselves rejecting those who want to come to Jesus.  Now, I’m not going to do any application, but I wonder, church, if this might have any implications to how we might view people who are different than us giving a life of total devotion to God, even though imperfectly, even though it’s not our way, even though it’s breaking our social conventions.  I wonder if perhaps we might use this as a cautionary tale — to think well of myself because I’m sitting next to Jesus.  That must mean I’m just like Jesus.  But notice that they’re exhibiting similar behavior to the scribes and Pharisees.  Rejection.

“Why are you bothering her?  She has done a noble thing for me.”  Oh, this is so good.  Oh my God, wow!  O.K., “You will always have the poor with you, and you can do what is good for them whenever you want.”  Notice what Jesus thinks. Jesus is not saying. “Not to worry about the poor.” In fact, he’s riffing on Deuteronomy 15:11, which says something like, “There will always be poor in the land.”   The next part of that verse in Deuteronomy 15:11  is “Therefore, have an open hand towards the poor.” He’s riffing on a portion of Deuteronomy that screams at us be a generous people. Jesus is not saying here, “Don’t be generous to the poor.”  I think what he’s saying here is, “Bro, you can do it whenever you want.  But you will not always have me.”  This seems to be him scolding them.  Like, “You guys are coming at me with generosity to the poor.  Yeah, whenever you’re ready, boys.”  By the way, is this weird?

Jesus is going to interpret the event for us, but there’s something you’ve got to know.  Have you guys ever heard the word anointed?  Now, for those of us, maybe who grew up in religious circles, anointing or anointed kind of has a religious overtone to it.  But by and large in Jesus’s day, it would have not been primarily viewed as a religious idea, but primarily as a political one.  Because for the people in ancient history, the most frequently anointed people are kings.  There are some accounts of priests being anointed, maybe even some prophets using anointing.  But by and large it’s something that you would do to a king. You would annoint a new king. O.K., you guys with me?

Notice which Jesus is now going to interpret the event for us.  “She has done what she could.”  Now notice this.  Oh man, you gotta zoom in here.  “She has anointed my body in advance…”  So, you’re one of Jesus disciples.  You’re eating your chicken noodle soup, and you’re like, “Hey, what are you guys gonna do for Passover?  Oh yeah, that’s cool, bro.”  And then this woman walks in.  “What’s she doing here?”  And she breaks the jar, and you say, “Dang, you know that’s expensive.  You know she should have given that to the poor.  I’m not going to give anything to poor.  This soup is really good.”  And then Jesus is like, “You guys shut up.  Quit bothering her. What she has done is a noble thing.  She’s anointed my body …“  And the apostles think, “Yeah, cool, you’re gonna be the king.”

Generally speaking, if you are following someone you think is going to be the king, you know that you don’t want to hear about their burial.  That sounds like you gonna lose, from the disciples’ perspective.  They think Jesus is marching to Jerusalem to kick out Caesar and to operate like all the other kingdoms of this world.  Notice this: Jesus views the cross as his coronation day.  He recognizes that his anointing isn’t anointing to be the king.  But He is not going to first to the throne.  He’s first going to go to the cross.  The throne comes after.

OK, so you’ve got to see this here.  Even the disciples are operating under the framework of the kingdoms of this world, that the way to power is to grab power and to put others to the sword.  The symbol of the kingdoms of this world is the sword.   Jesus says no, the way to true power — the way to My Kingdom — is not with a sword, but with a cross.  And there are two responses.  If that threatens your power, what do you want to do to Jesus?  Notice it’s the scribes and Pharisees, the elite who want him dead.  Notice it’s the unnamed who anointed Him.  You see, the Kingdom of God is an upside-down Kingdom.  It takes all the value systems of the kingdoms of this world, and it flips them upside down.  You’ve heard Jesus say the first shall be last, and the last first.  If you want to be truly a ruler of all, you will be a servant to all.  The way to power is through a cross.

What is the woman’s response?  The chief priests and scribes respond with resistance and self-centered self-preservation.  The woman responses are self-denial and self-sacrifice, the giving of herself and what she has to Jesus.  These are the two responses.  “She has done what she could.  She anointed my body.”  Look at who Jesus lets anoint him for his kingship — a woman whose name we don’t even know, in a leper’s house, surrounded by the people closest to him who are scoffing.  Is this the way that kings usually get enthroned?  No.

“Truly I tell you, whenever the good news or the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world … “***TV time out.

*** What does Jesus assume? He assumes he’s going to be buried, and then He assumes what?  That the good news is going to be what?  “Proclaimed in the world.”  Does Jesus think he’s going to win?  Yes, He does.  I think Jesus sees a resurrection here, but the only way to resurrection is through the cross.  ***

Hello, here we go.  “What she has done for me will also be told in memory of her.”  Remember the sandwich, then Judas Iscariot.  Now we have the second part of what Mark started up in verses one and two.  Here’s the second part.  Judas Iscariot — and I think this is true from my studying — I think in Mark, from this point from this moment on, every time Judas is mentioned, he says “one of the twelve.  It’s one of the inner circle.  He’s not an outsider, he’s not an enemy over there.  He’s one of the homies.  He’s one of the Bros.  One of the twelve.  And this phrase, “one of the twelve disciples,” keeps getting ascribed to Judas to signify to us that sometimes proximity to Jesus does not mean faithfulness to Jesus.  Sometimes being in the seat every week does not make one a follower of Jesus.  We can eat with Jesus for three years.  And when push comes to shove and our value systems are challenged — and we see this woman with the alabaster jar giving extravagantly — sometimes within our hearts, our true gods are revealed, and we turn over God for money.

Notice the sandwich.  Here Mark begins and ends this section with people plotting to kill Jesus.  The surprise in all of this is that it’s Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, who went to the chief priest to betray Jesus to them.  And when they heard this, listen to this moral corruption.  When they heard this, they rejoiced.  What kind of moral corruption has to go inside of a person — especially a person who believes themselves to be religious, believes themselves to be following after God — and when they hear of an opportunity to murder a man, they rejoice about it?   They’re happy.  They’re delighted to murder Jesus.  They were glad and promised to give Judas what?  Is this not how the kingdoms of this world always work?  You got a problem?  Pay money, and it’ll go away.  Even if you gotta kill a guy.  OK, let’s just notice.  So, Judas started looking for a good opportunity.  A solid opportunity to do what?  (Pause)

In a moment we’ll enter into a time of taking communion together.  There are two responses to the good news of the Kingdom of God — self-preservation and rejection, or self-denial and acceptance.  Notice the chief priests and scribes.  Notice the unnamed woman who gives of all that she has.  And notice the skeptical disciples who are not only not quite sure yet, but also some of them are even scoffing the woman’s response to the Kingdom.

I ask that you take your communion elements and please prepare them.  Just go ahead and open them, get the bread and the juice out.  For those of you who are joining us online, if you would please grab bread, juice, wine, whatever you have available to represent the body and blood of Jesus.

Consider what you’ve heard today and consider this question: What is your response to the good news of the Kingdom of God?  For some of us, we maybe just need to meditate on that a little bit.  For others of us it may be a time of repentance, where we tell God through prayer that we’re turning from sin, turning from our own way and turning to him.  Still for others of us, it may be a time of confession to God, through prayer. And maybe still for others, it’s just a time of deep appreciation for who God is and what He’s done through Jesus Christ.  Regardless of where you’re at, I’m going to ask that in this moment you would reflect on this question.  What is your response to the good news of the Kingdom?  And then Javier is going to join me here in a minute and we’re going to lead through communion in a moment.  Would you please consider?

Just a short while after that moment where the unnamed woman anointed Jesus body beforehand, He met with his disciples, and they shared a meal.  And in this meal, He called us to acts of remembrance, to remember his broken body and shed blood.  To remember that in his Kingdom, power works through the cross, not through the sword. So, as we take of the Lord’s Supper, Javier, you’re going to lead us here in a moment, and we’re going to read together from Mark Chapter 14:22 and on.  (Javier) I will be reading in Spanish. (Caleb) I’ll read in English.

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Please join me as we pray.  Lord, we hear this good news of Your Kingdom.  But for me, and I think for many of us, we find it to be difficult to understand how it is that we’re to live it out, except by Your power.  We pray Lord, that You would, by the power of your Spirit, guide us day by day and moment by moment to live as citizens of Your Kingdom.  That our hearts’ response would not be self-preservation, but rather self-sacrifice.  It would not be rejection but acceptance.  Jesus, we know that you say yes to everyone who pursues You.  So, we turn to You, knowing that You are loving, that You are good, that You are kind.  You are a bringer of peace. You call us to live like You.  That’s what we want to do.  We confess our apathy towards this great call.  We confess our turning to other gods, even turning to greed, as we saw with Judas.  Would You continue to shape us into the type of people that mirror Your Kingdom?  That we live as this woman did.  That our response to You is utter devotion.  Lord, we ask these things, knowing that You love us and You’re powerful to bring them about.  And so, we entrust ourselves to You and to Your care.  In Your name we pray, Jesus.  Amen, Amen. ###

Thank you, church family, for joining us today.  We’ll see you next week.