Three years ago today one of the kids in uptown died suddenly. It affected me profoundly. I still to this day three years later think of him very often. I struggled personally with why something like this could or would happen. I prayed I asked God and never felt like I could ever makes sense of it.
Around two months ago I was reading my sons a story from The Jesus Storybook Bible and felt like God was speaking directly to me. I know that may sound weird that God would uses a kids bible to speak to me but I guess that’s what makes me a kids pastor.
Washed with tears.
One night Jesus went to dinner at an important leaders’s house. The Important leader invited his important friends. They were all just sitting down to eat when a woman walked in. She was not invited but everyone knew who she was. “Who does she think she is?” the guests whispered. “how dare she?” The woman was a big sinner and everyone knew it. (It was easy to see – after all, she had broken the rules and done bad things.)
The Woman walked straight up to Jesus. She was carrying very expensive perfume. Now the thing about perfume back then was that it didn’t come in bottles, it came in jars. And the jars were made of precious stone, like alabaster. But here’s the catch: the jars didn’t have a lid, or a stopper, or anything. So the only way you got the perfume out was if you broke the jar. Once you broke the jar, that was it – you had no more. Most people didn’t use perfume because it was too precious. They just kept it on a shelf and looked at it.
So you see, this perfume was her most precious thing in all the world. It was her treasure. The woman knelt down before Jesus like he was a king. She held Jesus’ feet in her hands and started to cry. Her tears fell onto Jesus’ feet, washing them. She kissed his feet and dried them with her long, dark hair. And then she did something strange. She broke the jar and poured the perfume all over his feet. Everyone gasped. What a waste! Over someone’s feet? Such expensive perfume?
It smelled like lilies in a summer field. Jesus looked at the woman, and smiled at her. What she had done was the most wonderful thing.
*Taken from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones
