Offering Jesus What's Most Special to You (A Reflection on Matthew 26:6-13)

Today, I had the opportunity to share Matthew 26:6-13 with a group of about fifteen three-year-olds. Nothing will cause you to boil a story down to its main point like the need to hold the attention span of a room full of toddlers.

In this particular story, we see Jesus hanging out at a friend’s house. (It says he was in the home of “Simon the Leper”—which is a beautiful little detail we could expound on in an entire additional blog post… but we’ll do that another day.)

Jesus was hanging at the table when a woman came in with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume. She poured it all over Jesus. This woman was taking something incredibly valuable to her and offering it to Jesus. Maybe she thought he would enjoy the scent. Maybe she felt like it was more symbolic for herself—simply wanting to give all that she had to Jesus. We don’t know the extent of her intentions, but what we do know is that Jesus found her doing this to be absolutely beautiful.

Many in the room didn’t understand the woman’s act. Matthew 6:9 tells us that the disciples thought she would have been better off selling the perfume and giving the money to the poor. They found her act to be wasteful and a poor judgement call. Thankfully, Jesus came right to her defense.

“Why are you bothering her?” “She has done a beautiful thing.” “She did this to prepare me for burial.”

Did you catch that last part? There was incredible significance to what this woman had done. This woman played a vital role in preparing Jesus for his death. In giving him her perfume, offered in love, she was actually anointing him before he took to the cross.

The Bible doesn’t say that the woman knew this was the purpose of her actions. If she did, that’s wonderful. If she didn’t, it’s amazing to consider how we can be spurred to love Jesus in a particular way without even understanding the magnitude of what we have done.

As I was telling this story to toddlers, keeping my sentences short, and the ideas as simple as possible, this is how it was described:

“A woman loved Jesus so much. She wanted to give Jesus something very special to her. She poured her special oil on Jesus.”

This story had me thinking about what was most special to me. Were there parts of my life that reflected the woman in this story? Maybe you can ask yourself the same question. Are there things that you pour out daily that might be misunderstood by others?

Do you give up your time for your children?

Do you sacrifice time to serve people needing extra help?

Do you bring meals to people?

Do you create? Do you write? Do you sing?

Often, the way we serve Jesus doesn’t look like what the person next to us might choose to do. And yet the beauty of it all? Jesus sees our hearts. He sees our intentions to love him. He sees our desires to help our families, our friends, and those in need. And if others don’t agree… he comes to our defense.

That’s who he is. He defends those who have given him their hearts.

We see that in this story, and it’s how he is described in so many other parts of the Bible. He is our defender, now and forever.

May you offer your gifts to Jesus with courage, serving Christ despite how others may perceive what you do. And know that the one you serve is both kind and fierce—kind to see your heart, and fierce to defend you.