An Example of Worship - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

Mary therefore, having taken a pound of ointment of pure nard of great price, anointed the
feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor of the
ointment.
John 12:3 JND

An Example of Worship
Bethany may mean "house of affliction" or "house of response," but both were true of the house
that was a home to the Lord Jesus there. Death had afflicted it, but now, following His gracious
and powerful intervention in raising Lazarus, there was response: freehearted service from
Martha, fellowship out of death with Lazarus, and worship - perhaps the most beautiful example of
it in Scripture - by Mary.

What she brought to the Lord Jesus had substance and was good: a pound of ointment. It was pure
as becomes Him, and a sacrifice because of its great cost to her. She honored Him by anointing
Him with it, but not in a formal or routine way. She was "in" what she did. She poured all of it
on Him and wiped His feet with her hair. There was extravagance for Him and sacrifice for her. It
was at once intimate and reverential. She did not speak a word - entirely becoming for a woman in
that setting - but the whole house was filled with the odor, the beautiful effect, of what she
had offered.

This is probably as much as our minds can take in of worship in picture-form, but no doubt the
Holy Spirit penned it to help us in our worship, whether audible or silent. Being in the house
means it has particular application to the Assembly, but if our worship is like Mary's -
scriptural, genuine, treasured up, submissive, from the heart - it will have a spiritual effect
wherever we are, for the Lord will take pleasure in it. But let us remember that it will be but
the fruit in us of what He accomplished on the cross - He who did everything for God and for us
(Eph. 5:2).

-- Simon Attwood