What Does It Mean To Do a Beautiful Thing To Jesus? A Lenten Practice

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Once upon a time, a woman named Mary interrupted a dinner party Jesus attended by breaking a vial of expensive perfume and pouring it on his feet (and possibly his head too). Just as would happen with one of our modern dinner parties, Mary’s anointing of Jesus caused spiritual indigestion. They cloaked their confusion and discomfort with feigned indignation. “What a waste. We should have sold that expensive perfume and given the proceeds to the poor. It was worth a year’s wages!”

Jesus though accepts the gift and says, “Leave her alone. . . . She has done a beautiful thing to me.”

In my most recent reading of this Mark 14 text, that last line is the one that thundered in my ears. Spoke to my withered soul.  “She has done a beautiful thing to me.” My heart ached at the thought of it. Oh, that Jesus would speak those words to me. “Eugene, you did a beautiful thing to me.” Could I too do beautiful things to Jesus and hear his voice? Please, Lord, make it so.

What Does It Mean To Do a Beautiful Thing To Jesus?

What, though, does it mean to do something beautiful to Jesus? Mary had him physically before her. Conceivably she planned this act, secreting her sealed jar of perfume under her robe into the room with Jesus and other guests. Then kneeling by his feet, she broke it open releasing the long captured scent of love and devotion. It filled the room. She wiped his feet with her hair. Maybe mingled with tears.

Jesus tells Mary and all, “Of all the things done for me, this one thing done to me will be told over the world and over time [My paraphrase].”

But we do not have Jesus physically before us. What then?

Maybe it would help to think musically. If someone sings a song for you, it may be touching and moving. But it’s not personal. The song could glance off your heart like a skipping rock across a still pond. When that same song is sung to you, it becomes personal and intimate. The stone plunks into the pool of your heart, causing rippling circles through time.

What Beautiful Thing then Can We Do to Jesus? 

• Talk to Jesus. Not formal prayers but conversation. When visiting people in the hospital, I noticed their families, and even the caregivers, often talked of them in the third person, as if they weren’t there. Sometimes I hear myself and others talk of God that way.
• Attend worship not to receive something from God, or get points from God, but to lavish the perfume of our lives on his feet.
• IGive your life daily to Jesus. Here, Jesus, take me, I’m yours.
• Do acts of love to “the least of these,” In Matthew 25, Jesus promises us that when we do this, we do them to him. Giving love to others is then giving love to God. This demands of us though that we do more than anonymously donate old socks to the Salvation Army. We must be wary, however. The least of these may be the hardest people and places to see Jesus and extend acts of love to him. We strain and struggle but only see those who, but for the grace of God, go ourselves. Unworthy, easily judged. And for the sake of safe distance, so as not to see our own need of grace and love and salvation, we plop a coin in the plate, rather than pour our lives into others.  

Who Is Keeping Us From Hearing Jesus Say “You’ve Done a Beautiful Thing To Me”?

As I further meditated on this story, I discovered I may be the one keeping myself from hearing Jesus’ words of balm. Most of my life reflects doing things for Jesus and not to Jesus. It’s a subtle difference, I know, to versus for. But a real and devastating one. Doing things for Jesus reveals I believe Jesus needs me to bring the kingdom about for him rather than I need Jesus to bring the kingdom about for me. And they are seldom beautiful but always utilitarian.  

“Here, Jesus, let me preach that sermon for you. Let me write that blog or poem for you. I’ll serve the orphan, widow, needy for you. I’ve got this!”

Are We Like Judas?

This is far from the selfless service we hope it is. In the Apostle John’s version of Mary’s gift to Jesus, he tells us Judas is one who objected to her frivolous use of the perfume. “He [Judas] did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.”

When I do things for Jesus, am I a thief? Not in the sense of Judas, but I hope I get something from what I put in. I want recognition. Thank you, pastor. That was a wonderful sermon. I do these things to convince myself I’m okay or even important. Mostly, though, I do them to earn God’s love. I’m not alone in this.

When Have I Heard Jesus’ Words?

Yet, the most powerful moments in my life/ministry as a pastor have been when I’ve not been self-centered or self-conscious in my service to Jesus. This most often has been during painful memorial or funeral services. I’m not hoping to write a memorable message, appear wise, to be admired. I simply want to bring permission to grieve and hope, to help those grieving see the tears of pain and joy running down opposite cheeks of Jesus as he weeps with them. These times of loving God and others hint at the possibility that when loving others selflessly, is when I (we) most often do beautiful things to Jesus and not for him. And ironically that is when I am not expecting to hear Jesus say, “You did a beautiful thing to me.” But he speaks it. 

Lenten Practice

For Lent I’m planning to expand on this idea. I’m giving up, turning from, doing things for Jesus and turning toward doing beautiful things to Jesus. Join me won’t you.