What Are You Looking At? | The Gospels | John 12:1–11

Welcome to 10-Minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmoth. My friend Angie had her phone out, and she was grinning wider as she zoomed in on the birds with her phone camera. The birds were completely filling the nest on my front porch. Their backside feathers were fluffed in a heap, so you couldn't tell where one bird ended and the other began. Look over here, I said, pointing to the nest on the other side of the door. Also full, also bursting. The birds were nearly adult-sized, rounded heads bobbing as they wiggled for space in the nest. I think it's time to move out, I said, and then I pointed down at the pile of poop flanking both sides of my front door. That many birds for that many days makes a lot of mess. I was tired of it, tired of the mess, tired of them taking over my porch like it was theirs and not mine. But Angela wasn't looking at the poop. She was looking up at those wiggly birds, taking pictures to send her kids. So much of what we experience depends on what we're looking at. Same porch, same birds, two completely different stories. I'm writing this sitting outside right now, having knocked the nest down about 50 times this week, guarding the eaves so these barn swallows can't rebuild. They're circling with sticks and mud in their mouths, waiting for me to go back inside. I will lose this battle. But I'm not going down. I'm not going down without trying. Life is often like this for us. Some days you're looking up at the nest full of birds. Some days you're looking at what they've left for you to clean up. This is why we need God's word. We need scripture to shape our perspective daily, to remind us that we're not fighting some kind of losing battle, that we have a savior who never sleeps. We have a savior who never grows weary and never breaks a promise. John 12 is a story about two people. Looking at the same thing and seeing something completely different. I'm just going to read you from that passage in chapter 12 of the gospel of John. It says six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was the one Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha was serving them and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus feet and wiped them with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. You've probably heard this before, but listen on so you can hear what happens afterward. Then one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was about to betray him said, why wasn't this perfume sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? He didn't say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. He was in charge of the money bag and would steal part of what was put into it. Lazarus presence of the table. Remember Lazarus had just been raised from the dead. And this is part of what the Jewish leaders were so contentious about. This is part of the reason why they were ready to arrest Jesus. That miracle was just fueling their hostility. But John just pauses and gives us a look at what's going on. You've got these people reclining at the table. You've got Mary anointing Jesus feet with oil. And he even tells you what's going on in the heart of Judas Iscariot. John's real focus, though, is on Mary. Her act was extravagant for three reasons. First of all, she was a woman. Second of all, washing feet was a servant's job. Not a family member's, not someone who lived in or owned the house. The perfume cost 300 denarii. That was about a year's wage. Think like you would earn one denarii a day. And Mary used her hair, which a respectable woman in society would always keep her hair covered in public. So it shows just kind of a humility here about Mary. Now, every part of the story would have offended a man like Judas. Whose identity was built on keeping the rules, right? Like, check the box, do things the right way. Mary was anointing Jesus ahead of his own burial. And John shows us here again that Jesus knew exactly what was coming. His life wasn't going to be taken from him, but he was laying it down, just as he said. Mary saw that something was special about Jesus. And it just broke open this humility in her. And she wanted to anoint his feet and just do this incredible act of service for him. Now, Judas was experiencing the same moment, but he was doing the math. He was counting what he had lost by Mary using up all this perfume. Judas sounded thrifty, like he was, you know, trying to watch out for the money. He even sounded compassionate. He said he was trying to look out for the poor. But John tells us that he was neither. John says he had already decided his own comfort mattered more than Jesus. Now, this is a place where we can all just kind of pause and think because none of us are above this. Satan doesn't need us to reject Jesus outright. He just needs us self-focused enough that we stop noticing anyone but ourselves. We stop thinking about anyone but ourselves, our own comfort, our own happiness. Just busy enough, just comfortable enough, just convinced enough of our own good reasons that we quit following and looking for Jesus. But Jesus invites us into a different way of seeing. Psalm 121 puts it like this. The psalmist says, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. You're going out and you're coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Now, I read a piece last week by someone who rejects Christianity because she couldn't accept the premise that she is broken. That scripture says that we have a problem called sin and we need to be rescued. But we are strangely comfortable, aren't we, naming what's broken out. There, the traffic, the politics, other people online. And we are much less willing to look at what's broken in here. Not to be scary, but it's a slippery slope. We aren't that far away of being in the same shoes as Judas and just completely missing Jesus. Mary was pouring out everything because she wasn't protecting an image of herself. She wasn't trying to have it all put together. But Judas thought that his identity, his identity depended on looking righteous. The difference was who each of them was seeing standing in front of them. So what I think we should do, just sitting in this moment and just reading this passage and thinking about Jesus and his willingness to be in our presence and the way we can respond to that presence in our lives is asking him to open our eyes. Just say this prayer with me. Lord, open my eyes. Let me see you in what's in front of me today. Let me see you in the middle of my circumstances, in the middle of the jobs that you give me to do and the people that you put in my path. Give me a peace and an affirmation from knowing that you are the one I serve. I don't want to miss you. Amen. Thank you.