What I am able to do

Coming to the cross and the empty tomb is a daunting experience.  Approaching Lent the way that is most meaningful requires some strong thought about personal inadequacy, need for God’s forgiveness, understanding the severity of the solution and face to face confrontation with God’s mysterious power and love.  There is nothing I can do to change history or make the sacrifice of Christ greater or less effective.  There is nothing I can do to add to or detract from the potency of the Gift.  But, there is always something I can do to adorn Christ who is the great Gift. 

 

Mark 14 is set in Jerusalem after Jesus’ Palm Sunday entrance into the city.  The buzz of the city during Passover week involved enough of a flurry under normal circumstances.  With Jesus on the scene it became even more so.  Jesus faced a daily grilling by truth obscurantists.  The temple teaching was riveting.  The contrast of colliding religious ideas was stark.  Jesus talked down the permanence of the temple while talking up the permanence of his sacrifice.  It is in this environment that a nameless woman walked into the house of Simon the Leper, where Jesus was presumably teaching.  She performed a lavish gesture which proved to be the final straw for Judas.  Jesus made a curious statement about her gesture.  He said that her act of love and kindness (whether she intended it as he accepted it or not- a burial preparation) would be spoken as far as the telling of the gospel story (Mark 14:9) itself.  He did not make such predictions.  In fact, it was unprecedented. 

But, what grabs me in the story was the simple statement, “She did what she could” in verse 8.  She could not do much, but she did what she could.  No one in this story had any ability to make a gesture which would change the outcomes.  She certainly had nothing transformative to offer.  The woman didn’t speak profound truth.  In fact, there is no evidence that she spoke at all.  She did not offer anything lasting.  The perfume was poured out and likely evaporated long before the cross.  If not, the smell was cancelled out by the stench of sweat and blood on the day of Jesus’ death.  Her actions surely did not assuage the pain that Jesus faced.  Nothing in that bottle could accomplish that.  Her endorsement meant little (obviously to the disciples) to anyone involved in the story.  She likely did not even know the significance of her actions.  But, “she did what she could.” 

 

I am captivated at thinking how, in the most critical and pivotal times and circumstances of life and human history, someone does something so small and of little consequence to outcomes.  Nonetheless, those actions represent all that the person can do.  And, though it might not change a thing, Jesus might even see it as something that should transcend the time and setting of its occurrence.  Praise is likely not going to change the world.  But, it is something we can do.  Being generous with paltry resources will not likely make a world of difference.  But, it is something we can do.  Lavishing thanks to God in such a way that spills over into casual conversation is something we can do.  Offering a cup of cool water in the Name of Jesus is something we can do.  I need not feel immobilized by feeling that there is nothing I can do.  There is always something I can do.  And, that something is worth something to the only one before whom it matters.

 

What we might consider a drop in the bucket just might be a watershed to Jesus.  I have already thought of four or five things that “I can do” as I face Jesus in this marvelous season.  None of them will change the circumstance at all.  They will not minimize Jesus’ pain or add to the event in any way.  But, I just hope that they catch the eye and the attention of my audience of One. 

 

Comments

[Brenda]

I have often felt that way, not much I can do, so thanks for the reminder and have a blessed Easter!