Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Matthew chapter 26, verses 6 and 7.

Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper,

a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask, a very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined

at the table. Just imagine that scene. All these people gathered together at Simon's house,

and all of a sudden their attention is drawn to this woman. Matthew leaves her unnamed, almost uniquely enabling us to imagine ourselves in her shoes.

And unlike the disciples around Jesus, she realizes Jesus is about to die.

She's holding this alabaster flask of very expensive perfume in her hands worth about a year's wages.

So you can imagine, that's hard to imagine, like a $50,000 flask of perfume.

And she takes it and trembling.

She treads slowly toward Jesus. She stops by his side. I can just picture him

looking up at her. And in this moment, it was sure to shock that entire room. She removes the lid

from the flask and starts pouring the perfume over his head. You can almost smell the

fragrance as it fills the air and at the same time feel the awkward tension that accompanies it.

As these drops of expensive oil just cascade down Jesus's face. The disciples actually say this is a

waste, but Jesus says, this is no waste. This is beauty. It says later, this woman has done a beautiful

thing to me. And I just think, what makes this so beautiful? I think there's different things

that market. This woman's offering, it was sacrificial, it was costly, It was selfless.

It's like she doesn't even care what this may mean for her,

what others may say about her, how others may respond to her.

It's sacrificial, it's selfless, and it's satisfying.

Obviously, she believes Jesus is worth this kind of offering. So you put all that together.

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