We repudiate, then, the idea that the form of this deed can become the basis of Christian worship. But we are now able to consider the truth that, when love realises itself thus in deeds of worship, it often receives assurances that it has done more than it knew. God interprets our poor intentions so liberally, so largely. He reads into our broken speech such divine meanings. It is ever so. We give a cup of cold water to a thirsty bairn; and lo! we have done it unto Him! We utter our coarse earthly strains of music; and, one day, He bids us hearken! Then there falls upon our ears ravishing heavenly music; and when we could fall down and worship, He tells us it is our own.
Heaven's great melodies are perhaps no more than earth's poor ones, composed in pure love and praise of God, redeemed from their limitations and imperfections in the home of all true worship. So Mary struck her trembling chord, and waited fearful; broke her spikenard, and then marvelled at her own daring; and while, when love had spent itself, a colder mood began to question the propriety, and to strike fear to her woman's heart, Jesus spake and said, "In that she hath poured this ointment on Me, she hath done it for My burial."
Would she ever have dreamed, think you, that she was doing what He said? Would she ever have dared to entertain the thought that He would bear to the grave the incense of her adoration, and that with the final victory of His resurrection her love and worship would have eternal association? Would she ever have dreamed, here in Simon's house, where she was esteemed so meanly and treated so basely—here, amid the splendour of a rich man's entertainment—that in the days when the world had no feasts for Him, but only a cross and a tomb, that then the perfume of her love, the fragrance of her offerings, would surround His form and sweeten His resting-place. Never; but so it was, for the Divine Love caught up the simple act of worship, and gave it eternal distinction. Yea, He who had come to seek the love of men deigned to associate with the time of His own immortal sacrifice this sacrifice of hers.
It were, perhaps, to require too much of this story to make it convey the great truth that in Christ's sacrifice all our sacrifices have a place. Yet, verily, every true sacrifice hath association with His. Every death to self is an anointing of the Holy One to His burial. He gathers up the perfume of all simple deeds of lowly sacrifice; for this is His reward. Only from the great Love does our love flow. We love because He loved. His sacrifice is the basis of all sacrifice; and all true sacrifice of ours hath this relation to His own. We did not think when we did it of anything but that we must do it unto Him; and in grace He showed us afterwards that we had indeed anointed Him—we had in our own poor way honoured the Divine sacrifice.
It would but mar the solemn influence of such a sacred reflection to deduce the obvious and inevitable lessons. I forbear to treat it thus. I can only say, let us pray and let us strive to love Him with the love that counteth not the cost of sacrifice.
