On the Wednesday before the cross, Jesus told his disciples that he was going to be crucified. The religious leaders made plans to seize and kill him. And it was on Wednesday that Judas met with the High Priest and bargained for the sum of thirty silver pieces to betray Jesus. However, one encounter with Jesus stands out as an extravagant act of worship.

Matthew 26.6-13
Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

While the disciples were worried about the waste—one having already cut a deal to betray him—a woman very quietly and tenderly demonstrated the deepest love and devotion. She took perfume that was worth a year’s wages and prepared Jesus for burial. Here was a woman who understood that worship was more than an hour on the weekend. Her worship was extravagant.

On Wednesday night, as Jesus lay on his bed, he alone knew it would be his last time to sleep until he closed his eyes in the painful death of the cross. But on that night, as he rested, he smelled the fragrance of the perfume sacrificially given to show love and honor to him alone.

Father,
We know that worship is more than attending a weekend service. We know that worship honors you in every way at all times. Help us to understand that our lives of worship should be the offering of complete surrender. May the woman who anointed Jesus before the crucifixion be our example of extravagant worship. In Jesus’ name. Amen.