When the Hard Places Become Holy

It's the week of Passover and Jesus is reclining at the table with friends for a meal.  We can only imagine the weight He must have been carrying. In a few days He was to face an excruciatingly painful death through crucifixion. 

He must have felt quite alone since his most intimate friends couldn’t grasp or accept what He was about to do. Then in walks this woman who pours out this extravagant oil to anoint Him.

Her costly sacrifice was shocking and scandalous to most in the room and it says that they “criticized her sharply.”  Jesus comes to her defense:

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6-9)

Anointing oil was not just used for hospitality, but it was used to prepare bodies for burial and to anoint and honor kings. This woman understood who Jesus was and what He was about to do.

For her, there was no price too great to honor and love Him through this incredible act of adoration. It touched Him deeply, because she understood Him in a way that His closest friends did not. It must have been such a balm to Jesus’ soul.

The oil used was spikenard, and it was rare and very expensive. Spikenard grows in the Himalayan Mountains of India and Nepal. Making it required an arduous process of gathering and drying the plants, transporting them long distances, and then crushing and pressing out the oil to sell it.

This process required risk, labor, a difficult journey, heat, pressure, and time to refine raw material into something precious. I see in this a picture of how God works in our lives to produce something rare and precious that we can then use to serve others.

This is the oil of God’s anointing. And the only thing required to purchase it is our faith and willingness.

As I was reflecting on this, I thought about the different things I have been through in my life.  Childhood wounds that required years of inner healing, my time living in Africa, my mental and physical health crisis upon returning to the U.S., decades of hope deferred for marriage, heartbreaks and disappointments, and walking with aging parents through their health crisis. Across the years and through experiences like these, I’ve been driven to my knees repeatedly to seek God for healing and growth. I now realize that this has produced His precious oil in my life. This oil is what I bring to the Latino community that I serve in hospitals, the women that I visit in the prison system, and the clients that I meet with as a spiritual director.

You, too, have walked through hard things that have felt unbearable at times. The beautiful thing is, when you allow God’s Spirit to meet you and work through the process of your hardships to change you for the better, you are buying oil. Oil of the most precious kind.

This rare and costly oil becomes God’s anointing on your life—oil meant to be poured out in service to our King. And it has power to touch and transform lives.

We share in Christ’s suffering as we walk through our oil making process. As we pour it out to serve Him, it moves His heart.

For reflection:

What is the oil that God has given you through the hard places in your journey?  How can you pour this oil back out upon Jesus in service to Him?

If you find yourself in the midst of your oil-making process, what would it look like to trust God with the work He is doing in you right now? Can you invite Him to meet you there?

For more information about Melissa:

https://findingthebeloved.com