Broken To BlessedSample

The Cost of the Oil

I was cleaning out some old boxes in the basement recently. I have a box of dishes that belonged to my grandparents which have been in the box for years. I have moved them to four different houses since I acquired them when my grandmother died. The box is sealed with several layers of duct tape. I haven’t opened the box, I never looked at the dishes, and have never used them. They really don’t have any purpose while they remain in the box.

My grandparents were average people; not rich, not poor. Both of them first-generation Americans. Although the dishes are of no real monetary value, they represent so much more. 

There are things that belong to us that are precious and valuable—but are we using them, or do they remain hidden in a box somewhere? 

When Mary came to anoint Jesus, she brought her most valuable possession, an alabaster box filled with expensive perfume. 

In biblical times, this would have been a very rare and very expensive possession. She could have kept it hidden somewhere for safe-keeping or protected it, but she didn’t. She broke it and let the oil run freely as it anointed the feet and the head of Jesus.

We don’t know the cost of the oil in her alabaster box. We don’t know the pain, the hurt, or the shame she suffered to pay for that oil. She could have just opened the box, but she chose to make the hard sacrifice and break it over Jesus’s body; bathing him in a sweet aroma and worshiping him with her tears of love and repentance. 

When Moses struck the rock, the rock broke and life-sustaining water flowed out. When Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes, he first broke the bread. If the soil isn’t broken, it cannot produce crops. If the clouds aren’t broken, they can’t produce rain. It took the broken body of Jesus on the cross to set us free from death, hell, and the grave.

Are we willing to be broken for him? Only Jesus knows the price of your oil. What is inside of you that has been kept in its box that needs to be shattered so you can be made whole again? 

What is beautiful and useful cannot remain hidden in the box. Pour out your love for the Master with your box of alabaster.