"Spilling Jesus"

Psalm 31.12 NET

“I am forgotten,

like a dead man no one thinks about;
I am regarded as worthless, like a broken jar.”

I am not defined by what I look like or the image I portray. The essence of me is not my body, my clothing, my house, or my car. My ‘who-I-am-ness’ is found behind what you see. It is discoverable by those who want to know me and with whom I choose to share.

One day I will die and be soon forgotten. The grief of my loss will be felt by a few loved ones for a short time. A day will rapidly follow when not one living person will remember me. Then I will be “forgotten, like a dead man no one thinks about.” My outer shell will be “worthless, like a broken jar.”

All that will remain is my essence. Who I was on the inside, my spirit, will join that “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12.1) to “be with the Lord forever” (1st Thessalonians 4.17).

In preparation for His death, Jesus was anointed by “a woman with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume.” She “broke the vial and poured it over His head” (Mark 14.3). Jesus immortalized the actions of this woman by declaring, “Wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.”

Who was she? Why is she remembered? We do not describe this woman by what she looked like, what she wore, or the money she had. Rather, we know her by her essence. We will always remember the lady with the oil by her transparent act of pure devotion toward the Son of God. She will never be forgotten. Like the vial she carried and broke to spill its contents on Jesus, this woman’s tender heart was broken to reveal a surprising and precious flow of love for the Lord. This event will define her for all time.

Jesus dwells in me. I am the jar and He is the perfume. Jesus Christ alone defines my internal and eternal essence. He is the “very costly perfume” inside the “alabaster vial” of my being. I carry “this treasure in [an] earthen vessel” (2nd Corinthians 7.7). My essence is the content of the jar. But my jar must be broken to allow the perfumed oil and its aroma to spill out into the world. Lasting significance comes only through transparency and brokenness.

Long before I pass from this realm to the next, may I become “like a broken jar” spilling Jesus on the people around me.