Another Take on Passion

There they were at Simon's house. Interesting I suppose that they were even gathered there, just look at the guy. Just the sight of him tells you that he's sinful. The dinner party was going nicely until this disheveled woman with eyes red from crying enters the room. She staggers over and breaks open a jar of perfume, and not the cheap stuff mind but the kind you save for very special occasions. What was she thinking? In fact, as she begins showering the guest of honor with this perfume some of the others object to her wasteful behavior. "By golly, that bottle was worth nearly a year's worth of salary," the guest exclaim, "just think how much we could given to the poor!"

Honestly, do you think they would have given ALL of that money to the poor if they had been given the opportunity? I know I wonder, but maybe they would have since Jesus was the guest of honor and the people gathered at the table were those who at least claimed to be followers of Jesus. Yet Jesus didn't scold her for this seemingly wasteful behavior, not because he didn't care for the poor but because he recognized the passion that overflowed in this woman and came out as exuberant gratefulness.

What are you grateful for? What might that look like in your life?

At the end of August my wife, Dawn, and I will have our first child. I can imagine it will be shortly after that we will crawl into bed with every muscle aching from exhaustion. We will roll over and give each other a little hug and a kiss good night. We'll hold hands as we lie on our back staring bleary-eyed at the dark ceiling. A grin will begin to grow from ear to ear and one (or both) of us will mutter something like, "I can't believe it!" For me it's a picture of extreme gratefulness, it's a picture of passion.