| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 2 |
Page 4 |
We do not dream of the criticalness of life, of the mighty momentousness there is in the hours through which we pass, what blessing and good come to us when we watch and are faithful, what loss and sorrow come when we sleep and are faithless. “Me ye have not always” is the voice of every opportunity to receive good in some form. We miss God’s gift because we shut our hearts upon it, and only when it is too late, when the gifts have vanished, are we ready to accept them. Or it may be an opportunity to do something for another. We dally, and the opportunity passes. The person perishes perhaps because we were not awake.
Opportunities differ in their importance. “Ye have the poor always with you and whensoever ye will, ye can do them good, but me ye have not always.” Jesus was defending Mary’s act of love to him. If Mary had not brought her precious ointment that night, she never could have brought it. She had wrought a good work on him. We never can know what great good she wrought on him, how much comfort and strength she gave to him. He was carrying then the heaviest load any heart ever carried. We all remember hours of great need in our own lives, hours of anxiety, of sorrow, of pain, when a work spoken to us, or a flower sent to our room, or a card coming through the mail, or some little human touch came to us as a very messenger of God. We never can tell how Mary’s love helped Jesus that night. The disciples said the ointment was wasted, did no one any good. Ah! They did not know what that expression of love meant to the Master, how it cheered him, how it heartened him for going on to his cross. If they had known, they never would have said that the ointment would have done more good if it had been applied to relieving the poor.
There would have been times when the poor should have had the benefit of Mary’s gift. If the cruse of oil had broken to honour some unworthy man, it would have been wasted. But Jesus was the Son of God. This particular hour was one when he needed love, when he craved sympathy, when he longed to be strengthened. In all time there never was an hour when a simple gift of love could have meant so much as Mary’s meant that night in Simon’s house. “Me ye have not always.” The blessing which the three hundred shillings would have given to the poor never could have been compared for a moment with the blessing which the ointment, as an expression of love, was to Jesus.
Page 4