Extravagant Love

The prayer of the day for our service this past Sunday was:

Creator God, you prepare a new way in the wilderness, and your grace waters our desert.  Open our hearts to be transformed by the new thing you are doing,  that our lives may proclaim the extravagance of your love given to all through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. (emphasis added by me).

The gospel text for this past Sunday’s service was about Mary taking the perfume at the dinner party and anointing Jesus’ feet, and wiping it with her hair.  The perfume was an extravagant means to do this.  The perfume could have been sold for 300 denari.  But what does this mean?  Well a days wages in Jesus’ day was 1 denari.  So 300 denari is about a years wage.  To put this into prospective, the average US household income in 2004 was $42,000.  So in today’s time Mary spent $42,000 on this pound of perfume!  That is over kill.  I mean really is that a good use of resources?  But that is not the point, it is extravagant.  It is meant to be over kill, it is meant to be the preparation of Jesus for his burial.  It is meant to show us the extravagant measures God is going to for us.

The extravagance of the love of God is shown to us in the cross of Christ.  Jesus went to the cross for YOU.  The extravagance of the love of God is that Jesus would have gone to the cross if you were the only one who needed him to.  He would have gave his life for YOU.

God loves you so much, He gave His only Son.  Now that is what I call extravagant love!