February 9, 2022 – Mark 14: 3-9 – Do What You Can

Today we are reading from Mark 14: 3-9:

3 While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. 4 But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? 5 For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 6 But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. 7 For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. 8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

Today we see a scene play out that can almost be a little confusing.  A woman comes to Jesus, takes her ointment, and anoints Jesus.  Now, this ointment would have been very expensive, of great value.  There was a lot you could have done with something like this, something of such great value. 

What did she choose to do?  She chose to anoint Jesus.  She chose to honor, respect, and worship Jesus.  Could she have done something else with it?  Yes.  She could have done many things with it. She chose to use what she had to worship Jesus.  

We can’t do everything y’all.  So, quite often we find ourselves paralyzed because if we do this, then we can’t do that.  If I give here, I can’t give there. What if I make the wrong choice?  What if I make a mistake?  What if I get criticized for it?  

We can’t do everything, so we are tempted to do nothing.  

Friends, we can’t do everything, but we should do something. We should each do what we can.   

You can’t fix world hunger.  But you can help one person today.  You can’t fix the discord in our nation, but you can treat someone with kindness.  You can save the entire world.  You can’t do everything.  But you can do what you can. 

Today, you will have opportunities to serve, to care, to give.  Take advantage of them.  Do good.  Care for others.  Show mercy.  Dow hat you can.  

That is what God asks of us.  He doesn’t ask us to do everything.  He asks us to be faithful.  May we do that.  

If you’d like to get each day’s daily scripture reading sent to your phone along with this reading guide, text @39110 to 81010 to sign up!

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s