Don't Waste Your Time Dumping Perfume on the Dead

Have you ever said something like, "God, if you would just tell me what your plan is I would... (believe, follow, trust, obey)."  We think that if we knew what God was up to we would just follow Him and go along our merry way and everything would be roses.  But is that really the case?  Does knowing the truth actually make it any easier to follow?  To obey?  To trust?

Let me play this scenario for you.  A young lady is in love and her boyfriend beats her up.  He comes back later and apologizes and says he loves her and would NEVER hurt her and just wants to be with her again and so she lets him back in. Repeat the process.  Often, even though we know the truth, we chose to live as though it were NOT true.

This hit home with me this morning as I read in Luke 24 the story of the group of women who went to the tomb early Sunday morning.  Sometime between the setting of the sun on Saturday and it's rising on Sunday morning the women had mixed (prepared) a large amount of spices with which to pour over the decomposing body of Jesus.  They would have done this prior to His burial but it was so close to the beginning of the Sabbath that they could not risk it.  It was against the law to do any work on the Sabbath, let alone the fact that had they come in contact with Jesus dead body they would have been ceremonially unclean and so unable to celebrate the Passover, though I doubt that would have had much impact on their decision.  There was not much to celebrate on this Sabbath.

Probably, by candle light, either late Saturday night or very early Sunday they mixed the spices together, perhaps with water or olive oil and put the mixture in jugs to get it to the tomb.  But something very unexpected happens when they get there.  Not only are the soldiers who had been stationed there under penalty of death gone missing, but the stone had been rolled away and when they looked inside the body of Jesus was gone - only the linen wrappings that had encased His body had been left.  The wrappings, which they were going to use to hold the spices next to His body were laying, folded in on themselves as though whatever they had been wrapped around had disappeared, like popping a balloon encased in plaster.

If all this was not enough for them to take in they suddenly saw a man, glowing who talked to them about Jesus.  He asked them why they were looking for the living One among the tombs of a cemetery and then said in Luke 24:6 (MSG), "Remember how He told you when you were still back in Galilee that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?"  Then verse 8 tells us, "Then they remembered Jesus' words."

Jesus had been painfully clear on this point to both the women and the disciples and everyone else.  He would suffer.  He would be beaten and killed on a cross.  He would be buried and three days later rise from the dead.  He told them exactly what was going to happen, more than once.  And if that wasn't enough the disciples had all the prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures which clearly pointed to the same set of events.  They knew the truth, but didn't live like it.

Jesus said that the words He spoke were truth.  I wonder how many other true things have been told us that we refuse to live our lives by?  For instance, the Bible says that we are MORE than over-comers - but we often act more like the overcome.  The Bible says we are FREE in Christ - but we live confined and condemned.  Jesus said we would have POWER through the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives - but we are weak.

What TRUTH have you set aside as you live your life?  Don't waste your time preparing spices to cover the stench of your dying dreams, hopes, relationships, walk in the truth of Real Life through Jesus Christ who forgives sin and restores hope and brings dead stuff back to life.