The extravagance of gratitude …

You’ve probably heard people say they become hungry again an hour or two after eating a meal of Chinese food. But here’s one I haven’t heard before …

“The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you’re hungry again.”

Now that sounds more like an experience applicable to a Thanksgiving meal. One thing everyone enjoys about Thanksgiving Day is that we celebrate our bountiful blessings with a feast — and for most of us, it truly is a feast! Our Thanksgiving dinner is one meal that no one seems to worry about counting calories for, it’s one meal we have no sense of guilt over indulging (or overindulging) in.

I think that’s because there can be an element of extravagance when it comes to expressing gratitude. When it’s time for giving thanks, we don’t hold back but pour it on thick, especially when our thanksgiving is directed toward God!

Not everyone seems to understand that.

The extravagance of gratitude, and the complaint against it, are both captured in the same story recorded in the Gospel according to John …

“Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus — the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance,” John 12:1-3.

A dinner to honor Jesus was held, but it was probably more like a feast.

Why do I say that?

Did you notice what other prominent dinner guest was present? Does the name Lazarus ring a bell? In the previous chapter, John 11, we read about how Lazarus had died, and Jesus raised him from the dead simply by calling him forth from the grave.

Have you ever had dinner with someone who had been dead and buried a few days?

Martha, who was serving dinner, and Mary were the sisters of Lazarus … and that gives a little insight to Mary’s behavior at this dinner party, which was nothing less than extravagant gratitude. She was so thankful for all Jesus had done for them — foremost being raising her brother from the dead — that her thanksgiving just could not be contained.

And it couldn’t be cheap, either.

She took what may have been one of her (if not her most) expensive possessions, a jar of perfume estimated to be worth an entire year’s pay, and she used it to anoint the feet of Jesus.

Who Jesus was to Mary, and what He had done for her family, far exceeded any value that could be attached to the perfume. Jesus had so blessed their household that no expression of her gratitude could be too much or too expensive.

Authentic gratitude doesn’t have a budget, and as it is expressed, it transforms from the giving of thanks to being an expression of worship.

But not everyone understood that. Certainly, Judas didn’t.

“But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, ‘That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor,’” John 12:4-5.

In spite of Judas being indignant over Mary’s extravagant gratitude, notice that Jesus did not object to such a costly expression …

“Jesus replied, ‘Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me,'” John 12:7-8.

There are times when our giving of thanks should be so uncontained — so extravagant — that it costs us something; and it’s appropriate for our expressions of gratitude to God to be so great they become acts of worship.

I think that’s what we see reflected when we put the extra leaf or two into the dinner table, pull out some folding chairs to accommodate everyone gathering, and looking upon an uncommon feast, we pause to give thanks to God for the bountiful blessings He has bestowed upon us. And then we feast with abandon, celebrating the goodness of God!

So if someone tells you that you’ve cooked too much and feasted too fully, just smile, knowing you’ve made the day your own expression of extravagant gratitude.

Scotty