Filled with fragrance….

 Filled with fragrance…

When I worked as a florist, one of the gift items sold was a well-known name line of candles…so every once in awhile a new shipment would arrive…

In between waiting on customers and arranging flowers, the staff had to unpack, inventory, price and fill the displays with these candles of all sizes…the catch was the fragrance…some smelled of flowers, fruits, and delicious desserts…we noticed that the fruits and flower scents took less time to finish, but the dessert ones all has to be passed around, smelled and discussed…also, whomever was processing the  food smelling ones, their stomachs started growling in need of food no matter the time of day…the smells started their digestive juices working!

The shop on those candle processing days was “filled with fragrance” added to the fragrance of fresh flowers…

I couldn’t help but think of those days when reading the following passage in the Book of John…how this scent, poured out on Jesus filled the room…a sacrifice, a preparing…

Judas wanting only the money, Jesus honored in dinner, Mary’s sacrifice and burial preparation, Lazarus reclining and listening, Martha serving…each tell a story of their heart…each had a relationship with Jesus that is recorded for all to see…only one was rebuked…

I would imagine that that fragrance poured out on Jesus was still will him in the coming days as Jesus faced to cross, the people he met along the way…carrying it to the cross…and his burial …

Thank YOU…help us to serve, to listen, to prepare…finding our places in your kingdom…being a fragrance of You… 

 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 

Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. 

Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. 

And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” 

He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. 

“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 

You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

John.12.1-8

We are to praise You, may the fragrance of Jesus fill this place…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sp1aVHWd7c

https://www.gotquestions.org/spikenard-in-the-Bible.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spikenard