Breaking The Jar

In 1995 David Burgess, who is an award winning violin maker, was transporting one of his newly finished violins. Somewhere during transport, the violin suffered a hairline crack. It was small, but it changed the sound of this expensive instrument. Burgess could either patch the crack or break the entire top off and rebuild it from the inside out. It was costly and it looked like he had destroyed the violin in the moment. However, once it was rebuilt, the violin actually sounded better than before. The breaking and rebuilding of it released a sound it had never had.

Less than a week before Jesus’s crucifixion, He was having dinner when a woman came in with an alabaster jar of perfume that was worth a year’s wages. Instead of taking the top off and using a little bit, she broke the jar open, and poured it all out on Jesus. People complained that the perfume was wasted and that they could have sold it to give money to the poor. However, Jesus had a different response to this sacrificial act of worship. After rebuking them, He said, “When she poured the fragrant oil over me, she was preparing my body in advance of my burial. She has done all that she could to honor me. I promise you that as this wonderful gospel spreads all over the world, the story of her lavish devotion to me will be mentioned in memory of her” (Mark 14:8-9 NLT).

Romans 12:1 says, “Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvelous mercies? To surrender yourselves to God to be his sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship” (TPT). A living sacrifice doesn’t offer only part of itself. It offers the whole thing. It opens itself up to be fully broken and poured out as a genuine expression of worship. That is our proper response to what Jesus did for us. Are there parts of your life that you’ve been holding back while only surrendering part to Jesus? This Easter, it’s time we truly open ourselves up and give ourselves to Him. It’s time to break the jars of the hidden places in our lives. It may feel like destruction in the moment, but it will produce a sacrificial life of worship.

Photo by Google Gemini