Amid Sunday Night dreams

Wait Until Morning

Recently, I broke an alabaster box and I’m still enjoying the aroma God poured out in my heart. As a memorial to the lady in Luke 7:36-50 and in honor of the day of my salvation, I’d like to tell you the story.

It Was On A Sunday

It was Sunday in April 1970. I was seven years old. My dad was concluding a weeklong revival at the Southside Baptist Church in Lebanon, Tennessee. My mom, my sister Kathy and I had traveled from our home in Cleveland, Tennessee to Lebanon on Sunday afternoon.

As we arrived at the church that evening, I sat down next to my sister Kathy on the second row, center aisle. I listened to daddy preach as I had done many times before. He preached and concluded the sermon. The choir began those familiar strands of "Just As I Am, " as an invitation for people to come forward and accept Christ as Savior.

I began the long-standing habit of gripping the pew in front of me as if I were Leonardo DiCaprio going down with the Titanic. However, conviction that I needed Christ held me tighter than I held the pew. My dad came down from the pulpit. I don’t believe I had ever seen him do that before. He whispered in my ear "Joe, don’t you want to be saved?"

My head shook no, my words said yes. We walked down to the first pew, first row, right-hand side. After we were seated, he prayed a brief prayer for me. Then, he asked me to pray. In those moments, wearing my emotions on my eyelids, I prayed my heart’s only prayer- "Lord, save me." Later in life, I realized a sea-hardened fisherman named Simon Peter prayed a similar prayer when he was drowning in the Sea of Galilee (Matt. 14:30.)

As soon as I prayed, a deep sense of peace wafted into my heart like sweet perfume. I knew two things automatically: I knew I had just become a Christian and I wondered why I had waited so long to trust Christ as my Savior and Lord.

Last fall, on a trip through middle Tennessee, I passed through Lebanon, Tennessee. I stopped by Southside Baptist Church to see the church, and perhaps go back into the sanctuary and sit in that same place; first pew, front row, right-hand side. When I arrived at the church property, it was late in the afternoon, so the building was locked and no one was in sight.

As I stood on the front porch of the church on a hot August afternoon, a flood of memories poured through me from thirty years earlier. I was only seven and had been saved a grand total of, maybe, 15 minutes. During those tender moments of enjoying my new life in Christ, I wondered what my life would be like when I was an old man of, say, 18 years old. I wondered if I would always feel this close to Jesus. I wondered if I would ever understand the reason God loved me enough to save me.

All these memories and thoughts tumbled out of my mind as I stood there thirty years later on that hot middle Tennessee August afternoon.

It felt good to stand there, but I was just a little bit disappointed. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to go in and sit in the very spot where I was saved.

Thanks For The Memories

A few days later, I studied the story of the woman’s gift of the alabaster box in Luke 7. I remembered my experience of memorializing my salvation story on the steps of the Southside Baptist Church. Jesus promised that her gift would stand the test of time. In Matthew 26:13 Jesus promised "I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her." Although her gift was the first in the tradition of pouring costly perfume and tears on Jesus’ feet, it need not be the last.

Every time I’ve shared my personal testimony with someone, I return in my heart once again to that wonderful moment at Southside Baptist Church in Lebanon, Tennessee. And that’s when the aroma of the alabaster box breaks open once again.

You can memorialize and honor their personal salvation experience with Jesus. The names, the places, and the circumstances may differ in our conversion experiences. However, we all share in breaking open the alabaster box of remembering our common experience with Jesus.

The most remarkable part of this story is the way she went beyond the norm, the expected, and the safe. She didn’t have to wait to see Jesus in her "safe zone." She waited neither for the "seeker-friendly service" nor the "traditional service" to share her love of the Lord.

She entered the house of Simon, a former leper. She was known to be a sin-hardened woman before she met Jesus. Simon had been a leper. He should have remembered his former life as an outcast. He had yet to reflect on what it meant to be healed and accepted when he was unacceptable by anyone’s standards. The aroma of alabaster wafting through his house was not quite enough to help him remember that he would do better to kneel beside her and offer his own alabaster box. In the story, she is obviously different from the rest of the crowd. They were busy enjoying the meal and standing at "safe" and "respectable" distances from the Savior.

Her entrance into the room was costly, both for herself and for Jesus. He was no longer seen just as a friend of the righteous. It cost her an alabaster box filled with expensive spikenard. The best gift she had to offer. It cost Jesus a reputation, once again, of being a known friend of sinners. (See also Luke 15:1-2.)

This is a truth we must remember once we break open our alabaster box of memories. Some are saved out of a lifestyle of sin and some are saved from a lifestyle of sin. All of us, however, entered the presence of Jesus for the first time admitting our brokenness and sinfulness and that we could not save ourselves (Eph. 2:8-9). That one simple truth may be a costly one for us to admit, but our sin cost Jesus his life.

Simon the Leper reflected on the giver and receiver of the gift of alabaster. Simon noticed the acceptance of Jesus from this one so far beneath his dignity. He said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know that she is a sinner."

Simon’s internal dialogue presents us with an interesting question as we break our alabaster boxes on the feet of Jesus today. Some come to Jesus in early childhood just as I did. However, many come to Jesus after living a sin-hardened lifestyle and experiencing a broken heart. The miracle of our salvation comes from the fact that Jesus loves us and saves us just as we are.