True beauty

This week's morning sermon at St Andrew's Church is on Mark 14:1-11, which is about a woman who takes some perfume worth a year's wages (like, £20,000), and pours it over Jesus. It seems an outrageous waste, and the people with Jesus are really cross, pointing out that it would have been more worthwhile to sell the perfume and use it for the poor. Others are even more furious and for Judas this is the final straw, as immediately afterwards he goes off to betray Jesus to his enemies.
We might expect Jesus to agree with those who think this is a waste, and say to the woman 'Thanks, but really you could have used this for the poor.' But he doesn't. He describes what the woman has done in two ways, which when put together are staggering - 'She has done a beautiful thing (v6)...She did what she could (v8).' This woman has been completely devoted to Jesus, giving everything she had without holding anything back - and Jesus commends her for it. In effect, he's saying he's worth everything - 'She should give me this perfume, because I'm worth it' (a bit like a very early L'Oreal advert!)
This is the only time we find Jesus calling something 'beautiful.' Who does the Son of God think is beautiful? The woman who 'did what she could'.
We live in a society which holds up beauty as the greatest achievement for a woman. Magazines, TV shows, catwalks...all of them tell women that they need to be beautiful, that beauty is what they should devote themselves too. Jesus turns that upside down. What is true beauty? It is doing what we can for him, devoting everything we have to him. Beauty lies not in our face and our shape, but in our heart and our actions.
It's always lovely when someone says to us 'You're beautiful' or 'You're good-looking' or 'You're lovely'. Who would you most like to think you are beautiful - a passer-by on the street, a guy/girl at a party...or the eternal Son of God? Jesus looks at those who do what they can for him, who give him everything they've got, and those are the people that he says 'They do a beautiful thing.' That's true beauty - devotion to Jesus - and that's the only beauty that never fades.