Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

At Christmas each year, my family serves Jesus by serving the poor. Any time we see a Salvation Army kettle, we give money to our children to drop in it. We buy new gloves for the children to pin on the "Mitten Tree" in Sunday School. We also take cards from a local "Angel Tree" to buy Christmas gifts for those in need. This year, we took a card for a set of cookware for a young single mother and one for clothes and toys for an eight-year-old girl. We do this not to show how generous we are, or to make ourselves feel good. We do it so we can buy gifts for Jesus on his birthday.

You see, in the Parable of the Sheep and Goats, we find these words: "Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'" Our thinking is that when we buy a Christmas gift for a person in need, we buy it for the Baby Jesus on his birthday.

This year, I looked at the left-over gift cards that were not taken from the Angel Tree. Most of these were for gifts that many people would think frivolous - a waste of money that could be used for practical things to help the poor. For example, a card for a young man, age 20, asked for a video game for his Sony Playstation. I know what people were thinking, "He's 20 years old! He should get a job instead of sitting around playing video games - then he can afford to buy his own video games."

That was the issue with Mary and Judas. Mary wanted to give something extravagant, something frivolous, to Jesus. She wanted to pour about $6,000 worth of perfume on his feet. Looking at this act through Judas' eyes, we think, "What a waste!" That much money really could have been used to feed a lot of people. But looking at it through the eyes of Mary, we find a self-sacrificing act of worship. She bought it for Jesus on the day of his burial. She knew that she would want to give her best for Jesus. She wanted to be extravagant with her gift to the one who earlier had brought her brother back from the dead - who had shown her in a concrete way the promise of Salvation, that death is not the end of life. Maybe she learned a lesson from that experience. Maybe she learned to show appreciation for the ones she loves while they are still here, rather than having regrets when they are gone - and she knew that death can come much too quickly.

We don't know what the circumstances were for the young man who wanted a video game for Christmas - a frivolous, childish gift. What if he were somehow developmentally delayed or handicapped - a man with the mental capacities of a child? What if he were childishly hoping for a loving Christian to fulfill his Christmas wish? I'll never know the answer to that, but I do know that I lost the chance to give an extravagant gift to one of my neighbors, and therefore I lost the chance to give Jesus an extravagant birthday gift. In the end, Judas betrayed Jesus, but Mary worshiped him extravagantly while there was still time.