Interrupted by Jesus - John 12

This is our Sunday teaching by our South Site Pastor, Alex Lyne. Recorded live at our Sunday Service in Harris Academy Purley, Croydon on Sunday 16th August, 2026. 

Talk Summary - Jesus Is Worth It

What is the most costly thing you have ever given someone when you didn’t have to?

Perhaps it was a significant financial gift. Perhaps it was time, opportunity or something you deeply valued. Whatever it was, chances are you were willing to bear the cost because of the value you placed on the person receiving it.

That is the tension at the heart of John 12.

Jesus is having dinner in Bethany when Mary takes a jar of extraordinarily expensive perfume — worth around a year’s wages — and pours it over his feet. Then she wipes his feet with her hair.

The cost is enormous. Financially, something of immense value has disappeared in moments. There is an opportunity cost too: it can never now be sold, saved or used for something else. And there is an intimate cost. Mary takes something associated with dignity and beauty and uses it in an act of astonishing humility.

Judas is appalled. Surely this perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor?

But Jesus defends Mary.

Why? Not because caring for the poor doesn’t matter — Jesus repeatedly teaches that it does — but because Mary’s extravagant act reveals something Judas has missed:

Jesus is worth it.

Mary has already encountered Jesus deeply. She has fallen at his feet in grief. She has watched him raise her brother Lazarus from the dead. Her costly giving flows out of intimacy with him.

And that pattern matters for us.

Following Jesus does not begin with gritting our teeth and making heroic sacrifices. It starts with intimacy. We spend time with Jesus, listen to him, learn his character and discover that he really is worthy of our trust.

But intimacy does not end with a warm feeling. Eventually it affects our living.

It touches our money, relationships, ambitions, sexuality, time, family life and priorities. There may be moments when obedience genuinely costs us something. The question becomes whether we will say with Mary, “Jesus, you are worth this,” or quietly draw a line and say, “Not that. That is too much.”

Mary reminds us that nothing laid at the feet of Jesus is wasted.

So spend time with him. Grow in intimacy. Listen for his voice.

And when following him becomes costly, remember:

Jesus is worth it.