If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9
In our next examination of encounters with Jesus we will see His
position with two very different types of people. Many times when people look
at this section of scripture they naturally see the woman at the center, but
overlook the one Jesus was speaking with, Simon the Pharisee, the host of the dinner
party. It might very well have been his divine appointment all along. We will
look at them both as a study in contrasting character.
Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went
to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. Luke 7:36
This Pharisee’s name was Simon. He had invited Jesus over for
dinner, and for what purpose we don’t know, but we do know it wasn’t par for
the course that Jesus wasn’t invited into the homes of the religious leaders. From
what we know about them from the gospels they were not card toting members of
His fan club. Yet this Pharisee invited him into his home, probably to get to
know what Jesus was all about. Maybe he wanted to talk shop with him, talk
about the scriptures, and maybe he wanted to trap Him. But he was still the
host that had Jesus come for a dinner.
The job of the Pharisee was to administer the religious law for
the people. They were to interpret how to restore the nation of Israel to God, yet
they’d turned it into an exclusive club making it difficult for all but
themselves to get back in with the Creator. Despite this, Jesus went where He
was invited, because he’d been asked. Jesus goes where He is asked to go. He helps
us to sort out our motives once He is there, which is what he was about to do
with Simon.
And behold,
a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the
table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet
behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the
hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the
fragrant oil. Luke 7:37-38
This woman, a known sinner in the town,
arrives at Simon’s house for the purpose of seeing Jesus, and she’s let in. She
has brought with her a gift of great cost, an alabaster flask of fragrant oil,
which she pours out on Jesus feet. She is so overcome with emotion when she
sees Him that she cannot stop crying. Her tears fall along his feet where she
is kneeling, and she notices that she is staining the Lord’s feet, so with
nothing around to clean them she uses her hair to wipe them so she can anoint them
as she’s come to do, which is to give Jesus a gift.
The uniqueness of this woman lies in the fact
that she came to Him not to get, but to give. She also was not sick physically.
She had not come to Him seeking a cure for her body. She came to give to Him,
from what she had.
Have you ever thought about what you would do
if you came face to face with Jesus? Many of us would be much like this woman,
just crying at his feet, unable to speak, so overcome with emotion because we
know what He has done for us. Yet she does this before He has taken on her sin,
so something had caused this encounter with Jesus to be a preordained
appointment from heaven. Her life before this moment had caused her to be notorious
in their community. Still, she knew her way to the Pharisee’s house. I’m not
implying there was any misbehavior on Simon’s part, just that perhaps she’d
been there before looking for forgiveness, for mercy, and for some way back to
God as a member of the nation of Israel, as was her right, but had not received
it, not from Simon.
Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to
himself, saying, “This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what
manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.” Luke 7:39
Here we see Simon’s heart revealed. His attitude and motive are
both laid bare. First, toward Jesus, we see that Simon invited him over to see
if Jesus were a prophet. He wanted to entertain a holy man, to be able to boast
that he’d once had the prophet of Israel in his home. Jesus didn’t fill that
expectation when he let the woman touch Him. Simon’s attitude toward the woman
showed that he had a hard heart toward people who were not in his element. She
was not to be seated as his table. She was a sinner. Even though it was his
position in the community to bring her back to God, he would not even associate
with her. He mumbles to himself, yet Jesus knows his heart and hears his words.
And Jesus
answered and said to him, “Simon, I
have something to say to you.”
So he said,
“Teacher, say it.”
“There was a
certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the
other fifty. And when
they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me,
therefore, which of them will love him more?”
Simon answered and said,
“I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”
And He said
to him, “You have
rightly judged.” Luke 7:40-43
Jesus calls Simon to the mat but does it
gently. He tells him the story of the creditor, the one who is owed a debt. He
points out that both debtors owe something to this graceful man, but one owns
twice as much as the other. The point is that it really is irrelevant to either
one of them how much the other owes. What matters is that a debt is owed, and
it cannot be paid. So what does the creditor do? He forgives the debt. Does it
matter if it was for a hundred denarii, or for fifty? A denarius was a day’s
wage. Basically, the debt was enough to cause a term of short term slavery. Does
it matter if a man works for fifty days to pay back the debt or a hundred days?
If a man’s family will not eat for fifty days, or for a hundred days, his
children will still starve all the same. Still, knowing that one would have to
go through it twice as long as someone else would make it that much more of a
gift. It’s not hard to know who would
love the man more. The one who was given more.
Jesus tells Simon he has judged rightly. In
doing so Jesus reminds this Pharisee that he is supposed to be a judge of the
law, but not just to condemn. A judge, by definition, is an administrator of
the law, not one to condemn another person. A judge is supposed to be more a
referee, and call the infractions in order to keep the players in the game and
the everything moving along. The judges of Israel were there to solve disputes
so that the community could remain at peace, and everyone got along and
remained united. Simon wasn’t interested in making sure everyone remained united. His attitude reveals it was okay with
Simon if some were left out of God’s plan for Israel.
Then He
turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see
this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has
washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the
hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but
this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not
anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore, I
say to you, her sins, which are many, are
forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves
little.” Luke 7:44-
Jesus draws Simon’s attention to what this woman has done, to the
person she is, not to the sinner she is. What she has done for God, and what
Simon has missed, is what Jesus has taken into His heart. Jesus also reminds
Simon’s that just maybe there are things that Simon needs to be forgiven for,
that he is not perfect, and like the woman at Jesus feet, Simon also needs to
be forgiven. Simon also needs to be cleansed of his sins. He also needs to
confess, and to have the courage that this woman did and risk being known to
have sinned, and be one of those in need of forgiveness. Simon says nothing.
Perhaps he is silent because he feels the conviction of knowing he is one who
has sinned greatly.
Then He said to her, “Your sins
are forgiven.” Luke 7:48
Jesus
turns his attention back to the woman. He lets her know that finally, after all
this time, she has come to the home of the Pharisee, and received what she had
wanted for so long. She was the one whose debt was forgiven. She was the one
who had loved much because she was forgiven much. The amazing thing about this
is that Jesus had yet to pay for her sin upon the cross, yet He still had the
power to forgive her sins.
This
event points us to the very nature of sin. It is not that sin is just a series
of wrong turns. It’s that every wrong turn takes us further from the Father who
loves us so much that only He can reach through those wrongs to bring us out of
them. We, like Simon, don’t see our sin because we see the sins in others. But
this woman knew her sin, and Jesus forgave her. He set her free from that which
held her captive. She loved much because He loved her enough to see her through
the reputation she held. Jesus saw the woman, not the sinner.
And those
who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even
forgives sins?” Luke 7:49
Who can forgive an offense but the One who is offended. All sin
separates us from God. So if God forgives those sins that separates us from Him
hasn’t He then brought us back into fellowship with Him to have what we had
lost? It is an amazing love from an amazing God. Who is this who even forgives
sins? It is our God! Our Savior! Our King!
Then He said
to the woman, “Your faith
has saved you. Go in peace.” Luke 7:50
Peace is exactly what the woman had come to Simon’s house to
receive, and now she had it, with the forgiveness she’d been seeking for so
long. For her this was a new beginning. She could start all over. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have
passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Cor. 5:17 The awesome thing about
being a new creation in Christ is that we are always new, not ever to be old.
Every moment we are made sparkly, shiny, brand spanking new before God. The
woman at Jesus feet, immortalized for all us to learn from, is new continually before
her Creator. She is not the woman known to be a sinner because a new person doesn’t
have a reputation. She doesn’t have a history. She doesn’t have secrets. She doesn’t
have skeletons in the closets, because she is new! That’s what Jesus’
forgiveness meant to her. That’s what His forgiveness means to us as well.
Jesus loves us and wants us to accept His forgiveness. He has
paid the price for us to be reconciled to the Father and to have fellowship
with God. He wants us to have the peace the woman had. Yet we sometimes live as
Simon, judging not just others, but ourselves, and not through the lens of God’s
intention of being made new, but hanging on to what has been our own reputation.
It’s time to accept this forgiveness and be at peace.
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world
gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be
troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27
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