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While visiting the Galilean towns early in His public life and before open hostility had broken out, a rich Pharisee named Simon invited Our Lord to his home for a meal. He had heard of the acclaim given Our Lord by the people and was anxious to determine for himself whether He was really a prophet or a teacher. Curiously enough, there was someone else in the vicinity who was also anxious to meet Our Lord, but her interests were higher. She had a burden on her conscience, and wanted to see Him as Savior from her guilt. Great as was her shame, she did not permit it to hold her back even in the face of those who might condemn her. Our Lord thus found Himself between one who was curious about Him as a Teacher and another who was penitent before Him as a Savior.
When Our Lord arrived, there was little enthusiasm in the welcome of Simon who coldly omitted the usual courtesies and attentions paid to a guest. In those days, to enter a house except with bare feet was much the same thing as entering a house today without taking off one’s hat. Shoes and sandals were removed at the threshold. The visitor was always greeted with a kiss on the cheek by the master of the house with the invocation, “The Lord be with you.” Then the guest was shown to a couch where a servant would bring water to wash his feet and assure ceremonial cleanliness. Next, the host or at least one of the servants anointed the head and beard of the visitor with fragrant oil. In the case of Our Blessed Lord, there was no water for His weary feet, and no kiss of welcome to His cheek; no perfume for His hair—nothing but an unceremonious gesture indicating a vacant place at the table. Perhaps Simon knew he was watched by other Pharisees and hence omitted these courtesies. The guests in those days did not sit at table, but reclined on couches, the unsandaled feet stretched out at full length.
Access to the dining room was very easy, probably because of the universal prevalence of the law of hospitality so common among the peoples of the East. While the meal was being served, an untoward incident happened. Simon looked up, and what he saw brought a blush to his cheek. He would not have minded it if anyone else had been there, but This Man! What would He think of it? The intruder was a woman; her name was Mary; her profession, a sinner, a common woman of the streets. She moved slowly across the floor, not brushing back her hair, for it acted as a screen against the gaze of the Pharisee. She stood at the feet of Our Blessed Lord, and let fall upon those sandaled harbingers of peace, like the first drops of warm summer rain, a few tears. Then, ashamed of what she had done, she bent lower as if to hide her shame, but the fountain of tears would not be stilled. Emboldened because unreproved, she cast herself on her knees and began to wipe the tears from His feet with her long disheveled hair. To anoint the head was the usual course, but she would not venture on such an honor, but would make bold in her humility to anoint only His feet. Taking from her veil a vessel of precious perfume, she did not pour it out drop by drop, slowly, as if to indicate by the very slowness of giving the generosity of the giver. She broke the vessel and gave everything, for love knows no limits. She was not paying tribute to a sage; she was unburdening her heart of her sins. She had certainly seen and heard Him before, and she was certain that somehow He might give her new hope. There was love in her boldness, repentance in her tears, sacrifice and surrender of self in her ointment.
But the Pharisee was horrified that the Master should have allowed such a disreputable woman of the streets to approach Him, and contrary to all traditions of the strict Pharisees, to pour out tears at His feet. Simon would not speak the words aloud, but merely thought within himself:
If this man was a prophet,
He would know who this woman is that is touching Him,
And what kind of woman, a sinner.
LUKE 7:39
How did he know she was a woman of the streets? In judging another he judged himself. In Simon’s eyes she was a sinner and she would always be accounted a sinner. To him there was abomination in her touch, sin in her tears, and a lie in her ointment. The Pharisee made no inquiries, indulged in no hopes. It was all one to him whether it was a depraved will, vanity, starvation, or the lusts of men that drove her to her ruin. It was one to him whether she arose at night because of her troubled conscience and condemned herself a thousand times for doing that which she knew would bring her no peace. And as for Christ, if He had any insight into human character He would know she was a prostitute.
Our Lord then read Simon’s thoughts as He will one day read the souls of the living and the dead. He said to him:
Simon, I have a word for thy hearing.
Simon said:
Tell it to me, Master.
Our Lord continued:
There was a creditor who had two debtors;
One owed him five hundred pieces of silver, the other fifty;
They had no means of paying him,
And he gave them both their discharge.
And now tell Me, which of them loves him the more?
LUKE 7:41, 42
The implication of the story was that God is a creditor Who trusts us with His goods until a day is set for the payment of that debt and the rendering of an account of our stewardship. Some are indebted more than others; some, because they have sinned more; others, because they have greater gifts; some receive ten talents, others five, still others one. It could have been that the woman’s sins were like a debt of five hundred pieces of silver, while Simon’s were only like a debt of fifty. But in the end, both were debtors, and neither could pay the debt. The meaning of the parable was clear. God is the creditor Who trusts man with His gifts of wealth, intelligence, influence. But a day is finally set for the payment. Though no man in strict justice can pay the debt he owes to God through sin, God is nevertheless willing to forgive all debtors, great or small. What this forgiveness costs in strict justice, Our Lord did not here discuss. But He prepared Simon to understand that He had come to bring remission of sins.
Our Lord now asks:
And now tell Me, which of them loves Him the more?
I suppose, Simon answered,
That it is the one who had the greater debt discharged.
And He said, Thou hast judged rightly.
Then He turned towards the woman, and said to Simon,
Dost thou see this woman?
I came into thy house, and thou gavest Me no water
For My feet; she has washed My feet with her tears,
And wiped them with her hair.
Thou gavest Me no kiss of greeting;
She has never ceased to kiss My feet since I entered;
Thou didst not pour oil on My head;
She has anointed My feet, and with ointment.
LUKE 7:43–43
What did Our Lord mean when He said to Simon, “Dost thou see this woman?” He meant that Simon could not see the woman as she really was, but only as the woman that she used to be, or the woman he thought she was. Simon had said within himself that if Our Lord were a prophet He would know she was a sinner. Now Our Blessed Lord turned the phrase and asked Simon, “Do you see her, Simon? The trouble with your tribe of self-righteous people is that you judge yourselves virtuous, because you find someone else who is vicious. You never see. You think you see, but you do not. Guilt is always in the neighbor, never in self.”
Our Lord then went on to describe the common courtesies which had been neglected, but which this woman showed Him. “She has washed My feet with tears.” The garment that is deeply soiled cannot without much rubbing and pouring of water become clean. When there is a deep pollution of sin, there must not be only a washing but a soaking and bathing with the tears of contrition. Then she wiped His feet with her hair. In true repentance there is always a converting of those things which have been abused in the service of sin to the service of God. The best ornament of the body, in the judgment of the penitent, was not too good to be employed in the most menial service toward Our Blessed Lord.
The courtesies which Simon omitted in the order of nature, his Divine visitor now contrasts with the higher courtesies and the order of grace. The marks of honor are then traced to their source, her desire for forgiveness. In all the conventional civilities of life there is some root of affection and love. Simon thought he showed enough honor to a carpenter’s Son by inviting Him to table; but the woman’s love He traced to her deep sense of forgiven sin:
And so, I tell thee, if great sins have been forgiven her,
She has also greatly loved.
He loves little who has little forgiven him.
LUKE 7:47
It would be very wrong to deduce that it would be well to have sinned much, or to have run up a bigger debt in order that the sinner might have more forgiven. Rather the lesson is that flagrant sinners are much more likely to discover that they are sinners than those who think they are good. As in a hospital, a patient who is a mass of sores and bruises solicits more pity than one less injured, so too, admitted guilt is not an obstacle, but an argument in favor of Divine mercy. The love of this woman grew in proportion to her gratitude for pardon. It was not the quantity of sin, but rather the consciousness of it and the mercy extended in its forgiveness, which manifested the great love of this penitent woman. Much was forgiven her; therefore she loved much.
Nothing so much brings one person in contact with another as the confession of sin. When a friend tells us of his success, he stands at a distance from our heart; when he tells of his guilt with tears, he is very near. Actually, when a person has a consciousness of his sin, he does not very much distinguish between whether his sins belong in the five hundred pieces of silver category, or the fifty. What troubles him is the fact that he has hurt someone that he loves. St. Paul considered himself the chief of sinners, but he was not a great sinner except in his bigotry and persecution. He who makes light of sin will make light of forgiveness. He who makes light of really serious wounds will never appreciate the power of the physician.
Simon had something to learn; so he invited a teacher; the woman had something to be forgiven, so she poured out her contrite tears on the Divine Creditor Who proved to be her Savior. Simon had not denied the existence of guilt; but he felt himself relatively innocent when he saw the woman who was a sinner. Guilt is not just the breaking of a love; it is the wounding of someone who is loved. The seriousness of sin rises in proportion as Christ is approached. Standing close to the Cross and feeling the agonies of Him Whose death was necessary for sin’s atonement, could make Paul, the Pharisee of the Pharisees, call himself the “greatest of sinners.”
The lesson was over and the woman was dismissed with the words:
Thy sins are forgiven.
LUKE 7:48
The man whom Simon thought might be a teacher, was not formalizing a code; He was forgiving sins. But who can forgive sins except God? That was the thought running through the minds of everyone at table:
And his fellow guests thereupon thought to themselves,
Who is this, that He even forgives sins?
LUKE 7:49
This was their question as they arose from their couches. Couches would come back as a symbol of a guiltless world nineteen centuries later. Men would rise from them with their guilt explained away. But such souls would not have the inner joy of the woman, who heard One more than a prophet say to her:
Thy faith has saved thee; go in peace.
LUKE 7:50
Her faith had told her that God loves purity, goodness, and holiness. And before her stood Him Who alone could restore her to that holiness. But the price He would pay for that peace would come only after a war—the war against evil. The forgiveness the woman received was not merely that of being “let off” it was one in which justice itself was satisfied. Peter, who was there at the dinner, later on recorded the price that was paid:
On the Cross, His own Body
Took the weight of our sins…
It was His Wounds that healed you.
I PETER 2:24
The guests at table wondered how He could forgive sins. Right they were, who could forgive sins but God? The purpose of His coming to this earth as the Son of Man was once more revealed: He would be identified with sinners in taking their guilt; He would be separate from sinners in offering Himself for their salvation and, therefore, could forgive their sins. On the one hand, identification:
He was counted among the malefactors.
LUKE 22:37
On the other hand, separation:
He was guiltless and undefiled,
Not reckoned among us sinners.
HEBREWS 7:26
These are complementary truths. The first referred to the price He had to pay to forgive sins, such as those of the woman; the second to His Divine life which gave His sufferings infinite value. The woman before Him had her debt of sin blotted out, but she had no idea how much it cost Him. All the tokens of tenderness the sinful woman showed Him, He would receive again in another form. A kiss would come from Judas; the washing of His feet would be reversed as He would gird Himself with a towel and wash the feet of His disciples; and for the oil on His head there would be the crown of thorns as He would pour out the perfume of His own Blood.
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