The Woman who Loved Much

A message from Luke 7:36-50 by Phil Rogers02/09/07

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All four gospels give an acount of Jesus being anointed with perfume by a woman. John’s account of Mary, sister of Lazarus, seems to be a different event to this one here, which I take as the same event recorded by Matthew and Mark. If this is so then this was not any old pharisee who invited Jesus and his disciples to lunch. Simon the leper had been healed by Jesus and may have invited his friends to dinner to meet Jesus. But their meal was interrupted by this woman, who had beena prostitute before she had met the Lord. How grateful was Simon to be healed from his skin disease? How much did Simon love Jesus? How grateful was this woman to be set free from a life of prostitution? How much did she love Jesus? The woman was weeping, wetting Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiping them with her hair, kissing his feet and pouring expensive purfumed oil on them. Why the tears? Several times Jesus caused people to weep! After Peter denied him, Jesus turned and looked at him and Peter went out and wept bitterly. The Sunday morning after Jesus’ crucifixion Mary Magdalene was at the tomb which was empty and she was weeping. When she discovered that Jesus was alive, she went back to tell the disciples and found them all weeping. Jesus said “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.”

I’m sure we can identify with all of these tears. The tears of this woman, tears of love and gratitude or remorse for her old life, and of joy at having been so completely forgiven. Peter’s bitter tears after denying his Lord. Mary’s tears of sadness, confusion and despair having seen her beloved Lord crucified and now his body was gone. Death is the most commonly recorded reason for weeping in scripture. And we even see Jesus himself weeping at the death of his friend Lazarus. John 11:33-44. Jesus was a man’s man but one who was not afraid of his emotions.

But what struck me was the passages in Luke 13:34 and Luke 19:41-45 which speak of Jesus’ feeling for Jerusalem and the Jewish people. Can we feel the yearning and the pain that Jesus feels for those who are blindly heading for destruction? They merrily get on with their own lives oblivious of their need of forgiveness, oblivious of the doom that awaits them, but unwilling to come to Christ. “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.” How terrible death is for those who do not believe in Christ. It is far more than deep loss, which is what most of our tears are about. It is the terrifying prospect of eternity without God being thrown into what is pictured as a lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels into which all godless people will also be thrown and will eternally suffer this fiery torment. Most people know about hell, but make jokes about it and refuse to believe that God would be ‘nasty’ enough to send them to hell. If only they knew!. If only they knew the seriousness of sin and the horrific consequences of not giving their lives over to God! But people laugh and joke, preferring hell where all the fun is rather than sitting on a cloud playing harps. Fun? In this world sin is seen as fun - drunkenness, self-indulgence, gambling, sexual promiscuity, drug taking - “the pleasures of sin” which last only a moment and leave a craving for more and can never truly satisfy. What a futile lifestyle. Yet who sees it? Who would believe that real lasting fun is found in loving God and being loved by him. Holiness - that is true fun! There is nothing so fulfilling, so satisfying, so overwhelmingly glorious. Yet in their blindness people choose to satisfy their sinful desires rather than fall weeping at Jesus feet and receive forgiveness and cleansing and a new life and a new heart and a passion for holiness and godliness. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” The woman realising how much she had been forgiven, wept tears of relief, gratitude and joy. Simon was grateful to be healed but did not realise just how much he really needed forgiveness, and so was critical of Jesus’ words.

This week of prayer we have heard from God. He sees the tears that we weep in private for those headed for eternal destruction. These tears come together into a pool that touches the lives of people in this area who come to life, leaping and dancing. But to us God says, “Keep Still” and call us to come under his spotlight, to listen to him and let him touch our lives. Will we take the time to come into God’s presence, to be still and allow the Lord to share his heart of love with us, even if it means deepest weeping and tears? Yet God promises that those who sow with tears will reap with shouts of joy. Ps 126:5. Will we love the Lord and make time to let him share with us his own love for the lost? Now is a time to plough up the fallow ground and to sow as we have never sown. But then we will be able to lift up our eyes and see that the field is ripe for harvesting. Then we will have the joy of watching as people hear the Lord say to them, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”