By Jameson Barker
Many of us bring a laundry list of past sins into a newfound relationship with Christ. Humanly speaking, it’s hard to let go. Satan wants us to dwell on who we used to be instead of who we were created to be. He wants us to live in the old when we have been made new. If the enemy can define us by our past, he has limited our future.
In our glance into Jesus’s life today, we see how there are no circumstances where we are too far gone, too sinful, or too lost for His love and forgiveness. Jesus has just walked through towns performing miracle after miracle. People have seen Him heal a centurion’s servant, heal diseases, heal plagues and banish evil spirits, give sight to the blind, and even raise a widow’s son from the dead.
After all these miracles, Jesus is invited into the house of Simon, a Pharisee. While He is reclining at his table, a woman approaches who is a prostitute and known in the city. Today we would say, “She has a reputation.” However, at this moment the woman takes a posture of humility. She begins to use her hair and tears to clean Jesus’s feet and then anoints His feet with expensive perfume. This is culturally significant for many reasons. First, attending to someone’s feet was a task set aside for servants—she purposefully took that servanthood posture. Second, anointing someone on the head was a sign of respect; however, this woman anointed His feet. Another sign of humility. Lastly, wiping His feet with her hair meant she took her hair down and that was rarely done in public. Why is this sense of humility important?
You see, Simon invited Jesus into his home but didn’t do any of these things for Him. His posture was not that of humility but of notability. Contrast that with the posture of great humility taken by the woman. She was acting out of deep emotions because she knew that Jesus was the very Son of God. She was moved to seek forgiveness from Jesus because she knew she was in the presence of the only One who could offer forgiveness.
And that He did. As she is seen from the outside as someone who is unforgivable because of her profession, Jesus sees her for her humility and deep brokenness. He then looked at her and commended her faith because that faith saved her. Faith in Jesus is what saves us all.
No matter how overwhelmed you are; no matter how far you think you are from Jesus; no matter how many sins you have on your list; no matter how much you believe that you are unlovable or unforgivable: No single person is too far gone because Jesus looks at you, knows all of you, and still went to the cross to shed His blood to wipe sin away. That’s the power of God’s love and forgiveness.
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