Where there’s hope there’s life

A Pharisee invited Jesus to have dinner with him, and Jesus went to his house and sat down to eat. In that town was a woman who lived a sinful life. She heard that Jesus was eating in the Pharisee’s house, so she brought an alabaster jar full of perfume and stood behind Jesus, by his feet, crying and wetting his feet with her tears. Then she dried his feet with her hair, kissed them, and poured the perfume on them. (verses 36-38)

Read Luke 7: 36-50

The woman came with hope, and where there was hope there was the possibility of new life – not in the hopeless profession she was pursuing but in Jesus.

People turned their heads the other way when she walked past. Some crossed the street when they saw her coming. She was despised and probably diseased. She knew what people thought, what they said behind her back – and to her face at times. But what really counted for her was what Jesus thought, what he said about her and to her. She was past caring about what others thought. She needed help, and she knew who could help her and where he’d be.

She gate-crashed. She would never have been invited to that house for dinner – no hope of that. And when she was there, she performed for Jesus the traditional rituals that the host had overlooked: the kiss of welcome, washing and drying his dusty feet, and applying perfume. How powerfully she demonstrated her love for Jesus. Hers was a generous love, poured out from the heart of a pardoned sinner, because Jesus had first loved her.

And in that time with Jesus she found the peace that is ‘far beyond human understanding’ (Philippians 4:7). This was the peace that came from a soul cleansed of past sins that had weighed on her conscience and were destroying her life.

Lord Jesus, thank you for setting me free from my sin and giving me new life. Help me to show my love for you in the way I live. Amen.

by Alicia Simpfendorfer, in ‘God’s Peace for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2005)

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