Luke 7: 37-47
As the season of Easter approached, I began to reflect on the significance of Easter to me and the woman with the alabaster flask of oil kept coming to my mind. I went over the different accounts of the different disciples but it was the account of Luke that caught my attention the most.
Luke described her as a sinner, unqualified to approach Jesus much less speak. So she did the only thing she could: she came from behind- sneaked in if you will- and kneeling before him, she began to weep. The bible said she wet His feet with her tears and wiped them clean with her hair.
I imagine that the perspective and value placed on a woman’s hair during that time was much more.
I mean every woman today values her hair and if not her natural hair, her weaves. I know I do. I mean when we consider how much it costs us to buy, dragging it across a pair of dusty feet, no matter how royal isn’t an option we would readily contemplate. But this woman pretty much put her crowning glory, her beauty, her pride at the feet of Jesus. And as if that wasn’t enough, she broke a flask of terribly expensive ointment and applied it to his now clean feet.
I imagine there was a hush…a moment of shock…surprise…astonishment before the whispering began because she came quietly, probably unnoticed and unqualified to come, she broke down presenting herself, exactly as she was.
She moved past recognizing to accepting that she needed Jesus to taking the help He was willing to give.
She bared it all and crowned it when she took something that cost her everything and poured it before Jesus.
I imagine what was going through her mind to be something like; ‘Lord I feel so ashamed so I sneaked in, I know I am not worthy to stand so I kneel, I am not worthy to speak so I spill my tears, my heart. I am not trying to prove a point or attract any attention, I have just come bringing the best thing I have and I know it is not enough but I hear you can save me before you are rejected and beaten and nailed to the cross. Here I am’.
Jesus must have known. Must have understood the things she couldn’t say. I imagine that in the midst of all those people who sat to eat with Him, they had a conversation no one could hear so that when His Host asked why He would ask to let her be. His answer was simple yet profound: her sins are forgiven because she loved so much!
Only one who is forgiven little, loves little. In other words, only those who get to the point of desperately needing God’s forgiveness can truly know what it means to love. Only someone who had thought she couldn’t be forgiven, had no hope of salvation, will appreciate the sacrifice of Jesus, would not hesitate to lavish so much of who she is and all she had on Him.
If you ever desperately needed mercy, and love, you would know what it means to love.
I like to believe that she was one of the women that followed Jesus to His death, one of those who watched and wept as He was tortured and abused and later killed.
Only one who has experienced the simplicity of God’s love and truly understands the sacrifice can appreciate the depth and meaning behind her actions, so come back tomorrow (although Easter season would have ended) and let us examine together, what Easter would have meant to her.
Happy Easter CW!
At CONNECT WOMEN our mandate is to nurture women to be strong, purposeful and passionate.
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