4.A Sinful Woman Anoints Jesus

The woman in this story, told in Luke 7:36-50, is a person who moves my heart.  She is not an invited guest to the Pharisee Simon’s home, as Jesus was. In fact she ‘crashes’ the dinner party in a day when even the women who may have been invited to the gathering would not have been in the same room with the male guests. She breaks many of the rules of polite society but does not care, I believe, because she is compelled to express her love and gratitude to Jesus. I think she had been healed by the Lord at an earlier time, and she has appeared at the party in order to honor Him. It says in the text that this woman stood behind Jesus, weeping, wetting His feet with her tears, then wiping them with hair and anointing his feet with expensive perfume. Jesus may not have seen who it was as she was obviously looking down and was behind Him, but he knew who she was. This story helps me to see the extent of Jesus’ love and compassion for sinners, but it also tells me that even if I am behind Jesus, and my head is bowed and disfigured with weeping, He knows who I am.