A Contrite Heart
This devotional considers Luke 7:36-50. Also, Proverbs 6:26, Psalm 51:17, and Ephesians 3:18.
Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman. I feel hurt, as a woman, and for women in general every time I read that heading in Scripture. No other sinner is so named. What a burden to be known in your whole community as the sinful. She was a prostitute. Proverbs speaks of the desperation and destitution of this kind of life that has not changed much over millennia. It says she can be had for a loaf of bread. She was viewed as unworthy. She was used and disposed of, lustfully desired and then scorned. This sinful woman invited herself to the Pharisee’s house because she was on a personal and desperate mission.
Do you see this woman?
What a question Jesus asked this Pharisee. What did Jesus see? As a man, Rabbi, and God himself, Jesus saw beyond her sin. She was more than what she was known for—more than her life of sin. She was one of his daughters who sought him out because of her deep need for forgiveness. She had come home and it didn’t matter how much it cost her financially or even socially, that is, if she had anything left to lose there. She had the strength of heart to repent in public, to bare more brokenness than others would have ever seen in just walking past her. By her entry into not just a public space, but a religiously charged space, we are all forced to reckon with the extent of God’s mercy and love. Just how far will he go? Exactly who can receive forgiveness?
There are some of us who view our sin or sinful lives as unforgiveable. We dare not mention anything to anyone or approach holy God with any of it. We would rather embrace shame than stand up under the gaze of the Lord who judges rightly and forgives the unforgiveable, who receives the repentant without discrimination.
After telling the Pharisee about all the wonderful things in this woman’s heart demonstrated by her tears, submission, affection and anointing of his feet, Jesus spoke to her. He magnified her great love in front of everyone who misjudged her. Jesus received her contrition as faith. And in a short space of time, he did a deep work of restoration by moving her from the objectified to the forgiven. He approved of her sacrifice and she went away with the salvation and peace of God—with a new lease on life.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Thank the Lord for the psalmist who showed us the path to getting right with God—a contrite heart. I pray that the Lord will give us greater and greater understanding of his love that is wide and long and high and deep.
Amen.