Friday, September 19, 2014

Today’s text 

Luke 7:41-47

A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.

 Startled gratitude

The Loved … love.

Look at the woman weeping at Jesus feet, kissing and anointing him. Tears are always telling. They reveal the heart. Her heart knows a passionate, effusive love that cannot be contained. It overflows like a lake into which far too much rain has fallen.

Her tears are not of sorrow. They are not a shower of shame. This is not a broken soul without hope. These are the tears of one who has tasted the height of human fulfillment, the joy which God intends for all of us.

She knows and feels the Great Love flowing to and through her, filling her. It spills from her eyes, her hands and feet in passionate love and blessing that cannot be contained. It evaporates her shame and fear, and she becomes a human soul, a truly human soul for the first time.

The woman weeping at Jesus feet is a portrait of the ecstasy and loving freedom God intends for every human being.

She has entered the world of grace that is no where and every where. It is nowhere for the self-satisfied, like the Simon the Pharisee, whose hearts do not ache for forgiveness and the loving welcome of God. Nor can they fly to the heights of fulfillment known by the woman weeping at Jesus feet. In their respectability, they may never become as alive, wondrous and beautiful as she.

In Jesus, the woman experiences forgiveness and the Love that is beyond all loves welcoming her home. She has entered a world of grace and knows what it means to be encompassed by the Love that labors in every time and place, in every moment and every speck of matter.

Only those with needy hearts and eyes of faith enter and know Christ’s saving presence. They enter a world of grace where the heart pours out the wonder of Love in startled gratitude.

Pr. David L. Miller