Extravagant LoveExtravagant Love

Extravagant Love. An excerpt from Love Beyond Reason. It fits so well--right here, right now.

A woman entered the house. Luke tells us she was “a sinner,” which is most likely a polite way of saying she was a hooker. No doubt she was an uninvited guest, scandalizing everyone there except for the one truly holy person at the table. She had lost her reputation, a good deal of her virtue was missing, and generally speaking she’d had the stuffing knocked out of her.

She hadn’t always looked like this. There was a day when she had been someone’s little girl, when someone cherished dreams for her, perhaps. When she had dreams herself, maybe. But that day had been gone a long time. It had been years since she had been in the public company of anyone respectable. It took all the courage she had to brave the looks and whispers in that room.

She stood behind Jesus, at his feet (people reclined rather than sat at a table in those days). But when she could bring herself to look into Jesus’ eyes, rather than contempt, she saw love.

She had brought perfume to anoint Jesus. This was generally done by pouring the perfume on the person’s head. But as she watched Jesus, the tears came. Maybe she was thinking of how she earned the money to buy the perfume. Maybe she was thinking of the little girl she once was. Maybe she was thinking of the gap between who she had become and who she wanted to be. At any rate, instead of his head, she began to anoint Jesus’ feet with a mixture of perfume and tears.

Then she did something—she let down her hair. This was never done. It was a violation of social custom; respectable Jewish women always kept their hair bound in public. As a prostitute, she had let down her hair many times before. And each time was another wound to her heart, another scar on her soul. But this time it was for an act of homage, to dry the feet she had bathed and anointed. She who had let down her hair so many times before let it down once more. But this was the last time. This time she got it right. The days of her raggedness were about to end.

Simon waited for Jesus to point out who this woman was. Before we get too harsh with Simon, it’s worth asking how I would have responded in his place. This woman had, after all, defied God with her life. She had lowered the standards of fidelity; she had helped wreck some homes, perhaps. It does no good to gloss over her raggedness. A word in favor of morality wouldn’t seem out of place here.

But Jesus is scandalously ready to forgive. He understands, as Simon does not, that when there is authentic repentance, the work of judgment has already been done. He points out to Simon that where Simon had neglected to provide water for Jesus’ feet, she had bathed them with all she had, mingled with tears. Where Simon had not offered him a kiss, she could not stop kissing his feet. Where Simon had not offered even inexpensive olive oil for his refreshment, she had anointed him with expensive perfume.

Simon could not receive much love, because he clung stubbornly to the notion that he did not need much forgiveness. His very sense of moral and spiritual superiority had caused him to lose a sense of his own raggedness. And so his heart had become even more unloving and unlovely than the sinner he despised.

But she knew. The woman knew all about who she was, and she knew that Jesus knew all about her and loved her anyway. And so she was transformed. “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace,” Jesus said to her, astonishing Simon even more than his guests, and the woman more than Simon. Twas an excerpt from a John Ortberg book.

Extravagant giving – both by the woman and by Jesus.

Do you give extravagantly….ever? Or, not at all? ‘Can’t judge then…because even this woman—a woman, you might say, had fallen from grace, gave to Jesus extravagantly. So, Friends, regarding generosity – do you ever just give of yourself extravagantly, because God did…..because you can?

Hmmm . . . something to think about.

Christine