Luke 7
“If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him – that she is a sinner.” This was what Simon the Pharisee was thinking in his heart. This Pharisee would never let the woman touch him because he would become unclean by the woman’s touching. He assumed the woman was polluting, contaminating, and making Jesus impure by her touching. We don’t know who the woman was but can guess that she was socially and religiously rejected. There could be different reasons – immoral lifestyles, health problems, socially despised jobs, racially mixed people, and so on. Any close contact with these people would make you religiously unclean and socially unacceptable.
Simon the Pharisee would have known who the woman was, but didn’t know who Jesus was. The Pharisee wouldn’t regard Jesus even as a prophet let alone the Son of God. This is why he thought what the sinful woman was doing to Jesus was making Jesus impure. On the other hand, despite a sinner, the woman knew who Jesus was. She knew how others regarded her. But she touched Jesus because she knew her touching could not make Jesus unclean. She knew that rather Jesus would make her clean. By her touching, she was being purified by the divine power of Jesus. And she kept doing it by kissing his feet and anointing them with expensive perfume oil before the people who were in the dining hall.
When we realize who Jesus is and acknowledge his power, we will approach him no matter how sinful we are. Because his healing power is so great, our filth, wounds, shames, and sins will be burnt and blown away before his presence. The Pharisee had Jesus in his house as a guest but did not receive much from him. The woman humiliated herself before others by bathing the feet of Jesus with her tears but received from him the forgiveness of her sins. Let our sins never stop us from approaching Jesus. It’s always the trick of Satan – to doubt the divine power of Christ. As long as we dare to touch his feet with our tears, Jesus will cleanse us from our guilt and sins.
