What seems to be a prevalent theme in the readings for mass today is the forgiveness of very serious sins. In this day and age we send murderers to prison and it’s pretty hard to forgive the crimes they have committed. Sometimes they receive the death penalty because of the murder they committed.
Adultery might seem a little glamorous when movie stars cheat on their spouses, but it’s a completely different matter when it is your own husband or wife. Adultery leads to a lot of divorces because it is so very difficult to forgive this betrayal.The prostitutes that walk the streets of our cities are not usually treated with respect either. They cheapen something that should be a beautiful thing that is shared between married couples. In fact, prostitution helps to perpetrate adultery among married men.
We usually view people in the bible as holy people but the scriptures repeatedly show us that many of the people in the bible were not all that perfect. In today’s old testament reading, King David committed adultery with a soldier’s wife and then had him murdered. When Nathan confronted him about it, David admitted “I have sinned against the Lord”. We should remember that God forgave David’s sin and His own son was born from David’s lineage.
The woman in today’s gospel was more than likely a prostitute. She was sorry for the lifestyle she had been living and sought Jesus out. It sounds like she was crying her eyes out and washed his feet with her tears. That’s a lot of tears. Her tears were no doubt because she was sorry for her sins, but there may have been another reason she cried so hard as well. It’s possible that people had treated her badly throughout most of her life, or at least since she had been a prostitute. She may have initially had to resort to selling herself just to be able to have food to eat and maybe a roof over her head, but continued in the lifestyle because it was all she knew to do. The community must have treated her as an outcast and not a member of their civilized society though.
The beautiful thing about Jesus and how he treated people was his ability to see the person and not their sins. Perhaps through Christ’s teachings and they way he treated people, this woman came to understand that she had value in his eyes. It might have been a long time since this woman felt like a worthwhile human being. This may have been one of the reasons she was crying so hard that she washed Christ’s feet with her tears. It’s possible that this woman spent all the money she earned from her immoral lifestyle, to purchase the expensive jar of ointment for the Lord’s feet. This very loving act showed her repentance and love for the Lord. It makes you wonder though, if Christ remembered this beautiful act of love this woman did for him later on, when he washed his own disciples feet at the last supper.
Christ defended this woman to the Pharisee by telling him that “the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little”, the one with the larger debt that is forgiven loves a lot more because of it. Whether we have sinned a little or a lot in our lives, the Lord forgives it completely. Those of us who have always been faithful to the Lord all our lives should never look down upon those who haven’t.
If we have committed serious sins in our own lives, it is completely forgiven by Christ’s tender mercy and will be remembered no more. The bible is full of people both great and small who did some very bad things but grew in holiness and came to love God and the Lord Jesus with a passion. Moses, Noah, King David, the good thief, Saint Paul, Mary Magdalene and this simple woman are examples that give us hope for our own future too. Our past need not hold us back from the future that the Lord has planned for us. We are still worthy in his eyes to be his disciple in spite of our failures and weaknesses. They are remembered no more and that is a beautiful thing.
