Look!
Luke invites us to look:
“Look, a woman in the city who was a sinner…” (Luke 7:37)
Why look at this woman: “a woman in the city, a sinner”, probably, a prostitute?
We look at her because of what she did.
Jesus was reclining (as they did in those days), at the meal table, with his feet behind Him. He had been invited to a meal with the A-list, at the home of Simon the Pharisee.
But (also, in those days) they ate in an open courtyard, on show for the passing parade, who could stand round the edges and look on in envy.
When suddenly: “Look, a woman in the city who was a sinner…”
“When she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.”
The A-list were aghast.
What the woman saw
What do we know of this woman?
We know what she did. But we don’t know her name. (There is no reason to assume, as some do, that she was Mary Magdalene “out of whom had come seven demons” (ch 8, v 2))
But we can assume that, somewhere, sometime before this, she had met and heard Jesus.
Immediately before this[1], Jesus had issued the invitation:
“Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt 11:28-29)
Here was a woman who was heavy laden. And we know from Jesus’ words that follow, that she had seen something wonderful in Jesus’ words.
We know she repented, came to Christ and found rest for her soul – we know this, because Jesus tells us she was forgiven much.
She was not forgiven much because of what she did; she did what she did, because she was forgiven much.
What the Pharisee saw
The host “looked” and was shocked.
“When he saw this”, he muttered, but to himself:
“This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”
The pharisee did not see a repentant, forgiven sinner. He saw only a “a woman in the city, a sinner”
“Do you see this woman?” – that’s the question Jesus asked. (v 44)
Alistair Begg comments:
Turning towards the woman, Jesus says to Simon, “Do you see this woman?” I wonder: Does he say to Simon, “You know, you can’t really see her as she is, because you can’t stop thinking about her as she was”? That’s a pharisee, always: you can’t enjoy the transformation.
That’s a pharisee. That’s what a pharisee sees.
The same with his friends sitting down below:
Look at them, sitting at the table, the rest of them. What are they doing? They’re not going, “This is amazing! Look what God has done in the life of this lady.” No, they’re having a question about the identity of Jesus Christ: “Well, let’s have a discussion—a kind of hypothetical discussion.” It’s a good question. It’s an important question. But their timing is horrible. What they’re really showing is they don’t get it either.[2]
Three times, Jesus tells us in three parables in Luke ch 15, that “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (v 8)
But for these there is no joy.
They look, but don’t see.
The Twisted Way the World Sees Things
This is the twisted world we live in.
Though, of course, these were not worldly people, in the usual sense of the word. These were church goers, the most religious of people.
Yet as we see happening before our eyes today, worldly thinking is infiltrating the minds of many “religious” people.
On the one hand, we are told over and again to affirm, even celebrate, those who live out a sinful lifestyle; who are not ashamed, and even flaunt their sin. We see this even among some of the most “religious” leaders in churches today. Eg. see here.
On the other hand, those who (like this woman) have come under conviction for the sinful lifestyle they lead and have drawn back, are held up to ridicule.
They come under conviction, and repent that they “have spent enough of their past lifetime in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.”
But, instead of rejoicing with the angels in heaven, their former “friends” “think it strange that they do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of them.” (1 Pet 4:3-4)
Do you see this woman?
That’s what the Bible invites you and me to do.
That’s what Simon failed to do.
That’s what the gospel is all about.
By God’s grace, the sinner is not what she once was.
The gospel begins with the bad news that the world does not want to hear:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor anyone practicing homosexuality, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Cor 6:9-10)
This “woman in the city”, this “sinner” was bad news.
But we don’t see her that way now – now that “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over [this] one sinner who repents.” (v 8)
Rather, as with those in Corinth:
“Such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6:11)
“Such were some of you…”
But now, you have repented; you are forgiven:
– God “remembers your sins no more”,
– God “has cast all your sins into the depths of the sea”,
– “As far as the east is from the west, so far has the Lord removed your transgressions from you”.[3]
Because that is so, we are no longer to remember the sins of our brother who has repented, though he may have hurt us, or to see our sister as a “woman in the city, a sinner” once she too has repented.
It is a pharisee who cannot let go of seeing the repentant sinner this way.
Look up!
Look up!
It is not just the redeemed brother or sister for whom we have to change the way we think.
It is also you and me when it comes to our own past sins and failures.
Which of us has not cried out to the Lord over past sins?
Which of us has not prayed, with David:
Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions;
According to Your mercy remember me,
For Your goodness’ sake, O Lord. (Psa 25:7)
We need to look – to look to Jesus:
Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb 12:1-2)
Look up!
“When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Saviour died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me”
– Charitie Lees Bancroft
[1] See, eg. almost any harmony of the Gospels [2] https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/sermon/meal-remember/ [3] Jer 31:34, Mic 7:19, Psa 103:12