Read: Luke 7:18-50

By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

“Sin is the second most powerful force in the universe, for it sent Jesus to the cross. Only one force is greater—the love of God.” – Billy Graham

This is one of my favorite stories in the Gospels. Do you want to know who Jesus was? Do you want to know how He treated sinners? Look at Luke 7:36-50.

Christ ate with, lived with, and forgave sinners. Even though He had every reason to brush them off and push them aside, He chose to reside with them and abide with them. Because Christ went into the midst of sinners, lives were changed forever.

This is clearly what had occurred to the woman we see in this passage. Despite the embarrassment she might face, or the torment that surely was to come her way, she wept at Jesus’ feet, wiped them with her hair, and poured perfume on them. What a dirty, selfless, difficult act of faith. One that she had to have known was going to be controversial and one she would surely be criticized for. Yet she acted out of pure and selfless love, finding herself at the Savior’s feet.

If we are truly Christians, then each of us has probably found ourselves at Jesus’ feet when we were first saved. Each of us poured our tears on His altar in guilt and called out to Him in shame. We anointed His feet with our confession and wiped them with our acceptance.

Just like the woman, we offered our lives to Jesus out of love.

“‘Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little’” (Luke 7:44-47).

The issue is that many of us, when we stood up from Jesus’ feet, lost the love we had. Our love for Christ was great when we lifted ourselves from the altar, but we forgot the weight that Christ removed from us. We forgot the burden of sin that He took upon His shoulders. We forgot what it was like when He filled our heart for the first time. We have lost the love we found at Jesus’ feet.

I like to think that the woman looked back to this instance time and time again. When she messed up, when she was saddened or disappointed, when life seemed to get the best of her, I think the woman remembered that moment when she wept at Jesus’ feet and He forgave her of her sins.

We should always be offering praise to God for that first time we wept at His feet. We should give Him thanks for the forgiveness of our sins and the salvation He opened to us. Our prayer should be that we are filled with a love for Him that we had that first time we wiped His feet with our hair and He said:

“Your sins are forgiven.”