Theme:
Jesus at the house of Simon
Forgiveness. There is a well known story from
Back in the early 1970s a father and his teenage son had a very
uneasy relationship, by stages it went from uneasy to being strained, from
strained to the point at which they were scarcely talking to each other. Eventually,
as so often happens, the son ran away from home.
After a few days, however, his father started looking for his
son in all the usual places. He was nowhere to be found. Finally, after four
months had gone by, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an
ad in one of the big evening newspapers in
The following Thursday at
This is one of the simplest accounts we read in Luke’s gospel,
just a simple account of the visit of Jesus to the house of Simon, a very religious
man. Yet, I think these are some of the deepest most profound
verses about sin, forgiveness and
love in the whole of Luke’s gospel.
Simon, and a woman. These verses are
really only about Jesus,
Simon and this woman.
First Simon. Simon belonged to a movement, known as the
Pharisees. They believed in , obeying the law of Moses
down to the very last full stop, they believed in living a very decent, proper religious
life. And they believed that if they could only get the people of
Simon had invited Jesus to have dinner with him, along with other guests. So
Jesus went to the Pharisee's house. At mealtimes it was the custom to lay on
your side to eat, as we might do at a picnic. You lay on a low bench with a carpet
over it, with a low table in front. The food was laid out on this table. As we
read in Luke’s gospel, the meal has begun, guests are eating food............
Now, in the middle of the meal, a woman from the town arrives. She must have heard that Jesus
is in Simon’s house. The servants, probably thinking that she is a guest who
has arrived late, bring her through to where the meal is. She is carrying a
huge container of perfume. The question Simon and probably some of the guests
are asking is: why is she here ? Luke’s gospel shows
us unmistakeably why...........
She knows this: that Jesus says that He has come to seek and to
save the lost, that Jesus says He has come, not to call the righteous but sinners ........... that Jesus declares
that He will never turn away any who come to Him. And it is the hope of this that
has reached the very depths of her heart, has reached the very depths of her
soul. This is the hope that has brought her to a house she would never ever
have entered otherwise.
Like Paco, the lost son, she has come knowing her own
sinfulness, just like the rest of the town did......... she has a reputation in
the town, better not to go in to all the details, but here she is laden with
the heaviest burden of sorrow and guilt and looking for a word from Jesus............
This is why, Luke’s gospel tells us, she stands behind Jesus,
with tears streaming down her face, such tears that they now begin to wet the
feet of Jesus. Perhaps we feel uncomfortable hearing that, but this is what the
gospel says. She wipes Jesus’ feet with
her hair, kisses them and pours the perfume on them. By the polite
standards of the guests all of this is really over the top. But the fact is, she doesn’t care.
David wrote psalm 51, of course, but he might well have written it
for her personally:
David writes: Because
of your great mercy, Lord, wipe away my sins!
It is mercy she is looking for...........
David writes: Remove my sin, and I will
be clean; wash me, and I will
be whiter than snow. It’s that cleansing that she longs
for.........
David writes: Do not banish me, Lord, from your presence
This is her hope, that she will find, not condemnation, but somehow,
from Jesus forgiveness........
So, here, you see, in spite of all, in spite of
everything...........
Mark this: this woman knows who Jesus is........
that He is the Saviour !
Back to Simon.
Simon certainly seems to know who she is. It is a small town
after all. He certainly wouldn’t have allowed her in the house if he had
answered the door.
There are some in the town who follow the law
of Moses and live a good life,
and
there are the others the obviously sinful, like this woman here.
Simon says to himself, "If this man Jesus were a prophet,
he would know who
is touching him and what
kind of woman she is"
At this point Jesus tells a very short, but immensely deep little story about the
debts people owe: We can update the story very easily. Here it is: Two men had
run up debt on their credit cards. One man owed £500, the other £20000. With their wages, neither of them has any
chance of paying the money back. The debt becomes a terrible strain for both of
them, they both woke in the middle of the night
worrying about it, as the interest goes up month by month. Then the local manager of the credit company gives
them the astonishing news that he has managed to arrange for their debts to be
cancelled
Jesus asks Simon - Which of them will be most grateful
? Most relieved ? The most deeply, relieved, at
this burden being lifted ? "
Simon gives the same answer as all of us would, "I suppose
the one who had the bigger debt
cancelled."
“Right" Jesus says. Then
He says to Simon, "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.
These, you see, are all the signs of deep gratefulness, the deepest
signs that this woman, has found an unbearable burden of
sin lifted........
Mark this: She knows who Jesus is - that He is One who saves, He is Saviour.........
Simon doesn’t........
And when Jesus says to her,
"Your sins are forgiven."
Of course she goes in deepest, heart filling, soul calming, life restoring....... peace.......
Where the debt of great sin is cancelled, there is heartfelt
gratefulness and the deepest love. She has found salvation......... in the
Saviour Himself............
Here’s the apostle Paul talking about the same thing:
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst but ........... I was shown mercy..... far away, all of us have sinned and we were far away from God’s presence.... but at the Cross of Jesus, that salvation has been made available for the whole, the whole, the entire world: for there at the Cross our sin and the condemnation that should have been ours was laid on Jesus Christ, and Christ Jesus has taken the sin of all the world upon His shoulders, including our own there the sin and guilt that burdens our hearts was dealt with once and for all for and just as that woman long ago found in Jesus, there in Jesus, we find forgiveness. This is God’s loving purpose
More than this: When we know that our sin, that great debt was cancelled
there at the Cross of Jesus there begins within us deep gratefulness, a renewed
thanksgiving every day for His love. The debt that was ours is cancelled.
This is the gospel.
We love, because God, through His Son Jesus,
first loved us !