Before we begin our lesson this morning, I want us to reconsider WHY we are here, why >I< am here before you this day. We are here to do more than simply listen about some discussion about the Bible, and the people in it. Beyond the pages of this Bible, I want us to meet the PERSON of Jesus our Savior. JESUS is here with us NOW, TODAY, IN THIS PLACE. And We are here to meet with Him and to learn of Him, and to have The Holy Spirit speak to each of us out of His Word so that WE may grow more intimately acquainted with Jesus.
And WITH that understanding, let us now consider God's Word to us by turning to the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 7, verses 36-50.

[READ LUKE 7:36-50]

Let us now consider that scene in vs's 36 through 39 - Here are those reclined, eating at the table, and those standing around the room and no doubt around the house itself, looking in the windows and doorways, all watching and waiting to see what would happen. They knew of the news about what Jesus had been doing: healing the sick and blind and lame, even more, RAISING THE VERY DEAD THEMSELVES. Many in that place weren't sure WHAT to think, except THIS OUGHT to be ONE HUMDINGER OF A DINNER. And THEY didn't want to MISS a BITE of it. 
And in the midst of the gawkers and the dinner guests, there we see the woman weeping, weeping, weeping...a deep soul-wrenching steady rain of tears, for the Greek word translated as "wash" His feet in the KJV, is better translated as meaning "wet [as if with rain]", a steady down-pouring of tears enough to wash a man's feet...
And the Pharisee, haughty, distant, aloof, formal, even rude, watching the scene w/ open contempt and undisguised disgust. 
And what of Jesus? He isn't saying ONE WORD, just lying there at the table, quietly watching Simon and listening to the steady weeping of the woman who had been lost in sin. 
Here in this passage I believe that we are invited to see within this one room, a microcosm in which ALL of the world can be seen. For as we will soon see, we ALL are ONE of these people who came before the Person of Jesus Christ at this meal. My hearts desire this morning is for each of us to discover WHICH we are. And then see what the Lord Jesus has to say to EACH and EVERY ONE of us. 

Let's FIRST consider  SIMON: Look at vs 36, and vss 39 and following: I believe that Simon is probably THE Sr. religious big-shot in the town, although it doesn't say in the text, perhaps it was even the town of Nain mentioned just 25 verses before. He is clearly a well-regarded man in his community, a man of influence who commands respect; a "successful" man, if you will. This Jesus was certainly a phenomena, someone who was the subject of great interest and attention and Simon naturally would be curious about this man who they say is a GREAT PROPHET Who has EVEN raised the dead. I think certainly our boy Simon wanted to see for himself what this itinerant Rabbi was all about. And BEING so curious, HE invites Jesus to dinner. BESIDES, at the very LEAST, this will offer him some entertainment and local acclaim as having been someone with whom Jesus dined. 
This was because it was the custom in those days for such culinary events to be PUBLIC, in that even if you weren't invited to EAT, you could STILL come by and observe the affair, and even participate in the discussions during the meal. Can you imagine THAT? There you are, just sitting down to have that great Wednesday Meat-loaf Surprise and what happens? The WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD just DROPS BY to say "Hi", sit around and join in the conversation around the table! Maybe WEIRD for US, But for THEM, THAT'S just Dinner as Usual. And Jesus, having just raised the dead, was SURE to draw a nice crowd, DON'T YOU THINK?
Now, what was the Pharisee indicating by his reaction in verse 39? Simon's interest appeared to be the detached curiosity of a man who felt Jesus had nothing to offer HIM PERSONALLY. I think HE thought that HE WAS PLENTY GOOD ENOUGH ON HIS OWN, THANK YOU VERY MUCH AND HE CERTAINLY WAS BETTER THAN THIS PATHETIC BROKEN DOWN TOWN PROSTITUTE. You might say he was a man who was COMFORTABLE in his PERSONAL sense of acceptability. Thumbs hooked in his suspenders, he can declare "HEY! I'm 'OK' as far as I'm concerned, matter of fact, I'm MORE than 'OK', I'm doin' MIGHT-Y FINE!". And Jesus CERTAINLY had NOTHING HE needed; Simon did not need ANYthing from this man Who obviously couldn't tell a PROSTITUE from a PROPER upstanding person, someone such as HIMSELF, for example. 
Its important we understand something of Simon's reaction and distaste here at this table, and WHAT he THOUGHT he knew about Jesus. REMEMBER, the laws of ritual cleansing demand that Simon not even TOUCH an article of clothing of the unclean and unrighteous, otherwise HE is made "unclean" and is forbidden from temple worship until the Mosaic rituals of cleansing are done, often taking several days. 
Given that Jesus had already hammered the Religious Elite for their hypocrisy and failure to acknowledge John the Baptist OR Him earlier in this same Chapter, I think Simon apparently had been skeptical at best about Jesus even from the ONSET of this meal, as his grossly unsociable treatment of Jesus from the very first of the meal reveals. And Jesus' FAILURE to abide by, to fit into, Simon's PERSONAL sense of what was acceptable and NOT acceptable ONLY CONFIRMED things for the Pharisee. 
AND YET, SEE WHAT HE WAS MISSING: He was unable to see salvation when it came right into his very house. He was unable to see the woman, to grasp what her radically different behavior MEANT, what it said about Jesus. He was so satisfied with what he had, NOTHING could make him see anything NEW, NOTHING could convince him that HE needed as great a change as what had transformed this "notorious" sinner. 
Is THIS where you are, dear Listener? Are you sitting there in that pew, feeling pretty disinterested in all this talk or at most puzzled or even worse discomforted or even somewhat disgusted by this Bible scene of unrestrained emotional pathos? This unseemly display of hysteria around the dinner table? Are you like our friend Simon? IS THIS how you react to the mention of Jesus or salvation now? Do you hrumph and mutter to yourself, "Well, that may be all right for those who CAN'T get their own lives together, but NOT ME. I don't need any of that religious mumbo-jumbo. I'm doing just fine on my own. I DON'T NEED ANY 'SAVING' IN MY LIFE. That's just for losers! YOU know, REALLY BAD people. Why, I'm sure God will take my life into account and see that I'm certainly better than most. That I'm GOOD ENOUGH for Him." 
But OH HOW WRONG YOU ARE, dear Listener!! God's Word CLEARLY declares that NONE of us are righteous, NO NOT ONE. It cries out to you that ALL of your BEST efforts are NOT NOW nor EVER WILL BE "good enough" compared to Gods INFINTELY HOLY Standard. Oh please don't EVER mistake your "POSITION" in LIFE with your CONDITION before God. I can assure you: GOD IS NOT IMPRESSED WITH YOUR RESUME', OR WITH YOUR RECORD OF GOOD DEEDS. We are ALL, yes even you, as SURELY guilty before God as that poor weeping women at Jesus feet had been. Don't let Simon's hardness of heart be YOURS as well. Do NOT miss the CRUCIAL lesson that Jesus offered to Simon then, and NOW offers HERE to YOU. 

But what of the woman? Let us now consider her: Never was there such a physical and cultural contrast: the Pharisee at the head of the table, the wretched sinner prostrate at the feet of Jesus. In case you missed it earlier, she is described in several places as a sinner, a woman of MANY sins. The original Greek in v37 calls her "an especially wicked sinner" and v39 in the AMP describes her more accurately as a "notorious sinner...devoted to sin". You get the distinct impression that when it came to sin, SHE was NO amateur - NO SIREE BOB! SHE had been going for the GOLD for a LONG time now and forGET about those crummy silver or bronze medals. As I once said before to describe Jezebel in the OT: THIS was ONE NASTY WOMAN. SHE had been given totally over to sin, unabashed, unapologetic, unyielding and HARDENED to it all. NOT ABOUT to give in or budge an INCH, a heart as adamantine hard as it was blackened by sin. And Jesus makes NO excuses for her - He CONCURS with this description, MORE than ONCE. In her own way, SHE had been JUST as hard hearted and hard minded about HER life as the Pharisee was still about HIS. 
BUT NOW?? Look at verse 38: WHAT IN THE WORLD HAS HAPPENED?? Here she is - once haughty and proud in her sin, NOW totally given over to the lowest most menial task a household slave could be given: washing the dirty feet of a hard-traveled guest, AND USING HER HAIR AS THE TOWEL. [oh MAN!]
BUT DON'T YOU SEE? IT WAS JESUS Whose feet she was washing with her tears and covering with her precious perfume. She was OBLIVIOUS to her surroundings other than Jesus. NOTHING ELSE MATTERED. ONLY that she be allowed to continue her steady rain of tears, and wash and anoint his dirty feet with the three most precious things I think she had possessed until now: her beautiful hair, her personal pride (now pouring out of her in a stream of tears) and her alabaster bottle of perfume. 
You know, we are never told in scripture HOW she had come to know it, BUT SHE KNEW that Jesus was NOT like this Pharisee, she dared believe with a deep conviction that she would not be recoiled from but instead somehow MET and healed of her sinful state. 
I must confess I cannot tell from a study of the text whether she had already been forgiven BEFORE she arrived to wash and anoint His feet, OR, STILL lost in her sin but BELIEVING He could redeem her, first received that forgiveness at the table of Simon the Pharisee. In vs 48, the Greek translated in the NIV as "your sins are forgiven" and in the NAS as "your sins have been forgiven" is ACTUALLY stated in the Greek "perfect" tense, which is a verb tense they used to describe an action that is completed or finished sometime in the past, but whose effect is STILL existing in the present. As if to say, your sins were fully completely forgiven before and that forgiveness continues on up to the present, they are STILL forgiven NOW. 
Maybe Jesus had already met with her, and already had given her a forgiveness she knew she could not begin to ever deserve. Maybe they had already talked earlier that day, and she had spent that day sitting in a bedroom once utterly devoted to debauchery, growing in her amazed realization at a forgiveness already received and NOW, overcome by the knowledge of it's truth, it's reality, NOW she comes in humble gratefulness and with a blazing love, to give her worship and adoration to her new found Savior and Messiah. however unworthy she may still have felt. 
OR, had she seen Jesus meet the funeral procession of the Widow of Nain mentioned earlier in this same chapter? Maybe she only saw Jesus, filled with tender compassion for that grieving mother, now totally alone in a world that was harsh to women without family to care for them. Did she see Him reach out to that unclean funeral casket, which to touch was to made unclean yourself, and instead of recoiling from the death within it, HE gave it LIFE instead! Knowing this, did she perhaps dare to believe He would not recoil from HER dead and blasted soul, BUT RATHER, PERHAPS HE WOULD "GIVE" HER LIFE INSTEAD??? OH YES I think the KNOWING of it could compel her to that Pharisee's dinner table, heart broken, tears streaming down her once hardened face, the once precious alabaster vial of perfume now broken over the feet of a savior who would love one such as she and THERE for the 1st time receive forgiveness...
I have found credible knowledgeable Bible scholars that acknowledge she could have been weeping tears of shame and confession to which Jesus responded by forgiving her from the moment she fell at His feet at the beginning of the meal, and then later that evening declared as such to her and the others in that room. 
Or, those could have been tears of absolute purest joy and deepest gratitude, at a salvation already comprehended, a salvation received in person to which Jesus then gave PUBLIC declaration before the entire town, turning those in that room into witnesses of her previously found salvation and forgiveness. 
Either way, I believe that there, at His feet, she knew HE LOVED HER - KNOWING WHO SHE HAD BEEN, WHAT SHE HAD DONE WITH HER LIFE, and STILL HE LOVED HER. And the REALIZATION of it shattered her hard stone-cold heart, it broke that stiff unyielding determination to sin; it left her breathless with amazement, shocked beyond belief, and her heart overflowing with emotion at the discovery of LOVE WHERE IT COULD NEVER BE "DESERVED". 

The only reason why I spend any time on WHEN she was forgiven, is so that there will be NO confusion as to HOW she came to be forgiven. It is CRUCIAL that we all understand THIS: she did NOT "earn" ANYthing with her amazing act of foot washing. In vs 47, Jesus says "...her sins, which are many, have been forgiven [same exact word and verb tense as in vs 48], for she loved much...". This is NOT meant to imply that the LOVE was the cause  of the forgiveness; but rather, the vastness of the love displayed that evening was the PROOF of the vastness of the forgiveness that already had been experienced.
This is certainly consistent with the story Jesus just used in the preceding verses: the men in debt did NOT "earn" their debt forgiveness BY loving the creditor. There WAS NO love mentioned at the start of this tiny tale of bad credit gone WAY out of control. One owed 50 days wages worth of debt, the other owed FIVE HUNDRED days wages worth of debt. 
The difference in their degree of love was directly tied to the amount of debt forgiven. And even so, it is for this women, Jesus is saying: the depth of her love, as demonstrated by the unrestrained magnitude of her service to Jesus that night, has PROVEN how GREAT her forgiveness really WAS. 
Jesus confirms this in the last verse, vs 50, when He tells her that her "faith has saved" her [again, in the perfect tense, same as "have been forgiven"]. Showing, as elsewhere declared in Scripture, that FAITH in Jesus Christ as the ONLY source of salvation is the ONLY means of receiving God's gift of salvation. 

BUT WHAT ABOUT JESUS? Having seen the Pharisee and the woman, let's now see what more this text can tell us about Him. See now Jesus, not even paying attention to the waves of disapproval pouring off the Pharisee, the uncomfortable murmurings of the crowd, but rather, gently tenderly considering the broken woman at his feet. 
NOTE THIS: Jesus did NOT stop her. He could have interrupted her at any time and quickly dispensed His declaration of her forgiveness like a hurried pharmacist shoving bottles pills to a long line of antsy customers. BUT NO, Jesus LET her go on, NOT for His sake, but for HERS. I believe that HE knew SHE NEEDED to do this, SHE needed to be able to pour out her heart to Him. This would be true whether it was to grieve before her master and Lord, to vent her full measure of heart ache to Him, or to offer her deepest thankfulness and gratitude. And either way, she would HAVE HIM ACCEPT IT from her. 
Oh how PRECIOUS to Him are the tears of a penitent soul at the Throne of His Grace. He VALUED those tears, she who before had known no worth could now SEE how greatly valued she was, "AS IS", to the Son of God. He is NEVER in a hurry when we come before Him, weary and sin sick; He is NEVER too busy to let us cry out ALL our grief and heart ache and tears; He is ABLE to receive our FULLEST measure of hurt and fear and all that burdens us so terribly. Even so, precious too are the tears of deepest joy and loving thanksgiving poured out from our hearts once His grace is received. 
Now look at vs 49. See how the crowd began to say among themselves, "WHO IS THIS MAN??" Alas! They had not yet seen what the Woman at His feet now surely knew: That He was and IS righteousness INCARNATE, that He can NOT be made unclean by the touch of a sinner, because by the very contact with Him, HE doesn't become unclean, but rather what was unclean is MADE clean. Even when He took our sins upon Himself on the cross and became sin for us all, it resulted in righteousness for us ALL! He took it and WASHED it away once for ALL...a Divine Midas touch of righteousness! THIS is why HE never recoiled from sin and death, THEY recoiled from HIM! (remember the man possessed with many demons? they howled and writhed in anguish and terror at his very presence...begging to be released from His closeness). 

And what about YOU dear Listener? Where is YOUR heart this day? Are you aware of the burden of sin, painfully aware of the failings and limitations and oh so frequent short-comings in your life? SO AWARE of the sin, yet not FREED of it's BURDEN in your life? 
Are you feeling trapped by the realization that YOU have made a mess of your life, and don't know what to do, or where to go, EXCEPT THIS: YOU HAVE HEARD SOMETHING ABOUT THIS MAN THEY CALL JESUS - AND YOU'RE THINKING THAT MAYBE, OH JUST MAYBE, HE CAN AND WILL WASH AWAY THE "WRONGNESS" IN YOUR HEART, THE WRECKAGE YOU HAVE MADE OF THINGS, AND CHANGE YOU COMPLETELY WITHIN?  
If you are still unsure, then ask yourself this question: How did the woman GET into that house in the first place? How could she have gotten through what HAD to be SOME crowd gathered at every opening to this man's house? I think it was because THEY all recoiled from her AS SURELY AS IF SHE'D HAD LEPROSY. NO ONE there, once they saw who it was, would want to touch her to prevent her moving right to the front. DON'T YOU SEE?? HER VERY SIN OPENED HER A WAY TO THE VERY PRESENCE OF JESUS, instead of it impeding her, it blew open a path through that mob wide enough to drive a truck through, and thus it STILL is today! Our sin will NOT block our access to the forgiveness of Jesus, IT CLEARS THE WAY to Him. Do you think your sin is so terrible that it will keep you from entering into His presence? NO! NO! NOT IF YOU ARE SEEKING HIS FORGIVENESS, for if you are, it is your ticket to the very FRONT of the line! The greater the burden you feel, the more EAGER HE is to see you, to wash you clean, so you can be forgiven by the ONLY One who CAN forgive, now and forever.
So, join this precious woman at the feet of Jesus, and find what SHE found: His forgiveness, freely offered there, and freely given - IF ONLY we would but see our need and ask. There will be no rejection there, only His tender voice, His kind and gentle eyes, reassuring each one of you that He WILL FORGIVE. And WE, like the woman, can "love much", so very much, because we have been forgiven SO very much. 

And what of YOU dear Believer? Are not we ALSO to be there with that woman - do we not have A great and powerful  need to once again fall at the feet of our Precious Savior with tears of JOY and GRATITUDE? Should we NOT STILL become overwhelmed at the realization of what He has done for us at the cross? Should we not recall anew how MUCH He has forgiven and does yet still forgive in OUR lives and in doing so, pour out our hearts love for Him? 
MAKE NO MISTAKE, dear Friend, WE HAVE EVERY REASON to JOIN that Woman at Jesus' feet, KNOWING, just as SHE did, that WE have been FORGIVEN MUCH. SHOULD WE NOT EVEN MUCH MORE FEEL LOST IN LOVE'S GRADITUDE AND THANKFULNESS AT WHAT HE HAS DONE FOR US, WE WHO HAVE HAD MORE TIME TO EXPERIENCE THE POWER AND IMMENSENESS OF HIS LOVE IN OUR HEARTS AND LIVES? OH may we who PROFESS to know Him NEVER grow tired of telling Him, with hearts full of thankfulness and love, how GREAT is His forgiveness for us, and how marvelous is HIS love. And yet moreover, let us NEVER grow tired of telling each other as well, encouraging each other to recall once again His marvelous salvation for us. 

And now, in closing, look at verse 50: His final words were for HER ALONE. Paying no mind to the gaping mob muttering and murmuring in the room, or to the heart-hardened Simon, so sadly unwilling to see how his monumental lack of love revealed his monumental NEED for forgiveness. In His final recorded words to her, Jesus reassures the woman that she truly has been and is even now [perf tense] saved from her sin, and He gently bids her to literally "Go INTO peace" [AMP], which one translator described as meaning she could enter into peace, "in freedom from all the distresses that are experienced as the result of sin" 
And I certainly could do no better than that myself, dear friends, than to bid us ALL to enter into that precious peace HIS forgiveness so abundantly provides. 

Luke 7:36-50

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