_THE ANOINTING OF THE FEET._
LUKE vii. 36-50.
Whether the narrative of the Anointing is inserted in its chronological
order we cannot say, for the Evangelist gives us no word by which we may
recognize either its time or its place-relation; but we can easily see
that it falls into the story artistically, with a singular fitness.
Going back to the context, we find Jesus pronouncing a high eulogium
upon John the Baptist. Hereupon the Evangelist adds a statement of his
own, calling attention to the fact that even John's ministry failed to
reach and influence the Pharisees and lawyers, who rejected the counsel
of God, and declined the baptism of His messenger. Then Jesus, in one of
His brief but exquisite parables, sketches the character of the
Pharisees. Recalling a scene of the market-place, where the children
were accustomed to play at "weddings" and "funerals"--which, by the way,
are the only games at which the children of the land play to-day--and
where sometimes the play was spoiled and stopped by some of the children
getting into a pet, and lapsing into a sullen silence, Jesus says that
is just a picture of the childish perversity of the Pharisees. They
respond neither to the mourning of the one nor to the music of the
other, but because John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine,
they can him a maniac, and say, "He hath a devil;" while of Jesus, who
has no ascetic ways, but mingles in the gatherings of social life, a Man
amongst men, they say, "Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a
friend of publicans and sinners." And having recorded this, our
Evangelist inserts, as an appropriate sequel, the account of the supper
in the Pharisee's house, with its idyllic interlude, played by a woman's
hand, a narrative which shows how Wisdom is justified of all her
children, and how these condescensions of Jesus, His intercourse with
even those who were ceremonially or morally unclean, were both proper
and beautiful.
It was in one of the Galilean towns, perhaps at Nain, where Jesus was
surprised at receiving an invitation to the house of a Pharisee. Such
courtesies on the part of a class who prided themselves on their
exclusiveness, and who were bitterly intolerant of all who were outside
their narrow circle, were exceptional and rare. Besides, the teaching of
Jesus was diametrically opposed to the leaven of the Pharisees. Between
the caste of the one and the Catholicism of the other was a wide gulf of
divergence. To Jesus the heart was everything, and the outflowing issues
were coloured by its hues; to the Pharisees the hand, the outward touch,
was more than heart, and contact more than conduct. Jesus laid a Divine
emphasis upon character; the cleanness He demanded was moral cleanness,
purity of heart; that of the Pharisees was a ceremonial cleanness, the
avoidance of things which were under a ceremonial ban. And so they
magnified the jots and tittles, scrupulously tithing their mint and
anise, while they overlooked completely the moralities of the heart,
and reduced to a mere nothing those grander virtues of mercy and of
justice. Between the Separatists and Jesus there was therefore constant
friction, which afterwards developed into open hostility; and while they
ever sought to damage Him with opprobrious epithets, and to bring His
teaching into disrepute, He did not fail to expose their hollowness and
insincerity, tearing off the veneer with which they sought to hide the
brood of viperous things their creed had gendered, and to hurl against
their whited sepulchres His indignant "woes."
It would almost seem as if Jesus hesitated in accepting the invitation,
for the tense of the verb "desired" implies that the request was
repeated. Possibly other arrangements had been made, or perhaps Jesus
sought to draw out and test the sincerity of the Pharisee, who in kind
and courteous words offered his hospitality. The hesitation would
certainly not arise from any reluctance on His part, for Jesus refused
no open door; he welcomed any opportunity of influencing a soul. As the
shepherd of His own parable went over the mountainous paths in quest of
his lone, lost sheep, so Jesus was glad to risk unkind aspersions, and
to bear the "fierce light" of hostile, questioning eyes, if He might but
rescue a soul, and win some erring one back to virtue and to truth.
The character of the host we cannot exactly determine. The narrative
lights up his features but indistinctly, for the nameless "sinner" is
the central object of the picture, while Simon stands in the background,
out of focus, and so somewhat veiled in obscurity. To many he appears as
the cold and heartless censor, distant and haughty, seeking by the guile
of hospitality to entrap Jesus, hiding behind the mask of friendship
some dark and sinister motive. But such deep shadows are cast by our own
thoughts rather than by the narrative; they are the random "guesses
after truth," instead of the truth itself. It will be noticed that Jesus
does not impugn in the least his motive in proffering his hospitality;
and this, though but a negative evidence, is not without its weight,
when on a similar occasion the evil motive was brought to light. The
only charge laid against him--if charge it be--was the omission of
certain points of etiquette that Eastern hospitality was accustomed to
observe, and even here there is nothing to show that Jesus was treated
differently from the other invited guests. The omission, while it failed
to single out Jesus for special honour, might still mean no disrespect;
and at the most it was a breach of manners, deportment, rather than of
morals, just one of those lapses Jesus was most ready to overlook and
forgive. We shall form a juster estimate of the man's character if we
regard him as a seeker after truth. Evidently he has felt a drawing
towards Jesus; indeed, ver. 47 would almost imply that he had received
some personal benefit at His hands. Be this as it may, he is desirous of
a closer and a freer intercourse. His mind is perplexed, the balances of
his judgment swinging in alternate and opposite ways. A new problem has
presented itself to him, and in that problem is one factor he cannot yet
value. It is the unknown quantity, Jesus of Nazareth. Who is He? what is
He? A prophet--the Prophet--the Christ? Such are the questions running
through his mind--questions which must be answered soon, as his thoughts
and opinions have ripened into convictions. And so he invites Jesus to
his house and board, that in the nearer vision and the unfettered
freedom of social intercourse he may solve the great enigma. Nay, he
invites Jesus with a degree of earnestness, putting upon Him the
constraint of a great desire; and leaving his heart open to conviction,
ready to embrace the truth as soon as he recognizes it to be truth, he
flings open the door of his hospitalities, though in so doing he shakes
the whole fabric of Pharisaic exclusiveness and sanctity. Seeking after
truth, the truth finds him.
There was a simplicity and freeness in the social life of the East which
our Western civilization can scarcely understand. The door of the
guest-chamber was left open, and the uninvited, even comparative
strangers, were allowed to pass in and out during the entertainment; or
they might take their seats by the wall, as spectators and listeners. It
was so here. No sooner have the guests taken their places, reclining
around the table, their bared feet projecting behind them, than the
usual drift of the uninvited set in, amongst whom, almost unnoticed in
the excitements of the hour, was "a woman of the city." Simon in his
soliloquy speaks of her as "a sinner;" but had we his testimony only, we
should hesitate in giving to the word its usually received meaning; for
"sinner" was a pet term of the Pharisees, applied to all who were
outside their circle, and even to Jesus Himself. But when our
Evangelist, in describing her character, makes use of the same word, we
can only interpret the "sinner" in one way, in its sensual, depraved
meaning. And with this agrees the phrase "a woman which was in the
city," which seems to indicate the loose relations of her too-public
life.
Bearing in her hand "an alabaster cruse of ointment," for a purpose
which soon became apparent, she passed over to the place where Jesus
sat, and stood directly behind Him. Accustomed as she had been to hide
her deeds in the veil of darkness, nothing but the current of a deep
emotion could have carried her thus through the door of the
guest-chamber, setting her, alone of her sex, full in the glare of the
lamps and the light of scornful eyes; and no sooner has she reached her
goal than the storm of the heart breaks in a rain of tears, which fall
hot and fast upon the feet of the Master. This, however, is no part of
her plan; they were impromptu tears she could not restrain; and
instantly she stoops down, and with the loosened tresses of her hair she
wipes His feet, kissing them passionately as she did so. There is a
delicate meaning in the construction of the Greek verb, "she began to
wet His feet with her tears;" it implies that the action was not
continued, as when afterwards she "anointed" His feet. It was momentary,
instantaneous, checked soon as it was discovered. Then pouring from her
flask the fragrant nard, she proceeded with loving, leisurely haste to
anoint His feet, until the whole chamber was redolent of the sweet
perfume.
But what is the meaning of this strange episode, this "song without
words," struck by the woman's hands as from a lyre of alabaster? It was
evidently something determined, prearranged. The phrase "when she knew
that He was sitting at meat" means something more than she "heard." Her
knowledge as to where Jesus was had not come to her in a casual way, in
the vagrant gossip of the town; it had come by search and inquiry on her
part, as if the plan were already determined, and she were eager to
carry it out. The cruse of ointment that she brings also reveals the
settled resolve that she came on purpose, and she came only, to anoint
the feet of Jesus. The word, too, rendered "she brought" has a deeper
meaning than our translation conveys. It is a word that is used in ten
other passages of the New Testament, where it is invariably rendered
"receive," or "received," referring to something received as a wage, or
as a gift, or as a prize. Used here in the narrative, it implies that
the cruse of ointment had not been bought; it was something she had
received as a gift, or possibly as the wages of her sin. And not only
was it prearranged, part of a deliberate intention, but evidently it was
not displeasing to Jesus. He did not resent it. He gives Himself up
passively to the woman's will. He allows her to touch, and even to kiss
His feet, though He knows that to society she is a moral leper, and that
her fragrant ointment is possibly the reward of her shame. We must,
then, look behind the deed to the motive. To Jesus the ointment and the
tears were full of meaning, eloquent beyond any power of words. Can we
discover that meaning, and read why they were so welcome? We think we
may.
And here let us say that Simon's thoughts were perfectly natural and
correct, with no word or tone that we can censure. Canon Farrar, it is
true, detects in the "This man" with which he speaks of Jesus a
"supercilious scorn;" but we fail to see the least scorn, or even
disrespect, for the pronoun Simon uses is the identical word used by St.
Matthew (Matt. iii. 3), of John the Baptist, when he says, "_This_ is he
that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias," and the word of the "voice
from heaven" which said, "_This_ is My beloved Son" (Matt. iii. 17).
That the woman was a sinner Simon knew well; and would not Jesus know it
too, if He were a prophet? Doubtless He would; but as Simon marks no
sign of disapproval upon the face of Jesus, the enigmatical "if" grows
larger in his mind, and he begins to think that Jesus has scarcely the
keen insight--the power of seeing through things--that a true prophet
would have. Simon's reasoning was right, but his facts were wrong. He
imagined that Jesus did not know "who and what manner of woman" this
was; whereas Jesus knew more than he, for He knew not only the past of
shame, but a present of forgiveness and hope.
And what did the tears and the ointment mean, that Jesus should receive
them so readily, and that He should speak of them so approvingly? The
parable Jesus spoke to Simon will explain it. "Simon, I have somewhat to
say unto thee," said Jesus, answering his thoughts--for He had heard
them--by words. And falling naturally into the parabolic form of
speech--as He did when He wanted to make His meaning more startling and
impressive--He said, "A certain money-lender had two debtors: the one
owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. When they had not
wherewith to pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will
love him most?" A question to which Simon could promptly answer, "He, I
suppose, to whom he forgave the most." It is clear, then, whatever
others might see in the woman's deed, that Jesus read in it the
expression of her love, and that He accepted it as such; the tears and
outpoured ointment were the broken utterances of an affection which was
too deep for words. But if her offering--as it certainly was--was the
gift of love, how shall we explain her tears? for love, in the presence
of the beloved, does not weep so passionately, indeed does not weep at
all, except, it may be, tears of joy, or tears of a mutual sorrow. In
this way: As the wind blows landward from the sea, the mountain ranges
cool the clouds, and cause them to unlock their treasures, in the
fertile and refreshing rains; so in the heart of this "sinner" a cloud
of recollections is blown up suddenly from her dark past; the memories
of her shame--even though that shame be now forgiven--sweep across her
soul with resistless force, for penitence does not end when forgiveness
is assured; and as she finds herself in the presence of Infinite Purity,
what wonder that the heart's great deeps are broken up, and that the
wild storm of conflicting emotions within should find relief in a rain
of tears? Tears of penitence they doubtless were, bitter with the sorrow
and the shame of years of guilt; but they were tears of gratitude and
holy love as well, all suffused and brightened by the touch of mercy and
the light of hope. And so the passionate weeping was no acted grief, no
hysterical tempest; it was the perfectly natural accompaniment of
profound emotion, that storm of mingled but diverse elements which now
swept through her soul. Her tears, like the dew-drops that hang upon
leaf and flower, were wrought in the darkness, fashioned by the Night,
and at the same time they were the jewels that graced the robe of a new
dawn, the dawn of a better, a purer life.
But how came this new affection within her heart, an affection so deep
that it must have tears and anointings for its expression--this new
affection, which has become a pure and holy passion, and which breaks
through conventional bonds, as it has broken through the old habits, the
ill usages of a life? Jesus Himself traces for us this affection to its
source. He tells us--for the parable is all meaningless unless we
recognize in the five-hundred-pence debtor the sinning woman--that her
great love grows out of her great forgiveness, a past forgiveness too,
for Jesus speaks of the change as already accomplished: "Her sins, which
were many, are (have been) forgiven." And here we touch an unwritten
chapter of the Divine life; for as the woman's love flows up around
Jesus, casting its treasures at His feet, so the forgiveness must first
have come from Jesus. His voice it must have been which said, "Let there
be light," and which turned the chaos of her dark soul into another
Paradise. At any rate, she thinks she owes to Him her all. Her new
creation, with its deliverance from the tyrannous past; her new joys and
hopes, the spring-blossom of a new and heavenly existence; the conscious
purity which has now taken the place of lust--she owes all to the word
and power of Jesus. But when this change took place, or when, in the
great transit, this Venus of the moral firmament passed across the disc
of the Sun, we do not know. St. John inserts in his story one little
incident, which is like a piece of mosaic dropped out from the Gospels
of the Synoptists, of a woman who was taken in her sin and brought to
Jesus. And when the hands of her accusers were not clean enough to cast
the first stone, but they shrank one by one out of sight,
self-condemned, Jesus bade the penitent one to "go in peace, and sin no
more."[2] Are the two characters identical? and does the forgiven one,
dismissed into peace, now return to bring to her Saviour her offering of
gratitude and love? We can only say that such an identification is at
least possible, and more so far than the improbable identification of
tradition, which confounds this nameless "sinner" with Mary Magdalene,
which is an assumption perfectly baseless and most unlikely.
[2] The narrative is of doubtful authenticity; but even should it be
proved to be a postscript by some later scribe, it would still point to
a tradition, which, as Stier says, was "well founded and genuine."
And so in this erring one, who now puts her crown of fragrance upon the
feet of Jesus, since she is unworthy to put it upon His head, we see a
penitent and forgiven soul. Somewhere Jesus found her, out on the
forbidden paths, the paths of sin, which, steep and slippery, lead down
to death; His look arrested her, for it cast within her heart the light
of a new hope; His presence, which was the embodiment of a purity
infinite and absolute, shot through her soul the deep consciousness and
conviction of her guilt; and doubtless upon her ears had fallen the
words of the great absolution and the Divine benediction, "Thy sins are
all forgiven; go in peace," words which to her made all things new--a
new heart within, and a new earth around. And now, regenerate and
restored, the sad past forgiven, all the currents of her thought and
life reversed, the love of sin turned into a perfect loathing, her
language, spoken in tears, kisses, and fragrant nard, is the language of
the Psalmist, "O Lord, I will praise Thee; for though Thou wast angry
with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me." It was
the _Magnificat_ of a forgiven and a loving soul.
Simon had watched the woman's actions in silence, though in evident
displeasure. He would have resented her touch, and have forbade even her
presence; but found under his roof, she became in a certain sense a
guest, shielded by the hospitable courtesies of Eastern life. But if he
said nothing, he thought much, and his thoughts were hard and bitter. He
looked upon the woman as a moral leper, an outcast. There was
defilement in her touch, and he would have shaken it off from him as if
it were a viper, fit only to be cast into the fire of a burning
indignation. Now Jesus must teach him a lesson, and throw his thoughts
back upon himself. And first He teaches him that there is forgiveness
for sin, even the sin of uncleanness; and in this we see the bringing in
of a better hope. The Law said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall surely
die;" it shall be cut off from the people of Israel. The Law had but one
voice for the adulterer and adulteress, the voice which was the knell of
a sharp and fearful doom, without reprieve or mercy of any kind. It cast
upon them the deadly rain of stones, as if it would hurl a whole Sinai
upon them. But Jesus comes to man with a message of mercy and of hope.
He proclaims a deliverance from the sin, and a pardon for the sinner;
nay, He offers Himself, as at once the Forgiver of sin and the Saviour
from sin. Let Him but see it repented of; let Him but see the tears of
penitence, or hear the sighs of a broken and contrite heart, and He
steps forward at once to deliver and to save. The valley of Achor, where
the Law sets up its memorial of shame, Jesus turns into a door of hope.
He speaks life where the Law spoke death; He offers hope where the Law
gave but despair; and where exacting Law gave pains and fearful
punishment only, the Mediator of the New Covenant, to the penitent
though erring ones, spoke pardon and peace, even the perfect peace, the
eternal peace.
And Jesus teaches Simon another lesson. He teaches him to judge himself,
and not either by his own fictitious standard, by the Pharisaic table of
excellence, but by the Divine standard. Holding up as a mirror the
example of the woman, Jesus gives to Simon a portrait of his own self,
as seen in the heavenly light, all shrunken and dwarfed, the large "I"
of Pharisaic complacency becoming, in comparison, small indeed. Turning
to the woman, He said unto Simon, "Seest thou this woman?" (And Simon
had not seen her; he had only seen her shadow, the shadow of her sinful
past). "I entered into thine house; thou gavest Me no water for My feet:
but she hath wetted My feet with her tears, and wiped them with her
hair. Thou gavest Me no kiss: but she, since the time I came in, hath
not ceased to kiss My feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but
she hath anointed My feet with ointment." It is a problem of the
pronouns, in which the "I" being given, it is desired to find the
relative values of "thou" and "she." And how beautifully does Jesus work
it out, according to the rules of Divine proportions! With what
antithetical skill does He make His comparison, or rather His contrast!
"_Thou_ gavest me _no water_ for My feet; _she_ hath wetted My feet with
her _tears_, and wiped them with her hair. _Thou_ gavest me _no kiss_:
she hath not ceased _to kiss my feet_. My _head_ with _oil thou_ didst
not anoint: _she_ hath anointed My _feet_ with _ointment_."
And so Jesus sets over against the omissions of Simon the loving and
lavish attentions of the woman; and while reproving him, not for a lack
of civility, but for a want of heartiness in his reception of Himself,
He shows how deep and full run the currents of her affection, breaking
through the banks and bounds of conventionality in their sweet overflow,
while as yet the currents of his love were intermittent, shallow, and
somewhat cold. He does not denounce _this_ Simon as having no part or
lot in this matter. No; He even credits him with a little love, as He
speaks of him as a pardoned, justified soul. And it was true. The heart
of Simon had been drawn toward Jesus, and in the urgent invitation and
these proffered hospitalities we can discern a nascent affection. His
love is yet but in the bud. It is there, a thing of life; but it is
confined, constrained, and lacking the sweetness of the ripened and
opened flower. Jesus does not cut off the budding affection, and cast it
out amongst the withered and dead things, but sprinkling it with the dew
of His speech, and throwing upon it the sunshine of His approving look,
He leaves it to develop, ripening into an after-harvest of fragrance and
of beauty. And why was Simon's love more feeble and immature than that
of the woman? First, because he did not see so much in Jesus as she did.
He was yet stumbling over the "if," with some lingering doubts as to
whether He were "the prophet;" to her He is more than a "prophet," even
her Lord and her Saviour, covering her past with a mantle of mercy, and
opening within her heart a heaven. Then, too, Simon's forgiveness was
not so great as hers. Not that any forgiveness can be less than entire;
for when Heaven saves it is not a salvation by instalments--certain sins
remitted, while others are held back uncancelled. But Simon's views of
sin were not so sharp and vivid as were those of the woman. The
atmosphere of Phariseeism in its moral aspects was hazy; it magnified
human virtues, and created all sorts of illusive mirages of
self-righteousness and reputed holiness, and doubtless Simon's vision
had been impaired by the refracting atmosphere of his creed. The
greatness of our salvation is ever measured by the greatness of our
danger and our guilt. The heavier the burden and weight of condemnation,
the deeper is the peace and the higher are the ecstasies of joy when
that condemnation is removed. Shall we say, then, "We must sin more,
that love may more abound"? Nay, we need not, we must not; for as Godet
says, "What is wanting to the best of us, in order to love much, is not
sin, but the knowledge of it." And this deeper knowledge of sin, the
more vivid realization of its guilt, its virulence, its
all-pervasiveness, comes just in proportion as we approach Christ.
Standing close up to the cross, feeling the mortal agonies of Him whose
death was necessary as sin's atonement, in that vivid light of redeeming
love even the strict moralist, the Pharisee of the Pharisees, could
speak of himself as the "chief" of sinners.
The lesson was over, and Jesus dismissed the woman--who, with her empty
alabaster flask, had lingered at the feast, and who had heard all the
conversation--with the double assurance of pardon: "Thy sins are
forgiven; thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." And such is the
Divine order everywhere and always--Faith, Love, Peace. Faith is the
procuring cause, or the condition of salvation; love and peace are its
after-fruits; for without faith, love would be only fear, and peace
itself would be unrest.
She went in peace, "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding;"
but she left behind her the music of her tears and the sweet fragrance
of her deed, a fragrance and a music which have filled the whole world,
and which, floating across the valley of death, will pass up into heaven
itself!
There was still one little whisper of murmuring, or questioning rather;
for the guests were startled by the boldness of His words, and asked
among themselves, "Who is this that even forgiveth sins?" But it will be
noticed that Simon himself is no longer among the questioners, the
doubters. Jesus is to him "the Prophet," and more than a prophet, for
who can forgive sins but God alone? And though we hear no more of him or
of his deeds, we may rest assured that his conquered heart was given
without reserve to Jesus, and that he too learned to love with a true
affection, even with the "perfect love," which "casteth out fear."