Now the feet of the Saviour, the feet of the condemned one, are all bathed with tears, the salt of the tears mingling with the perfume of the nard. The poor sinning woman does not know how to dry those feet, wet by her tears. She has no white cloth with her, and her garment does not seem to her worthy to touch her Lord’s flesh. Then she thinks of her hair, her long hair which has been so much admired for its fine silkiness. She loosens the braids, slips out the pins, unclasps the fastenings. The blue-black mass of her tresses falls over her face, hiding her flushed face and her compassion. And taking up the masses of these flowing curls in her hands, she slowly dries the feet which have brought her King into that house.
Now her tears are ended. All her tears are shed and dried. Her part is done, but only Jesus has understood her silence.
SHE LOVED MUCH
Among the men who were present at this dinner there was no one except Jesus who understood the loving service of the nameless woman. But all, struck with wonder, were silent. They did not understand, but they respected obscurely the solemnity of the enigmatic ceremony. All except two, who wished to interpret the woman’s action as an offense to the guest. These two were the Pharisee and Judas Iscariot. The first said nothing, but his expression spoke more clearly than words. The second, the Traitor, presuming on his familiarity with the Master, ventured to speak.
Simon thought to himself, “This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him, for she is a sinner.” The old hypocrite had for the paid woman the scorn of those who have had much to do with them, or of those who have never known them at all. Like his brothers he belonged to the endless cemetery of white sepulchers, which within are full of foulness. It is enough for such men to avoid physical contact with what they think is impure, even if their souls are sinks of iniquity. Their morals are systems of ablutions and washings; they would leave a wounded man to die, abandoned on the road, for fear of staining themselves with blood; they would let a poor man suffer hunger to avoid touching money on the Sabbath day: like all men they commit thefts, adulteries, and murders, but they wash their hands so many times a day that they imagine them as clean as those of babes.
He had read the Law, and there were still ringing in his ears the execrations and anathemas of Old Israel against prostitutes. “There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel.... Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination to the Lord thy God.” And Simon, the wise burgher, remembered with equal satisfaction the admonition of the author of the Proverbs: “For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.... For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread.” The old Jew would perhaps not have felt so bitterly about prostitutes, if they cost nothing! But they are capable, those shameless women, of eating up a patrimony! The old proprietor could not be reconciled to one of those dangerous women in his house, to the fact that she had touched his guest. He knew that the prostitute Rehab had made victory possible for Joshua and that she was the only one to escape from the massacre of Jericho, but he remembered that the invincible Samson, terror of the Philistines, had been betrayed by a worthless woman. The Pharisee could not understand how a man acclaimed by the people as a prophet should not have understood what sort of woman had come to bestow on Him this discreditable honor; but Jesus had read in the heart of the sinning woman and in the heart of Simon, and answered with the parable of the two debtors. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.”
And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon: “Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
“Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet.
“My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.
“Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.