She was Mary, a dedicated follower of Jesus. The believer who anointed Jesus before his crucifixion wasn’t a nameless woman with a history of sexual sin. What a privilege to be among the women who first learned that he had risen! She stood ready to anoint her savior again. Mary was no doubt holding that same alabaster jar she used to anoint Jesus in the home of Simon. When Jesus was taken from the cross and laid in a tomb, “Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the grave” (Matthew 27:61). He encouraged Mary to keep the rest of the oil for the day of his burial-a promise that she would be there to anoint him once again on that day. Again, we are not told why Mary is called “sinful” in Luke’s account.īut Jesus confronted Simon about his judgmental assumptions about Mary. Simon, the Pharisee, was embarrassed that Jesus would allow such a “sinful woman” to touch him. In a beautiful moment of repentance, she dried his feet with her own hair.Ĭrowds who had heard what Jesus did for Lazarus gathered. In a beautiful expression of humility, she cried at his feet. In a beautiful act of faith, she broke a costly jar of perfume and anointed Jesus. Mary responded by coming once again to kneel at the feet of Jesus, this time with understanding of who he truly was. Mary, who sat at the feet of the Master, and was commended for choosing the better thing, missed it.īut then, she witnessed the miracle of Lazarus’ resurrection. He asked to be taken to Lazarus and then raised him from the dead. She didn’t understand who Jesus really was and he was so deeply troubled by it that he wept. In the account of Lazarus’ death and resurrection, Mary confronted Jesus for not being there to save her brother. But if these two passages do refer to the same woman, Mary, we must challenge our assumptions about the woman who anointed Jesus with oil. The unnamed woman is assumed to be a prostitute in Luke’s account, while in John’s version, she is Mary. It’s not unreasonable to suppose that two women might have anointed Jesus with oil. The woman who anointed Jesus with oil in Luke’s account is a sexually disgraced prostitute and the woman who anointed Jesus with oil in John, in an entirely separate story, is a respected follower of Jesus. During both meals, a woman came in and anointed Jesus by pouring oil on his feet.Ĥ. On both occasions, the Pharisee who invited Jesus was named Simon.ģ. Jesus was twice invited to a Pharisee’s home to eat, on separate occasions.Ģ. This creates two discordant parallel gospel accounts and would mean that:ġ. However, the unnamed woman’s status as a sexually disgraced woman, a prostitute, is so unquestioned that some scholars argue that the unnamed woman in Luke 7 must be a different woman from the Mary in John’s corresponding story. John’s Gospel includes an account of the same story, and the unnamed woman is identified as Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus. Luke’s Gospel is not a chronological account of Jesus’ life and ministry, so it is reasonable to accept that this occurred later in his ministry. “It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick” (John 11:2).Īccording to the generally accepted chronology of the ministry of Jesus, the anointing happened sometime after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead but before the crucifixion. All manner of assumptions about the root of her “bad reputation” are heaped upon her. An NASB footnote calls her “immoral,” and there is a lot of speculation around her character. Speakers often claim that no one would have touched the unnamed women, making her anointing of Jesus even more scandalous. Sometimes Bible teachers go beyond insinuation and insist that the unnamed woman was certainly a prostitute-again, based on no explicit scriptural evidence. The story of Jesus’ anointing by an unnamed woman in Luke is a prime example of our tendency to label and shame Bible women. Christians have a historical tendency to interpret Bible women’s non-specific sin as sexual sin, and often, female promiscuity is inferred with no support from the actual text. In our modern context, it is easy to read “promiscuous” into the character of the mystery woman. They are offended by the “sinner” in their presence. The men present talk about her like she isn’t even there. She anoints his feet with oil and tears, wiping them with her hair. In Luke 7:36-39, a broken, sobbing, unnamed woman enters the home where Jesus is dining. How do we get from sinner to whore in our perception of Bible women? (Note: this offensive term is used only to highlight the false dichotomy applied to Bible women, not to imply that any women should bear this label).
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