How Can Mary Say "Thank You"?
She had already been to hell and come back. The bitterness she had drunk was terrible.
The Bible does not tell us of any other person who has suffered the torments of seven demons, or felt so "forsaken" of God (the Grand Exception of course being the Savior on His cross who cried out, "My God, why have You forsaken Me?").
In her lost condition, as far as humanly possible, Mary had plumbed the depths of the horror that will eventually face those who choose to suffer the second death with Satan.1 To walk out of that dark cave into the sunlight of God's love filled her soul with a happiness no one can describe. (We could all share that joy if only we could appreciate the darkness of the cave where we would be—but for the grace of Christ!)
Mary had to say "Thank You!" somehow, and wanted to say it out loud. But how could she? She had everything against her. For one thing, she was a woman; keep still in public was the rule.
For another, she had lost the last vestige of her reputation. It seems further that she was not gifted with making speeches, at least none from her has survived. (She did end up being a great preacher, but not with wisdom of words.)
Again, by piecing together little mosaic fragments supplied by the four Gospels, we find that she had caught a unique idea. She had heard something the Twelve were too dense to catch (women do have a sixth sense, we are told). Jesus had repeatedly said He was going to die at Jerusalem. The Twelve would hear nothing of it. If He was going to die, Mary thought, she could at least anoint His dead body with some precious ointment.
Three of the Gospels emphasize that whatever kind she found was "very expensive." The expert at finance, Judas Iscariot, evaluated it at "more than three hundred denarii," silver coins—the equivalent of a working man's wage for an entire year.2 If the apothecary had any of lesser value "on sale," she refused it. What she purchased was fit for the emperor, or at least his excellency, Governor Pilate. It was known as "spikenard," imported from the far away Himalayas of northern India, produced from the roots of a special plant found only there.
Clutching the precious alabaster flask, Mary apparently went home and laid it away to await the sad day when it would be needed. She must be patient (we read that agape always makes its possessor patient).
Simon comes into the spotlight.
Though apparently heartless and cruel in exiling Mary, Simon was still a human being. Humanity at length had to catch up with his ecclesiastical ambitions. His conscience couldn't help but be burdened with guilt; he had ruined a woman's life. In a sense, her blood was on his hands.
He could relate with David who wrote Psalm 32 after he had murdered Uriah the Hittite and stole his wife. The psalm torments Simon's soul: "Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me" (32:4). The scene of Mary's tears of devastation as he commanded her to leave had to be on his mind night and day, especially at night.
Guilt drives a person to those sleepless nights and anxious days, and there is no way to assuage it. He could have been a great guy at the office, all smiles and back-slapping with his cronies by day, but at night he was alone in the dark with the Holy Spirit's probing conviction.
It often happens when one carries unresolved guilt, the weakest organ of one's body breaks down in sickness. In Simon's case, a dread disease fastened on him. To his horror, he was diagnosed with leprosy, which meant now he had to leave home. He would have been more than human if he did not imagine that a severe Deity was paying him back for how he treated Mary.
I am indebted to a thoughtful author for an intimate glimpse: Simon met Jesus somewhere, and "piteously implored Him" to heal him of his leprosy.3 Apparently Jesus had responded with grace, exacting no promise or even commitment on Simon's part—which was usual for Jesus. All of His healings were done with New Covenant grace. Simon returned home happy, but perhaps not too grateful. But he was a decent sort of man. He had been healed of a horrible disease; he must say "Thank You" somehow.
But how could he?
Being a macho man whose eyes were never dimmed with tears, he could not do as Mary was to do when she fell on her knees with tears before her Savior. Simon was a man among men, no sentimentality for him. Millions of men wish they knew how to shed a tear. Taught from babyhood to repress the natural impulses of humanity, they become cold in heart. Simon was captive to his heart coldness, and he is the strictest devotee of a works program.
But he finally decided what he could do: he would throw a banquet and invite Jesus and His disciples to come (John 12:1-9). This undoubtedly took some courage, for it was only a few days until the crucifixion, and Pharisee sentiment in town was strongly anti-Jesus. He wouldn't have to say anything embarrassing; his hospitable largesse would silently accomplish the deed. Problem solved.
Human nature being what it is, it was unlikely that he would put Mary on the guest list. In fact, Luke tells us that she learned about the gala event independently of an invite from Simon (7:37).
When she did learn of it, she thought of a better idea than to waste ointment on the Savior's dead body: why not anoint Him while He is still living? She understood the clear Bible teaching that "the dead know not anything," that they are unconscious in death.4 Clutching her precious alabaster flask, she made her way to the banquet and in effect crashed the gate. Finding Jesus, she stood behind where He reclined. All that pent up gratitude for saving her from hell burst loose in an unpremeditated torrent of tears as she knelt before Jesus. Luke tells the story:
One of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee's house, and sat down to eat.
And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.
Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, "This man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner" (7:36-39).
I have often wondered what I would have done at this juncture, if I had been Jesus. He knew the full story of Simon's escapade with Mary. Should Jesus give up on Simon and call it a day? Saving Mary was a good day's work; why not go home and rest? I think I would have said to the host, "Thank you, Simon, for inviting Me. Nice dinner, but I have another appointment. I'll skip the dessert. Goodbye." I would have reasoned to myself, "Let this critic rot."
But Jesus had love for poor Simon, too. If Mary's case was difficult, Simon's was more so. She had been bothered by "seven devils," but he had an eighth as well. His soul was barricaded, armored by a pride that Revelation describes as a wall of resistance—the most nearly hopeless heart-affliction His church has ever known—lukewarmness.
Entrenched in this same "rich and increased with goods" state that seems to permeate the last of the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3, Simon was almost impervious to the melting influence of the Holy Spirit. This semi-hardness of heart is the most challenging state of lostness that God has had to deal with in His professed people during all human ages. Simon was all but unreachable, as prophecy says of "the angel of the church of the Laodiceans." Almost nothing can reach such hearts.
What could Jesus do for him?
Here in the narrative is an exquisite example of what was a daily experience for Jesus. In a brilliant insight into His secret personal life, Isaiah describes His daily morning devotionals: "The Lord God awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear, to hear as the learned. The Lord God has opened My ear, and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away" (50:4, 5). Peterson renders it vividly: "The Master, God, has given Me a well-taught tongue, so I know how to encourage tired people. He wakes me up in the morning, … and I didn't go back to sleep, didn't pull the covers back over My head."
Jesus must have prayed earnestly that very morning for the Father to teach Him what to say in whatever problem might come up that day. (We have the same opportunity to learn "morning by morning"!)
The Holy Spirit flashed into the mind of Jesus a story that could save Simon from himself, and save us too if we can grasp the point. It was a response to Simon's self-congratulatory musing:
And Jesus answered and said to him,"Simon, I have something to say to you." And he said, "Teacher, say it."
"There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?"
Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more." And He said to him, "You have rightly judged" (Luke 7:40-47).
Simon would surely be intelligent enough to get the point immediately. The woman whom he despised was the one who owed the fifty silver coins; the five hundred debt was on him.
Jesus could have let him off the hook with that, and he would have been blessed with a realization of his true guilt. But the Savior chose to press the thorn in deeply.
Then [Jesus] turned to the woman and said to Simon [with His back turned on him!], "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head."
Simon must have blushed. But the thorn goes in still deeper:
"You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time 1 came in."
By now Simon is probably crimson. But there is more to come:
"You did not anoint My head with [common] oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil."
Everyone heard every word. Simon would probably have loved to drop through the floor. Then Jesus speaks the formula that Simon desperately needed to learn, and that God's "lukewarm" people are perishing to understand today if they don't want to remain lukewarm for another century or more:
"Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little" (vss. 40-47).
There's something profound here about learning the most difficult task any of us needs to learn: how to love. Could it be easy once we grasp this formula Jesus teaches?
But what happened to Mary?
At the end of this colloquy with Simon, His back still turned to the Pharisee but addressing Mary, Jesus said to her:
"Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace" (vs. 50, KJV).
This raises the question: what is faith? It saved Mary, lost as she was. Evidently Jesus intends that her experience will illuminate for us what its true definition can be.
Notes:
- The Bible teaches two kinds of death: the second which is "the wages of sin" in the final lake of fire (Revelation 20:14); and the "sleep" which all humanity suffer at the end of their sojourn on earth (see 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).
- Matthew 20:1,2.
- Ellen G. White, Spirit of Prophecy, vol. II, p. 380.
- Ecclesiastes 9:5.