An Alabaster Jar

I will admit it, its tough to be a woman in the twenty-first century. Who am I? How does how I look affect my relationship with God? Does it? It affects every other relationship I have ever had? God how have you created me? How feminine should I be? How does feminism affect me? Will it make me less desirable or more relevant? There are so many images flooding my consciousness on a daily basis, all telling me who I should be and what I should look like. In the deafening roar how will I know who Christ wants me to be?
When the pressures of the world seem to be against me and I begin to bend under the strain I am reminded of one of my favorite Jesus stories.
“Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.” Luke 7:37-39

I love this story because of what isn’t said, more than what is. As I imagine it this is a Jewish woman, who understood something of who God was and yet she has been forced into a gruesome and difficult life. Prostitution became her only option for survival. The things this woman has witnessed or been forced into make me want to weep for her and anyone in her position. I think of the leers, the horrible names, the way men have looked at her, like she was an animal without dignity or tenderness. It breaks my heart to think of anyone treated this way. I am also sure there were such tall walls around her heart. She had no choice, if someone had taken her in, been kind to her, protected her and yet every where she turned the world seemed cold, and angry. It only wanted one thing from her, she was only good for prostituting her body, and because of that she treated like dirt. This woman has been wronged by her society and by anyone at all religious and I am sure her heart was buried so deep with in her allowing her to breath. Not to feel anything was the only way to survive.
In Jewish day, any pious person couldn’t even touch this woman, she had intimate contact with the Romans and of course was considered “unclean.” And yet on the day that Jesus is dinning with the Pharisees she enters the house, she braves ridicule, and worse, harassment and stoning. But why does she come? This is the part of the story that is miraculous to me.
I believe it was Christ’s eyes. It was the look in them that she had never seen before. In my short life I have had my fair share of lewd glances that can steal you soul. These predatory looks across parking lots seem to take away something pure in their hunger and audacity. The woman at Christ’s feet had witnessed so much worse than I could ever imagine and yet there was something about this man. Something so absolutely revolutionary that it would convince her that she was special, she could approach this man and be forgiven.
What a risk! How could she know, what if he turned her away? To risk anymore heartbreak or judgment, there must have been something so very different about Christ that she put all her trust in one man. Even though men had wronged her, used her, abused her, this man was different. I can’t wait to meet that man, the one that could bring healing to such an broken heart. The gentle eyes or our Creator looking at his child are overwhelming to her soul. Yes she is woman, and she is beautiful to him. He knows her deeply, knows every detail of her soul and yet he loves her. Christ not only accepts her form, her face, her soul, but he forgives her, releases her from her bondage of sin and suffering. If she could risk everything just to touch her Lord, believing that he would set her free, what is holding me back?
When I think of what this woman say in Jesus, I want to fall on my knees and worship. I want to know this man myself. My foolish worry’s of life and womanhood all seem to fall away. Someday soon there will be healing at His feet, washing away the wounds of this world, all the pain, and rejection will only be a faint memory. In this life I may experience the harsh end of reality, but someday soon I will be able to look into those eyes myself.