While law abiding Jews were rejecting their Messiah, the people who were regarded as God’s rejects, the ‘sinners,’ were recognising and embracing him. One day when Jesus was in the house of a Pharisee, to the horror of all present, a ‘sinful woman’ entered and poured perfume over Jesus’ feet. Perfume was precious in more than a financial sense. In those times most people smelled pretty bad. They didn’t have deodorant like we do. If you wanted to stand out and feel beautiful then perfume was the way to do that. The perfume, for that woman, was something that gave her identity and made her feel beautiful. It probably also aided what Luke calls her “sinful life”. But instead of using the perfume for herself, so that people noticed her, she poured it on Jesus so that he was the one wearing the attention-grabbing aroma. This is why Jesus made such a big deal out of her gesture, because it typifies the essence of true worship. She was happy to recede into the smelly rabble of ordinary people in order that Jesus would stand out. We expend so much effort in life trying to stand out from the crowd. This amounts to a kind of self-worship in which we try to get people to admire and notice us. Living a life of worship means that we live to make Jesus known. If people admire and envy you it won’t make their lives any better; it might even make them worse. But if they come to notice and worship Jesus they will be saved. Which outcome are you living for?
Ask God to use you to draw people’s attention to Jesus.
Read Luke 7:36-50
