18 Sept 2014 - close, for comfort

“If this man were a prophet,
he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him,
that she is a sinner.”

But he does know. Our frame holds no secrets from him. Before us and behind us he encircles us (cf. Psa. 139). He knows that we are sinners. He knows what sort of men and women we are. Yet he welcomes and invites our love. His forgiveness replaces our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh (cf. Eze. 36:26). After this he does not shy away from the response of love on our part which this ought to elicit.

Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment,
she stood behind him at his feet weeping
and began to bathe his feet with her tears.
Then she wiped them with her hair,
kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.

This is way too intimate for our taste. We get really uncomfortable long before this. We prefer a wider personal gap between ourselves and nearly everyone. We may expect Jesus to insist on this personal space as well. He is, in one sense, wholly other from ourselves. He is holy. But still he welcomes our love. He wants our love. He forgives us so that we can run to him and embrace him, not so that we can go about business as usual with one less thing on the negative side of our balance sheet.

Jesus shows great humility in welcoming the sinful woman. We too must be embrace humility so that love can bridge the gap between ourselves and our brothers and sisters. Without humility we won't express our own love and we won't welcome the love of others. Without humility a hermetically sealed barrier will always remain between God's people. And we can see from how close Jesus comes to us that does not want that barrier to exist.

A lack of humility not only separates us from one another but can cause us to keep others from Jesus. We need to place Jesus first in our hearts rather than caring what people think of us. We need to see that Jesus wants share an intimacy with others that is greater than we can share with them and not envy that intimacy, insisting on the importance of our own role in it. We should be able to say with Paul, "Therefore, whether it be I or they, so we preach and so you believed." Even if it means that people don't see our own love for them, as long as they see the love which Jesus has for them that should be enough for us. 

The Risen Christ wants to make himself known to everyone. He wants us to embrace him in the love that forgiveness brings. In return he wants to embrace us and teach us to embrace one another. And the most profound way we can offer embrace to others is by bringing them to the embrace of Jesus himself. Let's love them and Jesus enough not to get in the way of that. The love that Jesus himself gives us is more than enough. In his resurrection Jesus strikes with power destroying the veil and with it all barriers can now be broken.

“The right hand of the LORD is exalted;
the right hand of the LORD has struck with power.”
I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the LORD.
You are my God, and I give thanks to you;
O my God, I extol you.