You Want Me, Lord?

She was a black mark on Jewish society. In a culture which honored and upheld purity and obedience to the Law, she was the complete opposite. She was the type of woman who, when she dared darken someone’s door, men turned away, women grabbed their children, and bold eyes measured her from head to foot and found her wanting.

Pathetic. Disgusting. Well-known, but resented. Hated, but a ready topic of gossip. Whatever her sin, she was labeled a sinner by her townspeople. Mary —the village outcast based on life choices alone. Who would call her blessed? No one.

We’re told in the Gospels she arrived to wash Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. We can be almost certain the means by which Mary was able to buy such perfume were not honorable. Still, while the crowd around her muttered assumptive accusations, Mary only saw the feet of the One she knew she could trust.

Jesus proclaims such a beautiful gift of redemption in Mark 14:9’s retelling of the story. “Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.” She knew her sins, she knew the price at which she had sacrificed her honor. The perfume may have been her only thing of true value left. Yet she knew the truth: Christ deserved every last drop.

My own tears fall hard reading her story. Though not identical, I have made decisions which led others to judge me harshly. Those judgments became my identity. Was I loved? No, I felt tarnished beyond repair. Was I the one sinner Jesus couldn’t save? Maybe.

Yet Jesus, in his insurmountable goodness looked past all that and saw only Mary’s desire to give him everything. He raised her from the status of tarnished sinner to that of a woman whose story was worth telling in every generation to come.

If our Jesus can redeem and use someone’s story such like Mary’s, he can do the same for us!