SERMON XIII.

THE REPENTANT WOMAN 1.

LUKE vii. 37, 38.

And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

THERE is a portion of the Sacred History related by each of the other Evangelists, which possesses so many points of resemblance to this which is written by St. Luke, that, by some commentators, they have been regarded as only different relations of the same event. Thus, in both cases, we find that the person to whose house our Saviour

1 Preached in the Chapel of the Magdalen Hospital on the fifth of May, 1835, being the Seventy-seventh Anniversary of that Institution.

came, bore the name of Simon; although to one is attached the designation of the leper', and to the other that of the Pharisee. In both cases, the devotedness of woman's faith is described rejoicing to pay homage to the Son of God, by the same outward acts of reverence; in both, the language of harsh remonstrance and complaint is said to have been drawn forth from the spectators; and in both, an answer is returned by the Redeemer, which rebukes the adversaries of the woman, and gives the assurance of pardon and of peace to her own spirit. But, notwithstanding these marked coincidences, it will be found, I think, upon a careful comparison of the records of St. Matthew, of St. Mark, and of St. John, with that of St. Luke in the present passage, that they refer to two separate and distinct occurrences. For St. Matthew and St. Mark agree in stating that the event which they describe took place in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper. And St. John confirms their narrative, by saying,

1 Compare Matt. xxvi. 6. and Mark xiv. 3.-Maldonatus, in his commentary upon the former of these passages, gives another reason, in addition to those which are here enumerated, for believing that Simon the leper could not have been the same person as Simon the Pharisee: namely, that the time in which our Lord entered the house of the former at Bethany, being in the last week of His ministry, when all the Pharisees were enraged and conspiring against Him, it is highly improbable that one of their own body should at such a moment have invited Him into his house.

that, she who "anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair 1" was Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus; and that they dwelt at Bethany, a village, that "was nigh unto Jerusalem." Whereas, in the case now before us, we are expressly told, that the woman had her abode in the city in which our Lord then was; and, since the only places mentioned in the present chapter are Nain and Capernaum, which were situated in Galilee, the fair and obvious conclusion is, that she must have belonged to the one or the other of those cities. There is a yet further evidence in corroboration of this view, arising from the consideration of the time at which these several events are stated to have occurred. For, immediately after the narrative which is here given by St. Luke, we read that our Lord "went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God 2." Whereas the other instance is related by St. John, in that portion of his Gospel which details the miracle of our Lord's raising Lazarus from the grave;—a miracle which marked the closing scenes of His ministry;-and after which it is expressly said, that He ❝ walked no more openly among the Jews"." Nay, the language wherewith our Lord rebuked the disciples on that occasion, for complaining of the waste of the ointment which Mary had

66

1 Compare John xi. 2. and xii. 3.

* Luke viii. 1.

3 John xi. 54.

poured upon His body, has an immediate reference to the hour of trial which was then at hand; for He assured them that she had done that act for His burial. Besides which, the persons who murmured upon that occasion were the disciples of our Lord; or, to speak more precisely, the covetous and false Judas; and the plea which he urged was that the ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor. Whereas, in the case now before us, the man who censured our Lord was neither Judas, nor any other of the Apostles, but Simon the Pharisee, in whose house He then sat at meat; and the ground of his censure was, not that an useless waste of precious ointment had been made; but that our Lord seemed ignorant of the sinful character of the person whom He permitted to draw near unto Him. Now, we no where find such terms of ignominy applied to Mary of Bethany. Weak and erring she must have been, like every other daughter of those fallen parents by whom sin entered into the world, and death by sin. Yea, the very conviction of her weakness had brought her to the feet of Jesus, to listen patiently to His truth, and to choose that good part which should never be taken from her. But still we find no evidence for believing that she ever was an open and notorious transgressor of God's law. On the contrary, we are told that

1

Compare Matt. xxvi. 12. and John xii. 7.

Jesus loved her, and Martha, and Lazarus.

In the fulness of her grateful yet trembling joy, she poured the costly ointment on the head of Him who had revealed tidings of salvation to her soul; and heard Him blessing her, and saying, "Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her 1."

Such was Mary of Bethany; and such her consolation and hope. But we have no warrant for believing that any such peculiar privilege had been extended unto the woman whose history we are about to consider2. She, the Evangelist tells us, was a sinner. Of the depth and enormity of her sin, he gives no record; yet the expression which he uses 3, and the repetition of it in the reproachful language employed by Simon afterwards, are evidence enough to show that she had worn the badge of infamy; that she was an outcast from home and happiness; and had become an object for the finger of scorn to point at. But, sinner though she had been, she now no longer deserves the name. Her very com

1 Matt. xxvi. 13.

2 Lightfoot, indeed, in his Exercitations on St. Luke, Vol. xii. p. 82. supposes that she was the same with Mary Magdalen, out of whom our Lord had cast seven devils. (Mark xvi. 9.) But he does not affirm it as a thing certain; neither can it be so affirmed by any.

3 See Hammond in loc.