Luke 7

Picture yourself having just listened to Jesus give the Sermon on the Mount and imagine the most unlikely scenario you can for what would happen next. A Roman Centurion - one of the most feared and hated people in all of Israel - sent Jewish elders (didn't even come himself) to ask Jesus to heal his servant. And when Jesus agreed his request was immediately followed up with a message for Jesus to not even bother coming, just say the word. And the best part is that Jesus actually healed his servant! Talk about radical faith. The Centurion's faith even amazed Jesus. Is that our faith? Does our confidence in Jesus amaze Him - or does our faith frustrate Him, like the faith of the disciples often did? It's not a competition. A mustard seed is all you need, but is that what you have?

How compassionate is Jesus? Luke tells us of a time when Jesus saw a woman mourning her dead son and He had compassion on her. Luke doesn't say that anyone asked Jesus to do anything, and this wasn't a private matter because the boy was already being carried out in a coffin. Jesus, of His own initiative, walked up and raised the boy to life and gave him back to his mother - and left everyone awestruck. Just trying to imagine myself being there in the crowd leaves my head spinning with amazement.

And then we see John, who of all people we would expect to have no doubts about Jesus, asking if He is really the Messiah. John heard about everything Jesus was doing, but was himself still sitting in a prison cell - and not even for a crime, but for rebuking a sinful leader. You and I would probably agree with John that surely Jesus would want to free him from such unjust captivity. But Jesus wasn't there to overthrow the Roman government, He was there to defeat sin. He assured John that everything was going according to God's plan, even if that was not the plan John (or us) expected.

And Jesus was not angry at John, or otherwise disinterested in John's circumstances. He told everyone that John is the messenger that Israel was waiting for - he was, in fact, playing a major part in God's plan. But John was not the point of God's plan - only a part of it. Remember that Jesus told us too that we must go low in order to follow Him. We too must be willing to face persecution, unjust imprisonment, and even execution for our faith in Him.

Then Luke changes to a scene where Jesus was invited to eat at a Pharisee's house, and a sinful woman showed up and annointed Jesus with perfume. There are a few different interpretations across Christendom on who the woman was. From what I have learned this was not the same scene where Jesus was annointed with expensive perfume in Bethany in the week before He was crucified. This woman is also not Mary Magdelene, nor was she a prostitute. Many of those interpretations come from Popes many centuries ago, and not from scholars. The woman was probably wealthy, and a prominent figure in the community. She seems to have gained access to the Pharisee's house unhindered, and was able to approach Jesus without anyone trying to stop her. The fact that everyone knew she was a sinner means that they probably knew her. The theory that makes the most sense to me is that this woman was politically connected and had used manipulation, bribery, and everything else she was capable of to get whatever she wanted. The idea is that she was among her peers when she annointed Jesus's feet, and He forgave her right there in front of them while teaching them all a lesson about their own need for forgiveness.