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Who is This Who Even Forgives Sins?
June 17, 2007
By Philip D. Ropp
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We are all
familiar with the words of Jesus in Luke 12:48: "To whom much has been
given, much will be expected." Today we learn that to whom much
has been forgiven, much can be expected. And the three examples
that we are given who exemplify this truth are King David, Saint Paul,
and Saint Mary Magdalene.
In the previous chapter of the Book of Samuel,
from where today's first reading is drawn, we learn that David has
spotted the lovely Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite, bathing.
Overcome with lust, he has the woman brought to him, one thing leads to
another, and soon Bathsheba has sent word to David that she is with
child from their encounter. We meet Uriah, who is the armor
bearer of Joab, one of Israel's greatest generals. There is no
one in all of Israel more loyal to David and more dedicated to his duty
than Uriah the Hittite, yet David responds to his own sin of adultery
with the sin of murder, by ordering Joab to put Uriah in harm's way,
where it is certain that he will be cut down in battle. And this
is, of course, what happens. David is then free to marry
Bathsheba, which he does. She bears him a son, a potential heir
to the throne, and it appears that David has gotten away with his dirty
deeds.
Then
enters Nathan the prophet, bearing the LORD God's condemnation of
David's illicit acts. When confronted with his sin, David
responds with repentance and admits, "I have sinned against the
LORD." Keep in mind that wicked kings of Israel would later put
prophets to death for much less than this kind of personal
accusation. Nathan offers David the assurance of God's
forgiveness, and in the verses that follow, he informs David that the
child born out of his sin must die. And though David, with all his
strength, beseeches the LORD on behalf of this son, the boy does indeed
pass into the loving arms of God. But it is in thus coming to
grips with this sin that David's faith is allowed to flourish.
And, so, Bathsheba conceives again and bears him another son, and this
child, born out of his repentance, will grow up to be King Solomon, who
will reign with legendary wisdom and bring the golden age of Israel to
its fullest flower.
The
lesson to be learned is that the greatness of Israel as a nation did
not arise out of David's talents as a ruthless and cunning
administrator, or because in a time of unbridled violence he was a
warrior of unmatched prowess as a killer of men. What we should
remember of David is the Psalms he left behind, some of the most
spiritual and God filled words ever penned, and rightfully respected as
among the greatest works of prophetic and inspirational Sacred
Scripture. Who can count the souls these Psalms have brought to
God over the past 3000 years? What we should remember of David is the
legacy of the Messiah that he established and that was fulfilled in the
birth of Jesus Christ. Eternal salvation came to the world through
Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ came to the world through the House of
David. And we should know that David, the greatest man in the world of
his day, accomplished all of this because, when he was confronted with
his own sinful nature, he fell to his knees and offered his sins to
God, and in so doing found repentance, reconciliation and the true
fulfillment of greatness in the kingdom of God. David speaks most
eloquently for himself in Psalm 32, where we read:
Happy
the
sinner whose fault is removed, whose sin is forgiven.
Happy those to whom the LORD imputes no guilt, in whose spirit is no
deceit.
As long as I kept silent, my bones wasted away; I groaned all the day.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength withered as
in dry summer heat.
Then I declared my sin to you; my guilt I did not hide.
I said, "I confess my faults to the LORD," and you took away the guilt
of my sin.
There
is, perhaps, no greater example of God's saving power manifested
through the act of repentance than that of Paul. Certainly, there
was no greater persecutor of Christians in the earliest days of the
church, and no greater evidence of this than the kind of zeal this man
displayed for the faith, once his heart was turned to Jesus. Many
of us are like Paul in that we are so wrapped up in the cause of our
own
self justification, that the Lord must knock us from the saddle of our
own high horse merely to get our attention. In Paul's case, he would
embrace God's forgiveness and boldly proclaim the Gospel message of
salvation through Jesus Christ to priest and king, Jew and Gentile,
slave and free, as both the greatest exponent and living example of the
power of repentance and God's ready willingness to forgive sin.
In Acts
26, when Paul is presenting his witness to King Agrippa, he describes
his ministry as "... first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem and
throughout the whole
country of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached the need to
repent and turn to God, and to do works giving evidence of
repentance." And so, these words of Paul call to us across the
centuries, and echo in every soul that thirsts for life to turn to God
and turn from sin. Like Paul, we can do no better than to
dedicate ourselves to the greatest of these works giving evidence of
repentance, which is urging others to do likewise: For there is
no greater advice that we can either receive or give than "repent and
believe the Gospel."
Today's
Gospel finds Simon the Pharisee offended at the woman of sin that has
entered his home because she cannot be kept from Jesus any
longer. And so she weeps, anoints his feet with precious
ointment, and proceeds to wash them with her tears and wipe them with
her hair, all the while showering them with kisses. Church
Tradition has long identified this woman with Mary Magdalene, and while
there is no internal evidence within the Gospel to prove this, we do
know that Mary was dramatically delivered of the seven demons, and that
this story is most certainly consistent with the wholesome kind
of love and intense gratitude she showed the Savior. It is,
then, more logical to presume that this woman is the Magdalene than to
believe her to be the unholy consort of Jesus as portrayed in the evil
writings of the ancient Gnostic heretics, and as popularized by modern
heretics in such rubbish as Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The DaVinci Code.
As this
weeping and anointing, washing and wiping is going on, Jesus senses
Simon's unease and disgust, and so he figures this to be just the time
for a quick parable. He uses the example of two debtors; one
who owes little and one who owes much. When the debt is forgiven
both, Simon determines correctly that it is the one that is forgiven
more that has the most love for the generous creditor that has "written
off" the debt. While Simon and his other guests have been so busy
judging the merits of the woman at the feet of Jesus, they have
themselves neglected to provide him with even the most basic item of
common Judean hospitality: water for him to wash his own feet.
And so, in that gentle and subtle way of his, Jesus has taught us
valuable lessons in both humility and gratitude. He who owes the
greatest debt is, in the end, all a matter of perception. To be
forgiven much is preferable to not asking for or receiving any
forgiveness at all.
Since the
time that Adam and Eve did willfully take and eat of the forbidden
fruit, we have been cursed with death. From the moment that we
draw our first breath we live on borrowed time until that day in which
we expel our last. The joke is, therefore, on us, for we are all
indebted to the maximum amount. And if it were not for the love of God
as exhibited through the saving grace of Christ, who came and lived and
died that we might rise again to eternity with him, we would have no
hope but to return to the dust from which we came. And Jesus
asks no more of us than Paul did: Repent and believe the Gospel, and, in
doing so, know what it means to be forgiven of sins both original and
personal by which we are condemned, and from which there is no
deliverance but through him. And so it is that when we come fully to
the realization of just what it is that has been done for us at the
cross, and that what it means is a life eternal, of which we are most
unworthy, begging forgiveness for the myriad of sins that have already
condemned us seems a small enough price to pay.
And so, Mary
Magdalene or woman unknown, the lesson to be learned is that
this is the kind of repentant heart that we are to assume. If we
are able to come to the full and complete understanding of what it is
that Jesus has done for us, then we, too, should find ourselves weeping
at his feet and anointing him with the precious ointment that
represents all that we are and have. For he has died on our
behalf, and, in return, asks only that we repent, believe and do the
best we can. |
2
Sm 12:7-10, 13
Nathan said to David:
“Thus says the LORD God of Israel:
‘I anointed you king of Israel.
I rescued you from the hand of Saul.
I gave you your lord’s house and your lord’s wives for your own.
I gave you the house of Israel and of Judah.
And if this were not enough, I could count up for you still more.
Why have you spurned the Lord and done evil in his sight?
You have cut down Uriah the Hittite with the sword;
you took his wife as your own,
and him you killed with the sword of the Ammonites.
Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house,
because you have despised me
and have taken the wife of Uriah to be your wife.’
Then David said to Nathan,
“I have sinned against the LORD.”
Nathan answered David:
“The LORD on his part has forgiven your sin:
you shall not die.”
Ps
32:1-2, 5, 7, 11
R. (cf. 5c) Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
Blessed is the one whose fault is taken away,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed the man to whom the LORD imputes not guilt,
in whose spirit there is no guile.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
I acknowledged my sin to you,
my guilt I covered not.
I said, “I confess my faults to the LORD,”
and you took away the guilt of my sin.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
You are my shelter; from distress you will
preserve me;
with glad cries of freedom you will ring me round.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you just;
exult, all you upright of heart.
R. Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.
Gal
2:16, 19-21
Brothers and sisters:
We who know that a person is not justified by works of the law
but through faith in Jesus Christ,
even we have believed in Christ Jesus
that we may be justified by faith in Christ
and not by works of the law,
because by works of the law no one will be justified.
For through the law I died to the law,
that I might live for God.
I have been crucified with Christ;
yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me;
insofar as I now live in the flesh,
I live by faith in the Son of God
who has loved me and given himself up for me.
I do not nullify the grace of God;
for if justification comes through the law,
then Christ died for nothing.
Lk
7:36—8:3 or 7:36-50
A Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him,
and he entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table.
Now there was a sinful woman in the city
who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee.
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.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself,
“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.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“Simon, I have something to say to you.”
“Tell me, teacher, ” he said.
“Two people were in debt to a certain creditor;
one owed five hundred days’ wages and the other owed fifty.
Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both.
Which of them will love him more?”
Simon said in reply,
“The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.”
He said to him, “You have judged rightly.”
Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon,
“Do you see this woman?
When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet,
but she has bathed them with her tears
and wiped them with her hair.
You did not give me a kiss,
but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered.
You did not anoint my head with oil,
but she anointed my feet with ointment.
So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven
because she has shown great love.
But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”
He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
The others at table said to themselves,
“Who is this who even forgives sins?”
But he said to the woman,
“Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Afterward he journeyed from one town and village to another,
preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.
Accompanying him were the Twelve
and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities,
Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,
Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza,
Susanna, and many others who provided for them
out of their resources.
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