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First Impressions
Contributed by Michael Koplitz on Dec 3, 2024 (message contributor)
Summary: Luke 7:36-39, Mary M. pours perfumed oil on Jesus' feet, is an example of how wrong one can be using only first impressions of another person.
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First impressions
Luke 7:36 – 39
Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz
36 Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Him to eat with him, and He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 aAnd there was a woman in the city who was a 1sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, 38 and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, and began kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were aa prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a 1sinner!”
In chapter 7 of Luke’s gospel starting on verse 36 and only going to verse 39 we have an interesting story about Jesus being at a home. He was reclining at a table which indicates that a meal was about to occur. We were also told that he was in a Pharisee’s house. This reminds us that Jesus came for everyone. He came for those who came to love him and appreciated the salvation and forgiveness of sin he offers, and he also came for those who didn’t understand who he was or might have flat out rejected him.
To continue with the story, he was having dinner with these Pharisees there would’ve been men around the table and the women would’ve been serving the men, sorry ladies that’s just the custom of the day, and Mary Magdalene comes into the house uninvited and pours perfume oil on Jesus’ feet. Let me stop at this point of the story because there’s some customs here you need to be aware of. The first is that when a dinner was held in a house the women of the house would prepare the meal and serve it to the men. The men would sit at the table in a reclined position.
The reclined position comes from the understanding of what happened during the exodus from Egypt. If you were to go to a Passover Seder, you would find that if the people being true to the tradition they would be at the table reclining. Of course, today it’s a little difficult to recline because we’re in chairs where in Jesus’ day they were sitting on the floor so it’s easy to recline. Why were they reclining? Because free men and women reclined when they were at a dinner table. It’s a custom that goes all the way back to Egypt and is still used today in certain places.
The other custom to understand is that only certain people were allowed in the Pharisee’s homes. Mary Magdalene was considered a harlot and there was no way she was going to get invited to come into a Pharisee’s home. Therefore, she had to barge in while the dinner was going on in order to do what she did. We know from the story that the Pharisee head of the household, tried to stop her. And Jesus said no let her do what she’s doing. By Jesus allowing her to stay in the room and anoint his feet he was demonstrating the mission that God had sent him on and that is God sent Jesus to be for the entire world not just a small population.
The other part of the culture that I want to inform you of is that women did not touch men who were not their husband or a very close family member. The same thing goes for men touching women. One exception to this custom I must say is that if the woman was a harlot, then man would touch her and that was not considered a violation of the customs of the day which I think is pretty odd. However, without the ability to touch the harlot then you wouldn’t have prostitution, and you would not have any harlots. Does that sound really strange or what. The culture made an exception for women who were prostitutes. Remember we don’t have to agree with what they did 2000 years ago we just have to understand that’s what they did and that’s how they felt.
Let’s get back to the story now that you have all the culture in place. There are many ways I can go from here and I’m going to pick one which I call first impressions. The Pharisees in that house might not have known anything about Mary Magdalene. They were not in the town that Mary lived in. The Pharisee host probably did not know she was a harlot because she didn’t blacken her eyes or wear a colorful dress which was the custom of the day for harlots, so they were easily to be identified. However, the Pharisee host said no to Mary entering the house.