This woman could have heard the news about a carpenter from Galilee who healed many and maybe one of her patrons told her about the miracles Jesus had done on many people. The only description we have about this woman as Luke wrote: “a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town.” She could be what we consider nowadays as a high profile prostitute who works among the elite of the place.
One day, one of her patrons who had experienced the transforming power of Jesus and came to her not as her usual patron but as a reformed person and told the woman everything that Jesus had done for him, how all his guilt in life was completely removed and forgiven. It was such words that our woman subject direly wanted to experience and sought to see Jesus in person. In her unlit room, and in deep loneliness and pain of soul, this woman had prayed to God for forgiveness. Then God heard her prayer. In an unexpected moment, this woman heard that Jesus came as a guest in the house of a Pharisee named Simon.
Even though uninvited, she broke the norm and tried to gatecrash in Simon’s place. Now it was Jewish custom to prepare a set of gesture of hospitality for an honored guest. Simon, the host had denied to give Jesus such honor. The washing of feet of the guest, kissing the guest and anointing the head with oil, all of these were denied by Simon as a host to Jesus.
A strange scenario took place. The woman who gatecrash on Simon’s place took charge of the host’s failure by giving honor to Jesus. She surpassed the common practice by kneeling at the feet of Jesus and kissing it, she cried and her tears dropping on the Lord’s feet, she wiped Jesus’s feet with her hair. Then she broke an alabaster of perfume and poured it at the feet of Jesus. She surpassed all Jewish traditions.
God had remembered her prayers in the dark, her remorse over her many sins was seen by God. Then Jesus looked at her in the eyes and assured her with these words: “Woman, your sins are forgiven.”