She Saw Only Jesus

The Freedom of a Heart That Has Forgotten the Room

“Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

— Luke 7:50

Everyone in the room is looking at the woman.

The woman is looking only at Jesus.

Perhaps this is the most beautiful thing about her.

She enters the house already known. Her reputation has arrived before her. Simon does not need to ask who she is. He knows—or thinks he knows.

A sinner.

The others surely know as well.

But she seems almost unaware of them.

She does not explain why she has come.

She does not defend herself.

She does not ask permission.

She does not look around the room to see how her actions are being received.

She sees Jesus.

And once she sees Him, everything else disappears.

There is something almost frightening in such freedom.

Most of us live with one eye upon God and another upon the room.

We pray, but we remain conscious of ourselves praying.

We repent, but wonder how our repentance appears.

We try to obey God while still wondering whether others understand us.

We desire Christ, yet remain painfully attentive to the judgments, expectations, disappointments, and opinions surrounding us.

The heart becomes divided.

The woman is no longer divided.

There is Jesus.

There are His feet.

There are her tears.

Nothing else seems to exist.

Perhaps this is why her actions appear so extravagant.

She wets His feet with her tears.

She wipes them with her hair.

She kisses them.

She pours out the ointment.

There is no calculation left in her.

Love has made her forget herself.

The Fathers understood this kind of forgetfulness.

They went into the desert not simply to escape the noise of the world but to acquire an undivided heart. They knew how easily we begin to live before the faces of others rather than before the face of God.

We imagine that freedom means becoming indifferent to what others think.

The Gospel shows us something deeper.

The woman does not overcome the gaze of others by becoming defiant.

She simply finds Someone more beautiful to look at.

She is not saying:

I do not care what you think of me.

She has forgotten to ask.

Christ has filled her vision.

This is very different from rebellion.

Rebellion still needs the room.

It still looks sideways.

It still defines itself against those who judge it.

But love has no time for this.

Love kneels.

Love weeps.

Love kisses the feet of Christ.

Simon is watching her.

Jesus is receiving her.

And she knows the difference.

There is a profound lesson here for anyone who has spent too much of life beneath the gaze of others.

There comes a point when we must stop rehearsing our explanations.

We must stop imagining conversations that have not happened.

We must stop defending ourselves before invisible tribunals.

We must stop trying to manage what every person thinks about the life God has given us.

Not because truth does not matter.

Not because obedience does not matter.

Not because correction does not matter.

But because none of these can be lived rightly while Christ remains at the edge of our vision.

He must become the center.

The woman teaches us how.

She does not enter the room with a theory of repentance.

She enters carrying perfume.

She does not offer Jesus an explanation of her past.

She offers Him tears.

She does not tell Him how sorry she is.

She kisses His feet.

Everything has become simple.

Perhaps repentance finally becomes this simple.

At first we see our sins everywhere.

This is necessary.

The heart must awaken. Illusions must fall. We must learn to tell the truth about ourselves before God.

But repentance cannot end with ourselves.

Eventually the eyes must rise from the wound to the Physician.

Otherwise even remorse can become another form of self-absorption.

The woman knows her sins.

Jesus Himself says that they are many.

But strangely, she does not seem preoccupied with them.

She is preoccupied with Him.

This may be one of the deepest movements of the spiritual life.

At first we say:

Look what I have done.

Then:

Look what has happened to me.

Then:

Look what others think of me.

But grace keeps drawing the eyes elsewhere.

Until eventually there is only:

Look at Christ.

Simon sees a sinner.

Christ sees love.

The room sees impropriety.

Christ sees faith.

The room remembers her past.

Christ announces her future:

Go in peace.

And the woman?

She sees only Him.

Perhaps holiness begins precisely here.

When Christ becomes more interesting to us than ourselves.

More interesting than our virtue.

More interesting than our failures.

More interesting than our reputation.

More interesting than whether we have been understood.

More interesting than whether we have been vindicated.

More interesting even than the story we have been telling ourselves about our own life.

There is only Jesus.

This is why the woman is already living in the desert while standing in the middle of a crowded room.

The desert is not merely a place without people.

The desert is the place where all the competing voices become quiet enough for one Voice to remain.

Simon is still speaking.

The guests are still whispering.

Judgments are still being made.

But she has gone somewhere they cannot follow.

She has entered the solitude of love.

There is Jesus.

And nothing can take Him from her.

How much freedom might come if we learned to live this way?

To enter the room without immediately wondering who approves.

To pray without watching ourselves pray.

To repent without becoming fascinated with our own unworthiness.

To suffer without continually asking what our suffering means.

To walk the path God places before us without constantly turning around to see who is following.

To have eyes only for Christ.

The elders often speak of simplicity.

Perhaps this is what they mean.

Not intellectual simplicity.

Not naïveté.

Not the refusal to discern.

But the gradual gathering of the scattered heart into one desire.

One thing is needful.

The woman has found it.

And once she has found it, even shame loses its power.

Everyone else remembers who she was.

She has discovered who He is.

That is enough.

The woman never answers Simon.

She never answers the murmuring guests.

Jesus answers for her.

There is something profoundly beautiful in this.

She does not defend herself because she has entrusted herself to Another.

And He turns toward her.

Your sins are forgiven.

The room begins whispering again.

Who is this, who even forgives sins?

Still she says nothing.

Jesus speaks.

Your faith has saved you; go in peace.

Perhaps this is the freedom for which the heart was created.

Not the freedom of finally being understood by everyone.

Not the freedom of having every accusation answered.

Not the freedom of possessing a life without ambiguity or suffering.

Something much greater.

The freedom of having found the face of Christ and no longer needing to look away.

The room may continue whispering.

Let it whisper.

There are feet to kiss.

There is mercy before us.

There is only Jesus.

And that is enough.