Here is this woman, known to be a public sinner, who comes in and weeps over him, wipes his feet with her hair and keeps kissing them passionately. The guests are highly disturbed, shocked and probably embarrassed but Jesus remains perfectly at ease. Let us admire his ability to focus totally on the woman and not be self-conscious about the other people around. Jesus can see that the woman is expressing both sincere repentance and a great affection for him. She is expressing her repentance in the only way that she knows.

At this point her immoral past was totally irrelevant. In our society wrongdoers can be stuck with labels often for the rest of their lives irrespective of how they have changed. God does not work that way. He deals with persons as they are here and now. What I did yesterday does not matter. All that matters is what I am doing now, how I am relating to God and those around me right now.

Once again we see how God, in Jesus, always tries to rehabilitate and not to punish. Punishment destroys. God's desire is that we be all made whole and experience inner peace and harmony.