A Sheep of a Different Color

8.9.2011

John 11:2 2 This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. NIV

You know, this statement is spoken in the present tense about a past event. This Mary, is the present descriptive for the word, was, describing the past. In Luke 7, (cf. Vv. 36ff) an unnamed woman anoints Jesus with perfume and wipes His feet with her hair much to the disgust of the host of the party.

Now, lest I venture onto thin theological ice, I’m thinking John wrote about Mary in John 11 and so did Luke in Luke 7. John’s gospel was written after Luke’s and it just may be the two writers were sharing the same story. John even mentions in John 12 that Mary anoints Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair. Now unless Mary is the one in Luke 7, I think it fairly coincidental that two unrelated women do the same act on two different occasions. I think it more logical that the same woman did the same thing on two different occasions. Just a thought… And if my thinking holds any water, then there is something to consider when we think about Mary and maybe what kind of woman she may have been.

The woman in Luke’s narrative is designated by the Pharisee host as a sinful woman: When the Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw what the woman was doing to Jesus, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:39) If this is in fact, Mary, then it shines a light on who she was. We might miss this if we’re not careful.

Almost every family has a sheep or two whose wool is somewhat less than dazzling white. Martha seemed to complain that Mary didn’t do her fair share (Luke 10.40). Maybe Mary was a tad distracted. If she is the woman in Luke 7 then she had much to be distracted about – she’d been forgiven much. The sheep in the family whose wool is brighter than the black one tend to not be forgiven much because they do their part and live up to the responsibilities they have; their lives, at least from their perspective, are better than the flaky black sheep. But then the brighter whiter ones aren’t the ones who crash a party and start anointing God with perfume and wiping His feet with their hair and kissing them.

Mary may have indeed been a sheep of a different color but her heart was golden because she’d been touched by God. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52:7 NIV) Mary just may have heard the good news and responded accordingly.