Your sins are forgiven.
—Luke 7:48
She dared to crash the party and wash Jesus’ feet with her tears.
Accustomed to being scorned, she ignored the contempt of the Pharisee host. Jesus, too, brushed off the censure of the self-righteous host and said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Most commentators assume she was a prostitute, but the text doesn’t say so. It simply pegs her as “a sinner”—so each of us has our mug in that photo.
“Your sins are forgiven.” Maybe she knew—or maybe she didn’t—that he was giving her what she needed more than anything else: forgiveness.
Bottom line, that’s what each of us needs more than anything else: forgiveness.
And if the story tells us anything, it tells us that is what we can have: forgiveness.
Our sins may be inexcusable,
but they are not unforgivable.