Then He said to her, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” Luke 7:50
We’ve been looking at the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet in Luke 7. “Go in peace.” Jesus said to her. What healing power can be found in those three words. And she did. The unwelcome party crasher experienced real peace. Redemptive peace. For the first time in her difficult life she was free, clean, and forgiven. The peace that “passes all understanding” was hers. No more condemnation and no more shame. No more seeking human approval . . . she had Jesus’ approval. How many of us can say the same?
We’ve been looking at a very intimate picture of worship provided to us in Luke 7 of a woman who came and anointed Jesus’ feet.
She didn’t put off her act of worship until it was dark and no one could see her (like Nicodemus).
She didn’t put it off until she was with a safe group – just a few of His devoted followers on a mountain somewhere (like Peter).
She didn’t wait until the time others would have considered ‘proper’ for worship.
Just a couple of verses later, Luke writes that Magdalene was following Jesus and His disciples in a support role. After all, this world was no longer her home anymore than it was Jesus’ home. She now lived in His Kingdom full-time and totally focused on Him.
Magdalene successfully made the transition between the two kingdoms—the kingdom of this world and the Kingdom of God. She left the one and eagerly embraced the other. It’s likely that Simon the Pharisee never made that jump, and he missed seeing the resurrected Jesus premier appearance; but she did—and she was the only one who did.
Think about where we started this story: Jesus said “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship in spirit and truth; yes, there are a kind of people the Father is pursuing to be His worshipers” (John 4:23-24) In other words, NOW is the time for true worshipers to get it right: to worship God in spirit and in truth.
No, we’re not talking about worshiping in church meetings at all, we’re not talking about styles and preferences. We’re certainly not talking about the passionless, stale, exercises of rote religion that Barna’s statistics (last time) told us about. That is not only false worship, but self-seeking and hypocritical. Simon the Pharisee, host of the banquet Jesus was attending . . . he would have felt at home in that kind of lifeless religious exercise.
But Jesus said there are some who claim to follow Him that actually get it right! They truly worship Him—not according to their own standards and dictates or in a fashion designed to be pleasing to themselves, but they truly worship Him!—His way and for His glory.
These worshipers literally lose themselves in Jesus. They become desperately carried away in the total adoration of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So who are these people and what makes them so special? How do they worship? What do they do, if anything, that’s different from those of us those Barna statistics describe? Why is God so pleased with them that He actively seeks them out? What do they have that we don’t have? What can we learn from their lives?
More importantly, how can we become the type of person God the Father actively seeks as His worshiper? That’s why we’re looking at Magdalene. Her life can teach us some things about true worship.