The saddest thing of all

by Tami Rudkin
Tuesday, June 3, 2008 1:50 PM MDT

We are rugged individuals.

We pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, dust ourselves off and jump back on the bucking bronc, or something like that.

All of my life, I have heard people refer to us Wyomingites like this. We do it our way and in our time.

However, I’m not sure we have a corner on the market when it comes to wanting to be independent and self-sufficient. I think this is our basic nature, especially in America. We have this attitude ingrained in us from the time we are young.

As a consequence, I believe that it is difficult to truly rely on and trust in God completely.

The one thing that shuts us off from the loving embrace and the power of God is self-sufficiency, or more aptly spoken, independence.

One of the biographers of Jesus’ life tells a story that illustrates this idea.

The drama unfolds in the home of Simon the Pharisee. As was typical of the more upscale homes, this one had a beautiful courtyard with gardens and perhaps a fountain. In the warmer weather, meals were served there.

Customarily when a rabbi was invited to dinner, a small crowd gathered outside the short walls of the courtyard to watch and listen to the table conversation.

That explains why the woman was there.

Who knows where she had come from that day. We know she was a prostitute.

Had she left a man in her bed to come find Jesus? Was she breaking the rules of her “john” (what were they called back then?) to look for Jesus?

Did she cower on the fringe of the crowd afraid of what the other townspeople would say if they saw her? Would they laugh at her, spit at her, ignore her?

Probably, but it didn’t stop her from moving slowly, edging her way first to the wall of the courtyard and then to the feet of Jesus. You could hear a pin drop.

The crowd that was murmuring as they felt her moving, gossiping as they saw her face, now stopped as all eyes fell on her and Jesus.

The woman, abused at the hands of men, fell at the feet of a man who could heal her heart. So moved by the love in his eyes, she wept. And with those tears washed the dusty feet of he who came to set her free.

Reverently, she dried his tear-stained feet with her hair, took a valuable bottle of perfume from around her neck and poured it on his feet.

The woman, shamed by her life choices, needed Jesus.

Simon, the wealthy and super religious, thought he didn’t. Simon was disgusted with her display, but even more repelled by the fact that Jesus would give her the time of day, let alone touch him so intimately.

Simon was puffed up with pride. He was, after all, rich and respected. Through the veil of his personal affluence, he couldn’t see his need for a savior.

How pathetically sad, there he was, Jesus, the creator of the universe, the good shepherd, the hope of all mankind, and Simon missed it.

That’s what self-sufficiency and independence can do to each of us … it blinds us to the one who could free us.

We are fairly independent characters out here in the West. That’s OK unless it keeps us from seeing our spiritual need -- because missing Jesus is the saddest thing of all.

(Larry and Linda Kloster sponsor this column.)

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