"Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven — for she loved much"
In the New Testament account of Holy Week, after Palm Sunday, the Sanhedrin gathered and plotted to kill Jesus before the feast of Pesach.[7] On the Wednesday before his death, Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the Leper. As he sat at the supper table with his disciples, a woman named Mary anointed Jesus' head and feet with a costly oil of spikenard.[8] The disciples were indignant, asking why the oil was not instead sold and the money given to the poor.[9]
The Parable of the Two Debtors is a parable of Jesus. It appears in Luke 7:36–7:50, where Jesus uses the parable to explain that the woman who has anointed him loves him more than his host, because she has been forgiven of greater sins.
"To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you." - C.S. Lewis
The parable is told in response to an unspoken reaction by Jesus' host, who is named Simon (and is sometimes identified with Simon the Leper):
One of the Pharisees invited him to eat with him. He entered into the Pharisee's house, and sat at the table. Behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that he was reclining in the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of ointment. Standing behind at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "This man, if he were a prophet, would have perceived who and what kind of woman this is who touches him, that she is a sinner." (Luke 7:36-39, World English Bible)
According to Luke, Jesus responds as follows:
Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you."He said, "Teacher, say on."
"A certain lender had two debtors. The one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they couldn't pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him most?"
Simon answered, "He, I suppose, to whom he forgave the most."
He said to him, "You have judged correctly." Turning to the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered into your house, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss, but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You didn't anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
— Luke 7:40-47, World English Bible
The denarius in this parable is a coin worth a labourer's daily wage.[3] In Roman Catholic tradition, the woman is identified with Mary Magdalene, although Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches generally disagree.[1] By the standards of the time, Simon the Pharisee has indeed been a poor host: at the very least he should have provided water so that Jesus could wash his dusty feet, and a kiss would have been the normal greeting.
But Judas Iscariot wanted to keep the money for himself.[10][11] Then Judas went to the Sanhedrin and offered to deliver Jesus to them in exchange for money. From this moment on, Judas sought an opportunity to betray Jesus.[12]
In reference to Judas Iscariot's intent to betray Jesus, formed on Holy Wednesday, the day is sometimes called "Spy Wednesday".[13][14][15] The word spy, as used in the term, means "ambush, ambuscade, snare".[16] Additionally, among the disciples, Judas clandestinely was a spy and Wednesday was the day he chose to betray Jesus.
the Hymn of Kassiani is sung. The hymn, (written in the 9th century by Kassia) tells of the woman who washed Christ's feet in the house of Simon the Leper (Luke 7:36–50). Much of the hymn is written from the perspective of the sinful woman:
O Lord, the woman who had fallen into many sins, sensing Your Divinity, takes upon herself the duty of a myrrh-bearer. With lamentations she brings you myrrh in anticipation of your entombment. "Woe to me!" she cries, "for me night has become a frenzy of licentiousness, a dark and moonless love of sin. Receive the fountain of my tears, O You who gather into clouds the waters of the sea. Incline unto me, unto the sighings of my heart, O You who bowed the heavens by your ineffable condescension. I will wash your immaculate feet with kisses and dry them again with the tresses of my hair; those very feet at whose sound Eve hid herself in fear when she heard You walking in Paradise in the twilight of the day. As for the multitude of my sins and the depths of Your judgments, who can search them out, O Savior of souls, my Savior? Do not disdain me Your handmaiden, O You who are boundless in mercy.