Hence, this outpouring of affection and penitence. She had heard from people that there was a man coming who was a friend of sinners, who understood them and did not censure. Jesus saw that happening and it thrilled him. He wanted to give that new life that was beginning to come up from beneath every encouragement. He could not say for sure whether she would ever go back to her old life.
Nobody ever can.
But he knew that at the moment she saw something better and that buried down underneath all the filth of the years was that which is pure in the human soul. Surely Jesus was not casual about moral weakness, but curative. No one could ever suppose he condoned what the woman had been doing if only because it led to so few fruits in life. What he was doing by his understanding was attempting to cure the life and change the pattern and lift it into something better. Henry Commager, the great professor of history at Columbia, has written a new book called The American Mind which is filled with phrases which once you read you never will forget.