She takes out the two slender sticks holding her hair at the crown of her head. Her long black hair falls past her shoulders to her waist. She wraps her hair around her fingers and bends to the floor wiping and kissing His feet. You didn t give me water for my feet, but she s washing them with her own tears and drying them with her hair. Your faith has saved you.
Some scholars say an alabaster box and ointment was worth a life s savings.
All four gospels contain a story where a woman anoints Jesus with oil or costly ointment, although the details vary. Luke portrays an unnamed woman with an immoral past who performs this act out of intense love and worship and not as preparation for Jesus burial, as is portrayed in the other gospels. In Matthew and Mark, the woman is unidentified, but the setting is at Simon the leper s house. In John, the woman is identified as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, but doesn t mention an immoral past. Although John s account seems to have lost the precise context of the story, the emotional display of affection was impressive enough to be included in the oral history of the early church.