The Women Jesus Remembered

Lot's Wife Courtesy Pixabay.com

There are two women mentioned in the Bible that we're supposed to remember. In Luke 17:32 Jesus told us to "Remember Lot's Wife." You know the story of Lot's wife. You can find it in Gen 19. Lot, his wife, and two daughters were trying to escape the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their instructions from the angle from the Lord was to run and not look back. Lot's wife disobeyed and turned into a pillar of salt.

The other woman was Mary, the sister of Lazarus. All four gospels relate this story from each disciples' perspective. I use the bare bones of it. Jesus was at a friend's house for lunch when Mary, a former harlot, came in and kneeled at Jesus' feet and washed them with her tears and dry them with her hair. When the friend was thinking about the woman and her sins and Judas worried about how much the perfume cost, Jesus told a story intended to show them why she did what she did. When he finished, he said, "Leave her alone; why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful deed to Me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them whenever you want. But you will not always have Me. She has done what she could to anoint My body in advance of My burial. And truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached in all the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her."

Anyone who ever sat in a Sunday School class for any length of time has heard about both these women. Two women Jesus wanted us remembered for two very different reasons. We remember Lot's wife for her failure and Mary for her love and devotion to God. There are no other women mentioned in this manner by Jesus. In fact, I don't recall anyone in the Bible saying we were to remember anyone else. 

Simple obedience would have saved Lot's wife. Her fate was needless and stupid. Why was it necessary to look back? Tell me, if angles showed up on your step and said your city was being destroyed and you had to get out now, what would you do? They recognized these men as angles and didn't express any doubt, but did as instructed and headed out of the city. 

The angles told them, "Whatever you do, don't look back!"

No one had a problem with it, except Lot's wife. Everything she loved was back there: the new dress she had begun, the cake in the oven, a lunch date with her friend, her home, her friends, her prestige all lay behind. Lot's wife saw nothing waiting ahead of her except a cave in the rocks. She needed just one final look. 

Mary, eyes clouded with tears, kneeled and washed the Lord's dirty feet. He walked all over the place from muddy streets to barn yards. But this woman, with her dirty reputation, entered uninvited and crouched down to clean all this from his feet with her tears and an expensive perfume and dried his feet with her hair. 

Mary didn't need to look back. She knew what lay behind her. Her home, her friends, and her prestige turned to ash when she entered "Sodom and Gomorrah". Instead, Mary turned her eyes on her Savior's feet and remembered him writing in the sand the day he destroyed her own Sodom and Gomorrah. When Jesus said "Go, and sin no more.", Mary ran and never looked back.

Remember Lot's wife. I think we're all like Lot's wife. We spend a lot of time looking back at what we've left behind for whatever reason. I know I do. Regret. Remorse. Whatever you want to call it. There is this tug to look back one more time. Fortunately for us, we do not turn into a pillar of salt.

Or do we? Jesus tells us we are 'the salt of the earth' in Matthew 5:13 and if we lose our savor, we're useless. Mark 9:49 says, "For everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt."

Perhaps the reason for Lot's wife's condition was more than just her punishment. She stands as a monument to all of those who looked back, longing for the things left behind. She stands useless, salt that has lost its savor.