Whenever I check a bag at the airport, I always unintentionally hold my breath. Although I have an idea of how heavy my suitcase might be, I am never 100% certain that my bag’s weight will meet the airport’s luggage weight requirement. The heaviest bag I have ever weighed ended up being 8 pounds overweight. When I weighed it, I thought, “I should have known this would far exceed the weight limit.” This thought came to me because I had a tough time carrying it, lifting it in my trunk, and even lifting the bag to be weighed at the airport’s baggage checking station. The next day my back was sore because the bag had been too heavy. I should have asked for help lifting and carrying the bag from my apartment to the airport that day. The truth is, we were not meant to carry our baggage alone, whether literal or metaphorical baggage. When we ask for help, we can avoid the pain that is inevitable from carrying heavy luggage alone.
Luke 7:37-38 tells a story of a woman who was not afraid to bring her baggage to Jesus. We do not know specific details about her past, but based on the context of Luke 7, it is evident that she had a questionable history filled with sin. While Jesus was having a meal, this woman came to Him, brought expensive perfume, and anointed His feet, washing them with her tears (verses 37-38). This moment with Jesus symbolized her bringing everything to Jesus, the good, bad, and ugly and thanking Him for all He had done for her. She was in no way ashamed of humbling herself before Jesus. And He was pleased with her openness, honesty, and love.
It is true, we all carry some type of baggage, whether that is a sin struggle, fear, anxiety, shame, or any other baggage. While we all carry our own baggage, we do not have to be alone as we carry it. We can bring it to God. He is not scared, nor will He refuse to deal with our baggage. He wants to help us carry it. He wants to take it from us and replace it with freedom, forgiveness, and peace. You can come to Him with every piece of baggage you are carrying today.
Hopefully, by now, you have taken time to sort through the baggage you are carrying. Today it is time to bring it to God. Tell Him about your baggage and lay it at His feet. Tell Him you are sorry for the areas you have messed up, and ask Him for peace, joy, and increased faith in Him where those things are needed. Ask Him to take your baggage and lift it away for you.
When Jesus had finished saying all this to the people, he returned to Capernaum. At that time the highly valued slave of a Roman officer was sick and near death. When the officer heard about Jesus, he sent some respected Jewish elders to ask him to come and heal his slave. So they earnestly begged Jesus to help the man. “If anyone deserves your help, he does,” they said, “for he loves the Jewish people and even built a synagogue for us.”
So Jesus went with them. But just before they arrived at the house, the officer sent some friends to say, “Lord, don’t trouble yourself by coming to my home, for I am not worthy of such an honor. I am not even worthy to come and meet you. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to the crowd that was following him, he said, “I tell you, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!” And when the officer’s friends returned to his house, they found the slave completely healed.
Jesus Raises a Widow’s Son
Soon afterward Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, and a large crowd followed him. A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The young man who had died was a widow’s only son, and a large crowd from the village was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. “Don’t cry!” he said. Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Young man,” he said, “I tell you, get up.” Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk! And Jesus gave him back to his mother.
Great fear swept the crowd, and they praised God, saying, “A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and “God has visited his people today.” And the news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding countryside.
Jesus and John the Baptist
The disciples of John the Baptist told John about everything Jesus was doing. So John called for two of his disciples, and he sent them to the Lord to ask him, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?”
John’s two disciples found Jesus and said to him, “John the Baptist sent us to ask, ‘Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?’”
At that very time, Jesus cured many people of their diseases, illnesses, and evil spirits, and he restored sight to many who were blind. Then he told John’s disciples, “Go back to John and tell him what you have seen and heard—the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” And he added, “God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.”
After John’s disciples left, Jesus began talking about him to the crowds. “What kind of man did you go into the wilderness to see? Was he a weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind? Or were you expecting to see a man dressed in expensive clothes? No, people who wear beautiful clothes and live in luxury are found in palaces. Were you looking for a prophet? Yes, and he is more than a prophet. John is the man to whom the Scriptures refer when they say,
‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
and he will prepare your way before you.’
I tell you, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of God is greater than he is!”
When they heard this, all the people—even the tax collectors—agreed that God’s way was right, for they had been baptized by John. But the Pharisees and experts in religious law rejected God’s plan for them, for they had refused John’s baptism.
“To what can I compare the people of this generation?” Jesus asked. “How can I describe them? They are like children playing a game in the public square. They complain to their friends,
‘We played wedding songs,
and you didn’t dance,
so we played funeral songs,
and you didn’t weep.’
For John the Baptist didn’t spend his time eating bread or drinking wine, and you say, ‘He’s possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’ But wisdom is shown to be right by the lives of those who follow it.[g]”
Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.
