“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” John 4:29
Jesus, I wish I could have been present to watch this stunned Samaritan woman recount the tale of her collision with the gospel—her story of meeting you and coming alive to the transforming power of grace (John 4:1-42). Water from Jacob’s well was superseded by the water you alone can give—living water that slakes our death-doling thirst.
You exposed her the sinfulness of her sequential affairs, yet instead of ridiculing her, you redeemed her; instead of condemning her, you cherished her; instead of shaming her, you saved her.
En route to the nations, you brought the gospel of the kingdom to the dark continent of her heart. As she stood so vulnerable in the public square of her community, she’d never been so free. No more need to pose or pretend. I wonder if some of the six men with whom she’d been heard her proclaim, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
Nothing but the gospel can free us for being thoroughly known without fear. Jesus, your love is unlike anything else we can experience in this life. In fact your love it is better than life itself. We adore and praise you this day as the Christ—the Messiah, our Lenten Lord, the heart-knower, our holy lover, our righteousness from God, our only hope of glory!
You know every vain, foolish and evil thought we’ve ever conceived; every lustful, greedy fantasy in which we’ve engaged. Only you hear every grace-robbing, grand-standing, gossipy word we speak. Only you know our broken-cisterns of choice—our idols, the many things to which we turn to find life somewhere else than in you. Yet you pursue us, welcome us, love us and you are changing us.
What a wonderful, merciful Savior you are, Jesus. Life, temporal and eternal, can only be found in you. So very Amen, we joyfully pray in your transcendent and transforming name.
