Across October we’re looking at 4 ordinary people who had extraordinary encounters with Jesus; a disgraced man who was given honour, a proud man who was given humility. Last week’s passage saw a deeply shameful woman meet Jesus.
In today’s climate, when someone does something considered shameful, the immediate response is to ‘cancel’ them. The keyboard warriors on social media blow up, demanding corporate interests drop said person from their books. How many people, who have entertained us so wonderfully in the past, have lost everything due to one rash mistake?
The woman Jesus meets in John 4 had not made 1 rash mistake. She had made 6 very long and calculated errors. Being divorced just once was seen as shameful in Jesus’ day. Imagine what her fellow townsfolk thought of a woman who had been divorced 5 times, and was now living-in-sin with a sixth?
Yet Jesus doesn’t cancel this woman. He doesn’t even give her a lecture on her bad choices. Surely she already knew her life was a mess. Instead, he offers her ‘living water’; a metaphor for deep satisfaction of the soul. And where is this deep satisfaction of the soul found? In worshipping God as your ultimate treasure.
This woman had been worshipping men. Whether she sought love, acceptance, financial security or reputation, she thought satisfaction was found in men. Yet each time she got a new husband, she learnt it did not satisfy. Why? Because external ‘water’ cannot satisfy our internal ‘thirst’. Only God can fill the God-shaped whole in our heart, made known through Jesus Christ.
Jesus offers this living water to anyone who wants it. All we need to do is spend time each day looking for the glory of God, found in his word, then enjoying God for whatever aspect of his glory we find that day, such as how God doesn’t cancel people, he offers them deep satisfaction of the soul. What a truly surprising and wonderous saviour.
