Come and See

Come and See--July 19, 2016

"Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 'Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?'" [John 4:28-29]

When we have been met with love, it makes it possible for us to bear hearing the truth about ourselves. 

Jesus had--has, rather--that remarkable ability to embrace and disarm us at the same time, doesn't he?  You get story after story where he meets people with surprising, unexpected, unbounded graciousness--that is, with love--and within the safety of that love, people are able to let down their guard and tell the truth about themselves, or hear it told.

Here's one.  She had gone to the well trying to avoid everybody else that day. She didn't like the way the neighbors viewed her as damaged goods . She didn't mention the long line of exes she had left behind in her past like some Biblical "Goodbye Girl." She was used to keeping her lips sealed tight and didn't want to even start a conversation with the stranger who asked her for a drink that day. And she certainly didn't expect to be airing her dirty laundry with a stranger like that.

But Jesus disarmed all of her prepared attacks (her dodges and jabs back at Jesus) by embracing her.  That is, Jesus cut through her tough, guarded exterior and her prepared barbs by accepting her, and by showing her that there was nothing she could have done or could yet do that would make him take back his offer of "living water" to her. 

You almost have to think that she was looking for reasons for Jesus to reject her or say she was disqualified--then she would have had room and reason to hate him. She was looking to try and pick a fight with him, on any subject other than herself, and hoping that he would say something that would make her mad enough to ignore him, or that she would say something he would get upset about and then he would walk away.

But he doesn't.  He never gives up on the situation, or the person. And as she finally begins to realize that this stranger Jesus already knows everything about her that she is afraid of him finding out, she lets Jesus in.  She comes to see him for who he really is--not just a judgmental jerk, trolling for an angry reply, but the promised Messiah about whom she has only heard whispers and rumors.

And when she goes to tell her neighbors and friends about this Jesus she has met by the well, instead of hiding her past, she can now own it and put it own there, no longer ashamed.  She has been met with the grace of Jesus, and that grace allows her to trust that she is accepted no matter what.  Now she can say, "Come meet this amazing person Jesus--he knows all of my deepest darkest secrets, and he didn't run away on me!"  Jesus' grace makes it possible for her to own who she is, where she has been, and therefore where she is going next, no longer bound by the weight of all that baggage.

Sometimes we Christians do a pathetically poor job of offering that kind of grace to the people around us.  Sometimes our attempts at welcome sound like, "There is a place for you... as long as we don't find out that there's this in your story..." or, "You are more than welcome to come, but if we find out that you don't fit our cookie cutter picture, we won't really let you belong." For that matter, sometimes we are so busy testing people to see if they will pass our litmus-tests for acceptability that we never actually listen to their stories.  No wonder people don't feel drawn to that kind of invitation or so-called "welcome."

Jesus shows us the amazing feat of disarming people and embracing them at the same time.  What if your words of grace to someone else allowed them to feel safe enough to be honest with you, and with God, about the baggage they have been carrying?  What if your love was the thing that caught someone off guard and got through to them when they were looking for reasons to write you off?  What if you and I started following the pattern of Jesus in this story rather than worrying about what people will think if we let that person in?

Let's try it today and see what happens.

Lord Jesus, disarm us and embrace us in your love and truth.