I often return to the bible passage in John 4, the meeting of Jesus with a Samaritan woman. There is so much in these verses that are life changing. In this post, I want to focus on one sliver of the spiritual riches given in this encounter.
John 4:16-19
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.
Jesus lets the woman know that He knows the secret, the disgrace, the shame, the sin, the issue. Jesus already knew. But He wants her to know that He knows. She takes the revelation as proof that He is a prophet, which He is. Yet, I wonder if His revelation was a set-up for a later part of the conversation.
John 4:25-26
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Jesus revealed to a woman, a Samaritan woman (Samaritans were considered less-than by the Jews), a woman living in sin, a woman with a shameful past, that He is the Messiah. He does not tell anyone else this amazing truth. He picked the most outcast of society to declare that He was the long-awaited Messiah, the One whom the world has waited upon for thousands of years. The disciples were not told this. The crowds never received this verbal affirmation of His title. But this woman heard the word first-hand.
I believe Jesus told her that He knew her past and current shame and sin so that she would know that He reveals Himself despite ourselves. She could never think “If He only knew the real me, He would never have told me that He was the Messiah. He probably wouldn’t have even spoken to me.” Instead, she knew that He knew and still revealed who He is to her. Amazing! Jesus wanted to make it clear that He was declaring the message that the world had been waiting on since the fall of Adam and Eve to a woman with a shady past and sinful present. Jesus knows and still reveals the mysteries of heaven to unworthy vessels.
Jesus knows. He knows our failures, our sins, our issues, our wasted time, our neglected dreams, our…. All the things that come to our heads and bring shame to our hearts, He knows. And He still wants to have a conversation with us. And He still wants to share the mysteries of heaven with us. And He still tells us things that others may never have heard first-hand. Jesus the Messiah, loves us and shares who He is with us. May we marvel at His heart toward us!