“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'”
John 4:13-14 NIV
It is said that during the Second World War, some soldiers serving in France wanted to bury a friend and fellow soldier who had been killed. Being in a foreign country, they wanted to ensure that their fallen comrade had a proper burial. They found a well-kept cemetery with a low stone wall around it, a picturesque little Catholic church, and a peaceful outlook. This was just the place to bury their friend. But when they approached the priest, he answered that unless their friend was a baptized Catholic, he could not be buried in the cemetery. Well, their friend wasn’t. Sensing the soldier’s disappointment, the priest showed them a spot outside the walls where they could bury their friend. Reluctantly, they did so. The next day the soldiers returned to pay their final respects to their fallen friend but could not find the grave. “There’s no WAY we got this wrong. It was right here!” they said. Confused, they approached the priest, who took them to a spot inside the cemetery walls. “Last night, I couldn’t sleep,” said the priest. “I was troubled that your friend had to be buried outside the cemetery walls, so I got up… and moved the fence.”
Many of us have felt like our lives were just outside the fence of the blessing of God. Perhaps it was a failed marriage. Or several. Maybe it was a bankruptcy. Perhaps it was a history of denying Jesus or avoiding Jesus. And now you just feel like you are behind the curve.
Jesus interacts with a woman one day who clearly feels outside the fence. In John 4, John tells us about Jesus talking with a Samaritan woman who came to draw water from a well. She has several reasons to feel like an outsider. First, she’s a Samaritan talking to a Jew. Samaritans were considered religious halfbreeds due to their heritage of a mix of Jew and Assyrian after the exile years past. Second, she’s a woman talking to a man. Women were viewed as second-class citizens at that time, so she would have kept her head down and tried not to engage. Finally, she had a history of broken relationships. She had been divorced by many men, and now she was living with a man, not her husband. Everything about her situation would have been “outside the fence” with a Jewish male, let alone a Rabbi.
Yet Jesus strikes up a conversation. After some polite chit-chat, Jesus cuts to the chase and asks her about her husband. Trying to hide her shame, she makes up an excuse, and Jesus calls her on it. But then he engages in some theological banter. This would have all been unheard of. Why would he talk to her?
Her only response is to say, “well, one day, the Messiah will make everything clear.”
“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.'”
John 4:25-26 NIV
Here is what is shocking. The first person Jesus shares his true identity with… is an adulterous Samaritan woman.
I’ve often wondered how John knew about this conversation. After all, it was just Jesus and the woman. Maybe Jesus told him later. Or maybe John heard about it from some of the people the woman told. You see, she went home, told all her friends, and the next time Jesus came to town…5,000 people showed up. Maybe John asked them, “How did you hear about Jesus?” Perhaps they said, “we came to hear the man who moved the fence.”
Today’s prayer:
Jesus, thank you for moving the fence and letting me in.