I Am He

The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He." (John 4:25-26)

Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." (John 4:26 NRSV)

There is something in here that can be easy to miss but that is profoundly important. The whole conversation at this point is coming to a climax, to the focal point of the very reason that Jesus began talking with this woman to start with. Jesus loved this woman and had been led into this very circumstance by the Holy Spirit so that she could personally encounter the very Messiah that she had put her hopes in for so long.

I find it rather fascinating that this Samaritan woman expressed such faith in the coming Messiah that usually is thought of as primarily a hope of the Jewish people. But even though her ethnic background was scorned by nearly every Jew she may have come in contact with, she still had chosen to cherish a personal hope that the Messiah would come to benefit her irregardless of her heritage, background or condition. And because of this faith deep inside her heart, God granted her the wonderful privilege of being able to have an intimate conversation with the Son of God alone. That is simply astounding in my mind.

The part that is easy to miss in this story is found in the two words, I am. Of course it does not come out quite so clearly in some English translations which is why I included an alternative reading above. But the statement that Jesus was making to this woman went far beyond a simple acknowledgement that He should be viewed as the person she was putting her life trust in. It was really making a powerful statement that could increase her appreciation of who the Messiah really was to a whole new level.

These words, I AM, were originated as the highest declaration of the power and identity of the Almighty God to Moses. God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:14) Through all succeeding generations the Jewish people viewed this statement as one of the most sacred things ever spoken, one of the purest forms of identity when it came to defining who was the true God as opposed to all other claims.

So when Jesus was speaking with the Jewish leaders and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM." (John 8:58 NKJV), it is no surprise that the Jews immediately took up stones to kill Him. In their minds darkened with unbelief, for Jesus to claim that He was truly God Himself was the ultimate blasphemy. It shocked them beyond all comprehension to think that a mere man would apply to himself the title of the great YAHWEH of heaven. Jesus' life was so out of harmony with their picture of what God was like that many of them never were able to enter into belief. The God they wanted to believe in was far more forceful, not nearly so humble and certainly would not demean Himself to live the kind of life and hang around with the kind of people that Jesus did.

And yet Jesus never changed His life in the slightest to accommodate the mistaken notions about God that humanity believed. He came to reveal the heart of the Father and He did that faithfully all the way to the end. But on rare occasions like this one with the woman at the well, Jesus was able to share His true identity with a far less hostile audience, and in this case the results were nothing less than thrilling.

This woman was already so compliant to following the promptings of the Spirit that she was actually much farther along in her faith journey than were any of the disciples that spent most of their time following Jesus. Imagine what could have happened and how different the gospels might have been written if even one disciple of Jesus had entered into the level of deep trust and belief in the divinity of Jesus to the extent that this woman did in such a short period of time. The effects of such belief would have been electrifying to say the least. This kind of belief is highly contagious and extremely effective in arousing similar faith within the hearts of others. If the disciples had been willing to believe in Jesus early on like this woman was willing to do, the truth about Him and His affect on the people would have been greatly multiplied from how the story now reads.

The very next verse highlights this contrast rather sadly. The priorities of the Jewish disciples seemed to be focused more on conforming to social expectations rather than on sharing the truth about Jesus and who He was to anyone who would listen. The differences between how the disciples viewed this situation and how this woman related to it are like night and day. The reasons for the disciple's amazement in the next verse was that Jesus was violating so many social restrictions in talking with a woman, and a Samaritan woman at that. But what becomes obvious in this story is that the woman herself is also filled with amazement – first that Jesus would speak with her at all given the many reasons why He should not, but then amazement from a heart that simply couldn't contain the excitement and joy of meeting the most important Man in the whole universe in person.

Unfortunately I presently fit too much into the class of the disciples rather than with this woman. My confused ideas about God prevent me from enjoying the kind of abandon and freedom to enter easily into a deeper level of belief and trust in a personal Messiah and Savior. I have so many religious barriers to deal with, so many questions that demand to be answered, so many fears to be delivered from before my heart feels safe to jump for joy and race into town to tell everyone about this most amazing Man.

I don't like my condition, but I have to be honest and confess my true condition at this point. I long for the day when my heart can teach me to dance, to sing for joy, to witness without any inhibition to the amazing power of love sent to earth to save me in the person of Jesus the Messiah. I crave to have the abandon of this woman to race back to all those who have despised and shamed me all of my life and invite them to join in a spirit of belief in the only One who can save any of us from our sins. I seek and I pray for God to give me a heart and mind similar to that demonstrated by this woman.

Confession of Faith

The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." (John 4:25)

I just noticed this statement in a new light. This woman was actually confessing her faith in the coming of the Messiah just like we talk about belief in the coming of Jesus. We today often talk about looking forward to the coming of Jesus to this earth as our greatest hope. We view this belief as core to all our other beliefs, sometimes even to our own confusion. What I am now starting to see is that this woman also was clinging to a similar hope in the coming of Jesus as her way of helping her life have more sense. She was trusting that the coming Messiah might right many of the wrongs that tormented her life.

Yes, it is true that she didn't think of the Messiah using the name Jesus like we do. But the meaning is identical. In our case we don't often use the term Messiah because we have different notions about what that word means to us. But in the mind of people in that day, Messiah mostly meant a coming deliverer sent by God to fix all their problems and bring them hope and truth and life.

It is interesting to me that this hope was actually shared and embraced by a woman who wasn't even a Jew. We understand why Jews were looking forward to a Messiah even though their ideas about what that Messiah was supposed to do were very confused and self-centered. But to see a confession of faith in the coming Messiah by a Samaritan I believe is quite significant.

Heart Hunger

The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." (John 4:25 NIV)

Somehow I sense that there is a lot more lurking in this verse than what I can yet see very well. I am asking God to show me rich things in here that my heart needs to hear.

Why did this woman make this statement? Was it just a religious cliché to fit into the conversation, meant to be a catch-all when one runs out of good answers? We do that many times in our religious discussions. We have clichés and pat answers that we toss out when we don't want to really grapple with difficult issues or if we feel too uncomfortable looking deeper inside when conviction is too close.

Is that what this woman was doing? Was this the standard end of every discussion that she had had about this topic of the right place to worship or the right church to attend? “When the right person/prophet/ preacher/teacher comes he is going to explain everything in a way that will really make sense to us. Then we will really know the truth.”

That might be the case. But also I sense that this woman was already an out-of-the-box kind of thinker and that had likely made her a pain in the side to many other people who knew her. She may have been repeatedly coming up with questions that made other people in her church squirm and react in defensiveness. She may often have been criticized and condemned and shut down because her ideas didn't fit in nicely with the accepted views and doctrines that her people were supposed to endorse. Because of this I sense that maybe deep in her heart she believed that the Jews really were much closer to the truth and that the increasing anticipation for a coming Messiah promised in the prophecies of the Old Testament especially among the more honest but less influential people among the Jews was likely really going to happen soon.

And think about this. What if she might have known one or two humble peasants herself who were honest of heart and searching the Scriptures and sharing with her on occasion the hope of a coming Messiah; peasants who had better access to the Jewish writings and who even may have been Jews themselves but not nearly as prejudiced as most other Jews. I believe that may have been possible. Since this woman apparently was rather ostracized among her own people she may have found it actually easier to sometimes connect with people from the “other side” since she had less to lose as far as her reputation was concerned. Sometimes people at the bottom of society do not share some of the same prejudices that most other people in society do as far as other races or ethnic groups go, and they can form friendships that become sources of enlightenment for them as a result.

Somehow I believe that this statement by this woman with such a history of seeking for acceptance and love in all the wrong places was at least in part an expression of a deep desire of her own heart. Maybe she had stayed awake nights after another painful conflict in a broken relationship with yet another man and contemplated what it might be like to meet this Messiah character that so many people were starting to talk about. She had heard rumors that the prophecies indicated that the time for this Messiah to appear was actually ripe to be fulfilled. She could at least allow herself to dream and fantacize about how wonderful it might be to meet this amazing man in person herself. Even if it never happened in real life it could bring her a little comfort and peace and relief from the ever-increasing pain and loneliness that always shadowed her life.

Maybe she had even gone a step further and begun to intentionally hang her hopes on whatever it was that this coming Messiah might be coming to accomplish. Maybe the Jews were not completely right in their insistence that the Messiah was coming to crush the Samaritans and every other nation of gentiles that made life miserable for the Jews. Maybe this Messiah was going to be one to surprise even the Jews with the real nature of His mission to earth. Just maybe He might be coming to aid and rescue the hurting, the down and out, the marginalized of society, the ones who were depressed and caught in a hopeless trap of sin with no apparent way to escape. Maybe, just maybe this Messiah would make sense out of life where all the religious leaders of every stripe had failed to do so far.

So maybe this woman's declaration of hope in a coming Messiah was an expression of a deep longing that she had been hiding in her heart for many years. Maybe as her heart had suddenly jumped in startled excitement at the feelings being stirred by this amazingly compassionate, sensitive man like no one she had ever encountered before that she just couldn't help herself from exposing her secret but very intense hope that she had hardly dared to share with anyone for fear of being scorned. Maybe this man might even be able to share more information with her about who this Messiah might be or at least teach her how to better recognize Him or what to look for.

So far this man seemed to fit the picture that had been coalescing in her mind about what the Messiah might act like if she were ever to meet Him. Of course she may have pushed aside the hope that she might meet Him herself someday, but then again hope is a strong urge that refuses to give up easily and she was willing to take the risk and at least bring up the subject and see what Jesus might have to say about it. What could go wrong with that idea? He had treated her so far with the utmost respect and her heart was telling her that this man was radically different than any man she had ever encountered in her life before. And she believed she knew men pretty well by now after all her bad experiences with them. So when she finally met a man that seemed to be so different and who seemed to care for her heart so tenderly, she simply could not turn away and reject this opportunity to at least give Him a chance to reveal His heart a little more to her.

This man seemed to have a magnetism about Him beyond what she had ever felt before. Oh, she had felt drawn to men before, that was very obvious. She had even earned a reputation of being too easily drawn to men and her heart repeatedly was crushed time after time believing that a man would genuinely care for her heart instead of wanting to just exploit her body. Time after time she fell for promises that proved to be empty and her heart had by now been betrayed so many times that it was hiding under many layers of scars, fears and pain and was very reluctant to trust any man ever again. But when her heart felt the tug from this new man that seemed so promising, she just couldn't help but take yet another risk and open up her hiding heart just a crack and see what might happen in hopes that this time she wouldn't be exploited but might find real satisfaction.

She had little clue as to the enormity of the surprise about to blast away nearly everything she had ever felt about men and even life in general. Her whole world was about to turn upside down and her complete perception of reality was about to explode and come back together completely different in the next few seconds. Her heart was unknowingly communing with its Creator even now and because she had tried to follow her heart instead of tradition and societal norms more than the average person she was uniquely situated to experience an encounter of love and have her whole life of passionate living suddenly come together in ways that would not only change her forever but everyone around her.

But that is coming in the next verses that I will look at later.