Come See a Man

So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and said to the men, "Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?" (John 4:28-29)

All sorts of miscellaneous questions come to my mind as I read these verses that I would like to explore. There are a number of words that give fascinating clues that are like doorways that can be opened to other passageways full of amazing surprises and insights. Sometimes I just don't know which one to open first to see what God wants to show me, but I don't want to leave any of them untouched either.

Sometimes it helps bring clarity to just focus in on the verbs or the nouns or some other such slice of a passage. In this verse I see that this woman left, then she went and then she said. I explored last time some of the thoughts surrounding why she left her waterpot which seems to be characteristic of everyone who encounters the real Jesus. This time I would like to explore more passageways leading out of these phrases. For instance, I notice that the first thing she said as a result of what had just happened to her was “Come!”

I can't help but think that this is what always happens when a person truly encounters the real Christ in person. It is a natural reflection or reiteration of what Jesus said Himself. Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28 NRSV) Whenever a person has experienced this kind of “come” and the results of it in their own soul like this woman did, then it is simply impossible for them to refrain from wanting others to experience the same kind of rest. It is simply the nature of human beings designed in the image of God to want others to join them in experiencing the rest and joy that comes from reconnecting with the Creator and Redeemer of us all.

When I looked up this phrase that Jesus spoke in that last verse I found the other references that came up rather compelling and that shed more light on this story.

But Jesus said, "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (Matthew 19:14)

He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." (John 6:65 NIV)

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. (John 7:37 NIV)

This last text written in the same book of John that I am studying here has obvious strong links to the story of this woman and Jesus' words to her just before she flew off to invite everyone else to come discover what she had just encountered. Jesus had offered her living water that would result in eternal life; she had started to taste a little bit of that water but couldn't wait to invite others to join her in the ravishing refreshment that she was already beginning to experience from it.

There are so many underlying powerful implications here that this story doesn't have time to flush out but can be glimpsed by the clues. It is clear from the first part of this story that this woman up to this point seems to be careful not to mingle with others from her city. She is drawing water at the most inconvenient time of the day quite likely because she doesn't want to experience more pain from the looks and comments of other people who judge her and look down on her as an embarrassment to their community. I can't help but believe that the men of her city in particular would have viewed her with condemnation and disgust. If she had been living as a Jew in another town she might even have been running a higher risk of possibly being stoned to death for the things she had done than where she was now. This was in a time and place where it was considered an honor to stone to death women who were considered loose morally, and given the history of her past she may well have been in line for such treatment.

Yet it seems to be almost emphasized in this verse that she went in particular to the men of her city to announce what seems to many of us to be a very strange message. It is certainly not anything I have ever heard a person say as an invitation to join them in their discovery of God. It is not something I have ever heard a person say in an evangelistic sermon based on their own experience. I have heard people talk about this woman's experience as a means of getting other people's attention but I cannot recall ever hearing someone actually say something like this from their own personal encounter with God based on their own experience.

Yet what this woman impulsively exclaims to the very people who may have been the leaders of her community who looked down on her the most, the men who were at the extreme opposite of the social strata from where she found herself, was an invitation to discover for themselves a Man who just might know not only everything about her without her saying a word about it, but a Man who very likely would be able to do the same for them as well.

Now think about this carefully for a second. Think about the logic behind what she was saying to these men who themselves may have had a considerable amount of things in their own past they didn't necessarily want everyone to know about. What kind of sense does this make anyway? How excited would you or I be if someone came along with great enthusiasm and declared they had just met someone who could read your mind and reveal your past whether you wanted them to or not? Would you be ready to join the rush for the door to go meet him yourself or would you be ready to rush for the back door and wait around to see what happens to everyone else first before you expose yourself to the presence of such a potentially insightful person?

I find it compellingly curious that inviting people to meet a Man who might be able to expose your deepest secrets would seem to be such an effective evangelistic tool. Like I said before, I don't recall ever hearing this tactic used before or since, and yet the overwhelming positive response that obviously resulted from this extremely unique sermon defy the accomplishments of nearly every other evangelist since that time. Maybe we are seriously missing something very important in our earthly-wise ways of trying to attract people to know Jesus better.

What I suspect is missing is that we first have not encountered for ourselves personally the depth of resonance and joy in the presence of Jesus that this woman experienced in the few minutes she spent with Him. Most people who make a career of inviting others to know God better may not yet have the same level of passion and motivation and clarity about the true nature of what God is like that this woman had experienced. It may be taking us a lifetime to come to the place that this woman came to in only seconds. We view her squirming and discomfort in her discussion with Jesus as resistance to His holy presence – and it was. Yet in the end she must have released her resistance far more completely than most of us have done and she allowed His Spirit to so flood her heart and mind and soul that He was able to use her as a transparent medium of joy to infect a whole city of spiritually hungry people who were ripe to embrace salvation. Something about her words, and much more her expressiveness compelled them that she might be worth taking seriously this time.

I would like to open the next door in these verses and explore the implications of what might have been going on in their minds about her mention of “the Christ”. But I can already see that this will take me on a very extended foray and I will hold that venture for next time.