Monday, October 14, 2013

John 4:29

“Hey, check it out!” she shouts out, “Come meet a man who just told me everything I ever did without my telling him anything about me.  Do you think this could possibly be the Messiah?” John 4:29 EFP

I wonder who the woman approaches first when she goes back into town.  Does she knock on random doors?  Does she go looking for her estranged family members?  Does she find her ex-husbands?  Who does she share this news with?  Just that morning she was the pariah of Sychar—the woman whose existence was hardly acknowledged.  Now she becomes an evangelist? 

A more intriguing thought is, “What do people say back to her?”  How to they react?  Do they think she’s “lost her marbles?”  Do some people slam the door on her?  Do some reply, “Who cares?” Or “Everybody knows everything about you, woman!  Be gone!”  I only know that this woman has some serious “chutzpah.”  Apparently she doesn’t care what they think or say.  She is so blown away with the encounter she has just experienced that she is lost in the moment and she wants everyone else to experience it as well.

The outcast becomes the center of attention.  The marginalized one becomes the one who reaches out.  It’s interesting to note that she doesn’t tell people she has just met the Messiah, she simply invites them to come and find out if perhaps this is the Messiah.  The Messiah can speak for himself—literally.  Where is my passion?  Where is the out-of-my-mind desire to tell everyone I know about the One!  I am being challenged these days to move beyond the often safe and sanitized expressions of faith to which I have become accustomed and into the risky, unpredictable, and maybe even perilous life in the Spirit.  If I am wrestling with God, there is only one outcome possible—He wins!

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