This upcoming Sunday I will be using the story of the Woman at the Well in John 4 to discuss the challenges of forgiveness. Tired from his journey, Jesus sits down at Jacob's well, then realizes that he has no cup to drink from much less a bucket to draw water from. But there is someone out in the desert making her way to the well and she is carrying a bucket. It is about noon. There are no shades, no comfort, and no relief from the desert heat. For her, hell was not someplace she had to go to; it was as close to the watering hole in her hometown. It was there she confronted her loneliness. It was there she escaped from the ridicule. It was there that she ran from her past. And it was there, at Jacob's well that she discovered Jesus. The change in her comes about because Jesus reveals himself to her, not because she did something about her own sin. Jesus is the one in whose presence we know who we really are - the good and the bad. Jesus is the one who shows us who we are by showing us who he is. He crosses boundaries, breaks all the rules, drops all disquises. He offers the living waters of forgiveness so that we can go back and face people we thought we could never face again and speak forgiveness as boldly to them as it was spoken to us.
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Jesus' immediate recognition that the woman needed forgiveness should be another lesson for us from this story. In our lives, if there is a person we see or meet that needs forgiveness, it should begin with us. Later, prayerfully, that person will receive it from God. It has been my experience that when a person gets forgiveness from me, my soul is comforted.
Also notice that this woman doesn't hold onto her sinful past. When Jesus forgives us, we often keep rehashing the sin and buying into the lies that Satan keeps throwing at us... he tells us that God couldn't possibly forgive us for what we've done... that is a lie! I had a friend tell me that when I hold onto my sin like that, I'm saying that I am more powerful than God... that I've done something that He doesn't have the power to forgive. A good reminder for me... God is powerful enough to forgive any sin we can commit. When we ask for His forgiveness, we should accept it and get busy doing what He has asked us to do... share His love and grace with others. So what are we waiting for?
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