Get Real!

When a woman who had led a "sinful life" heard that Jesus was having dinner in town, she crashed the party. Bold as she was, she did not approach him face-to-face. Instead, she stood behind him as he reclined at the table, tears streaming down her face. Then, forgetting what all the well-to-do people thought, she fell to her knees, kissing his feet, drenching them with her tears and wiping them with her tangled hair. As she took her alabaster jar of costly perfume and anointed the very skin of Christ, I can imagine her thinking:
What a mess I've made of the life you gave me . . . what a mess I am! All I can give you now is this little bit of beauty I've got left: my broken shame-filled heart. I don't care what they think! All I care is what you think, Jesus . . . You. It's me and you here now. Will you wash me? Will you wash off all the dirt and grime and polish me with the oil of you? Will you make me new?
The courage to get real with Jesus is breathtakinginly beautiful. You cannot create this kind of beauty with makeup and stylish clothes. This is the kind that can not be fabricated; it is so authentic, so raw that it makes us uncomfortable . . . it scares us.
Our other main character in this scene, Simon, is absolutely revolted by this woman's poor behavior at his dinner party. He is a Pharisee, who is categorically more interested in having the perfect image than the perfect heart. If Jesus were really a prophet, he thinks, He would know that this woman is a sinner!
Jesus had just finished explaining to these "experts" of religious law that he did not come to save the healthy, but the sick. He didn't come for the perfect! He came for imperfect; he came for her.
If they were such "experts," they should have known 1 Samuel 16:7, which says man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. In Matthew 23, Jesus rants and raves against their hypocrisy, calling them "white-washed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead-man's bones." They wore a perfect mask, hiding ugliness underneath it all. And Jesus could see right through them.
So does he reject her for her brazen behavior? Her past? Her sexual sin? No. He does not look at the outward appearance. He sees her heart -- broken, messy, real, and it is beautiful to him.
Instead of explaining this to Simon outright, he tells him a story about two people with canceled debts, saying that the one with the bigger debt is more grateful than the one with the smaller. This woman had a big debt; she had a lot to be forgiven; she had a large burden, and a lot to be grateful for, like me. But she was real, and the rawness of her love endeared her to him.
The perfect image never did it for Jesus. The image he loved was the one that was crumbling, the one that was humble enough to say, I have not led a perfect life, but I want a perfect forgiveness, a perfect love, and I know that comes from you.
So why are we so afraid to say, "I'm crumbling?" Because everyone will know the perfect image we put off isn't real, and we've identified our worth with the image. But the image is only that -- a replication, an imitation of what's real. The real thing is what you want more than anything to pour out at the feet of Jesus. That's what real is. And He loves real. Fake, he can't do anything with. The truth is, he hates fake.
But messy, crumbling, slobbering, mascara running, hair out of place, “I’ve made a mess of my life and I need you”: that's what really pulls at his heart. In a world obsessed with how things look on the outside, he’s searching for hearts that aren’t afraid to break open and bleed a little … or a lot.
Do you want the perfect image? Then imitate her. Don’t imitate the images of our culture. They are illusions. What is real is everything we see in the woman who led the sinful life: a willingness to say, this is what is underneath the veneer . . . and I’m not afraid to let other people know that. I’m not afraid to pour out my heart, because I know he loves me like this.
“Your sins are forgiven,” he said to her, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Come to the Water

In a vacant hostel set amidst the snow-laden Black Forest, I read the Good News Bible for the first time in my life. I have not eaten anything for days, but the thin, tattered pages of this book have become my communion bread, my nourishment.
I am fascinated by these stories of men and women rejected by people and embraced by this guy Jesus. When man disappoints, scorns, judges, rejects; Jesus touches, has compassion on, heals, forgives, loves. There are people the world seems ready to dispose of, who Jesus treats with utmost respect. Their past doesn't bother him; the opinions of people in their community don’t phase him; he sees them through purely loving eyes. And his love frees them to walk in dignity and respect for themselves, no matter where they've been.

When Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman, he broke every chain that bound her. Jesus went to the well because he was tired and thirsty from a long journey – the very same reason why I finally went to the well.
The Samaritan woman walks up to get some water – not in the morning or in the evening, when it was customary, but in the middle of the day – probably to avoid running into people who knew her reputation.
Jesus asks her for a cup of water.
Stunned that he would even speak to her – Jews and Samaritans hated each other – she questions him, “How can you even ask me for a drink?”
Jesus answers, “If you only knew who it is who asks you for a drink, you would ask me and I would give you living water.”
Then she tries to argue that he doesn’t even have a cup!
But Jesus isn’t moved. “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again," He says, "But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.”
Then it all comes out in the open – she’s been with many men and the man she is with now isn’t her husband.
Why does Jesus tell her about the living water? Why doesn’t he tell this to the demon-possessed man? To the blind, poor, sick, lame? Why her?
Because he knows this woman’s thirst. He knows her hunger. And he knows that he is the only source that can fill it.
He was the source from which she was made, and he is the source from which she needs to drink to get "full." But she has been going from man to man to man to man, looking for fulfillment. And Jesus is saying to her, “Sweetheart, what you need is me. What you need is a well that doesn’t run dry, a love that doesn’t run out, a water that will satisfy.”
She leaves her water jar at the well, goes back to the town and says to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did!”
Why does she leave her water jar? Because she realizes that she has found the source of her thirst. A man who knows everything she ever did and does not judge her? Does not ask anything of her? He only offers free fulfillment? She has found what she has been looking for her entire life.

My knees are pressed hard to rocky soil. My head is in my hands. I am weeping. The tears come from the center of that little girl inside of me who had gone into the world searching for love. She is in a heap on the ground, with not a soul in sight.
“Help me,” I cry through broken sobs. “In the name of Jesus Christ, help me God . . . .”
In the snowy, frozen winter of the lightless forest, I feel a growing warmth on the back of my head, and then heat on my hair and neck. I look up. The dark, ominous clouds shift, and the sun beams through an open space.
I have come to the right place. I have come to the well, after a long and tiring journey. And it is a well that doesn't run dry.

Hungry? Thirsty? Unsatisfied? Empty? At bottom? Restless? Disappointed? On rocky ground?
He’s got what will fill you. You just need to ask. If you do not ask, he can not and will not force it down your throat – he loves you too much for that. He is too patient for that. He’s just offering: I am the living water. I am the well that won’t run dry. I can fill you.
And I can wash you clean. Only I can do that, my dear child. Only I can do that.