Jesus Love For Sufferers As Well As Sinners
06 Jun 2023
When I preached my Sunday evening series before Easter on some of those identity issues we are facing in our culture I was very concerned to get the tone right. Outrage and panic helps no one. Pride and disgust aren’t appropriate attitudes either. My desire was to teach the truth, expose error and to show that what is true is also good and beautiful.
I also had a real desire to communicate the heart of Christ towards our world. He is the saviour who came to seek and save the lost. After all, one of the criticisms hurled at him was that he ate with sinners.
That was the reason why in my final sermon I turned our attention to John 4. It’s one of my favourite encounters between Jesus and an individual in the gospel. He meets a Samaritan woman in the heat of the day and has a very intimate conversation with her. At the end she rushes off and tells all her friends about him. “Come, see a man who told me all I ever did”.
I need to confess that despite the fact I have preached from that incident a number of times, until now I have misunderstood what’s going on.
I picked the incident to speak about Jesus’ heart for those caught up in sexual sin - after all, she was a woman who has had five husbands and was currently living with another man (John 4:18).
However, I had fallen into the trap of reading a historical text through the lens of my present culture. Yes, she is absolutely a victim of sexual sin and this incident speaks of Jesus’ heart. But it is probably very wrong to say she is an example of someone seeking identity and fulfilment in sex and relationships.
We live in a society where men and women have more equal rights (certainly legally) to end and begin relationships. That was not the case in the first century. Women could not file for divorce. Men however could, for all kinds of unjust reasons, such as childlessness. In fact, Jesus is drawn into a discussion about when divorce is permissible. The Pharisees ask him “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for ANY and EVERY reason”. This highlights a common practice of the time.
So it is highly likely that this woman has been the victim of the worst kind of misogyny. Pushed around from husband to husband and has never really been loved. Now she is with a man who does not even think enough of her to marry her. No wonder she draws water at the well in the heat of the day - it’s not her shamelessness that makes her a pariah, it’s her deep sense of shame at what has happened to her.
Jesus loves and cares deeply for all kinds of people. He comes to seek those who have deliberately sought out sin and attempted to satisfy their own desires. But that isn’t the message of the encounter with the Samaritan woman. Instead it shows powerfully Jesus’ compassion for those who are the victims of sin.
I felt it necessary to put that right for a number of reasons. First, pastors and preachers aren’t infallible. I need to be corrected by Scripture and others as much as anyone else, and to correct myself.
Second, I was concerned that I had both slandered the Samaritan woman, and had also possibly opened myself to the criticism of a slightly sexist reading of the Bible.
But more importantly, I didn’t want to rob anyone of the comfort of this encounter with Jesus. We are both sinners and we are people who have been sinned against. Jesus deals with both of those things. Sometimes we can experience things at the hands of others which make us feel dirty and useless - and this can affect our view of ourselves and God. Yet Jesus sought out this woman. He removes the shame and stain of sin that clings to us even when it isn’t our sin, but rather the effect of the sin of others against us.
Isn’t it wonderful that immediately after she meets with Jesus she is used by him - she becomes an evangelist? Her shame is removed, she now seeks out people to tell them about Jesus.