Last Saturday (October 11), our local church staged a youth concert with “Who am I?” as theme.  Prior to the event, we’ve had quite a few practices but deep inside, I had the assurance that things would turn out fine and that the place would be jampacked.  Indeed, the event was beyond our expectation and the place was filled to the brim, as they say.  Not to mention, so many young people lifting their hands in response to the call to give their lives back to Christ.  What a beautiful scene of humility to and trust in the Almighty. 

Let me share here the key points of the message delivered during the concert.  The narrative is from John 4: 3-26, wherein Jesus spends the heat of the day with this ostracized Samaritan woman by the well.   From this passage, we ask, how does Jesus look at you? 

1.  Jesus is willing to talk to you no matter who you are or what you have done (verses 5-9). 

The Samaritan woman is a classic example of what happens if you are discriminated against.  For one, her race is polluted.  Being Samaritan means one parent is Jew, the other is not - a big no-no in a very traditional culture.  To make things worse, she ended up committing adultery at least four times.  At the moment, she was with the fifth “husband”, a term which Christ easily corrected because she was, after all, merely, “living in”. 

This background explains why the Samaritan woman was by the well all be herself at noontime.  It was perfect timing for her to fetch water as she wanted to avoid the stare of the public.  She knew that communication with anyone is anathema to that person.  But here comes Jesus who not only initiates communication with her but even asks for water. 

Christ is willing to talk to you no matter who you are or what you have done.  He is in fact willing to meet you at your own hiding place.  The well was, in a sense, a hiding place because the Woman knew nobody would be there at that particular time.  After all, everybody’s watching Wowowie. 

2.  You need physical water, right?  Guess what?  You need spiritual water, too! (verses 9-15)

The woman is super excited to hear from Jesus that He was willing to offer her water that will not make her thirsty ever again!  How come?  Simple.  She has to face the risk of being seen publicly everytime she fetches water from that ancient well.  When Christ offered her that eternal supply of ice water, that meant she could escape from public scrutiny forever. 

For many of us, we mistake Christ for the answers to our prayers.  In other words, we seek Christ only because of the answer He provides.  The woman confused physical water with spiritual living water. 

Blaise Pascal, a mathematician from the 1600s, proposed that there is a God-shaped vacuum in our hearts that only God can fill.  So trying to put inside it material things, fame, public recognition, beautiful face, and so forth, can be satisfying only for some time.  But time will come when the vacuum or void is felt yet again since, after all, the thing inside is not fit for it.  There remains some more space. 

When Christ offered living water, that simply meant, freedom to face this world without any shame because the woman can be forgiven.  Of course public humiliation can still be there as sometimes, people hate to forgive.  But when you know that you know that you know that somebody up there who is more powerful and definitely eternal has forgiven you, what others say doesn’t matter anymore.  What matters is how God looks at you - forgiven, a fresh person.

- Continued in part 2 -