We were privileged to have Laura Robbins (Deputy Principal and Head of Senior
Campus) share her understanding of the Gospel reading on March 12. Here are some of the things she highlighted.
The woman feels unable to join the other women every morning and evening fetching water from the well. She avoids them and does the trek in the hottest part of the day when no one is around.
Just like the woman’s, our Jesus encounters are always unexpected, and are deeply personal and relational. Jesus came to her, saw her as she was (5 husbands, and not married to #6) but didn’t make any more comments about that. He then said to her in effect, ‘I see you for who you are, and I love you. Now see who I am. The Messiah. The one in whom you can find freedom, love, healing, and transformation. Spirit and Truth. Eternal life. Living Water. Drink of me, and live.’
Transformation and the significance of the jar. She has now encountered the spring of life-giving water – water that means she will never thirst again. Every day she has been trying to get this water….herself. How true is this, of all of us… but now she leaves her jar behind and rushes back to talk excitedly to people she had previously avoided.
She left her precious jar behind, but she has shed so much weight from her soul – including shame, guilt, feeling a failure and feeling unworthy to join in.
What does Jesus invite us to put down and leave behind? What we once clung to, what we once
let define us, can’t compare to the life that Jesus offers.
Thank you, Laura.
May we experience the wonder of Jesus seeing us as we are, and accepting each part of us in a loving way that transforms and heals.
Pastor Michael Mayer