What exactly did she see that day on the face of our tired, thirsty Lord? Because, God knows, all of us long all our lives to see it ourselves, searching for it in every face we meet. Notably, we’re not given a description of what the woman at the well sees. We’re only allowed to see what happens as a result of what she saw. So, what is the result of coming face to face with Jesus? She blooms like a virgin bud facing a gladdening light—a burgeoning flower lifting its face toward the summons of gentle dawn. She sees Jesus seeing her, and in his face, she sees herself truly as God’s bride, radiant. Once she has seen him seeing her, she will only ever see herself as situated beneath the banner of the Lord’s loving gaze.

And this is too good not to mention: My friend Esther pointed out that in the Bible, typically, when you see a man and woman meet at a well, guess what happens next? Somebody’s getting married. It’s a pattern in Scripture. As this bizarre meeting of Jesus and the Samaritan woman was retold, every Jewish reader would’ve picked up on the familiar plotline. So think about it. This woman has been through five husbands, is working on number six, and then she runs into a man at a well. And he’s number . . . what? Seven. Jesus is himself the Sabbath, he’s her seventh and final Sabbath husband. This poor, worn-out woman can finally rest. 

But this story is about so much more than just one woman’s healing encounter. The One through whom Creation was brought into being is putting the whole disordered cosmos back in order by replacing its discarded Sabbath Capstone. Buechner beautifully said that “the story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all,” and this story is like that. As much as it is about this one particular woman, it is about all of us, who are so worn out trying to live without our Sabbath Lord. As St. Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” For a man with Augustine’s past, I doubt those were just pretty words.

So, if the Sabbath Himself has come to spread his banner of love over humanity, his Bride, then you and I are being asked, in the midst of our most dried out, exhausted places, to look up and be surprised to find, not one more frowning mirror, but a face (oddly enough) delighting in us.  Which leads me to this: 

I want to see what she saw.   

Beholding Jesus: A New Song

I’d like to tell you about a turning point toward the end of the first two years after my divorce. Those years were very dark, and nearly all my time was spent in constant anxiety, turmoil, and depression. One day, having worn myself out by spinning my wheels in the muddy rut of my fears and hopelessness, I looked up and across the room. In my mind’s eye, I saw Jesus sitting on the gray bricks of the hearth like the rim of a well, calmly saying, “I’m still here, and when you’re finished, I’ll still be here.”  

My worst sins and rantings couldn’t shake him. Jesus is so quietly constant in his love, and you can’t intimidate him with your failure. I thought maybe he’d have changed his mind after all this mess, but his steady lovingkindness gave me the courage to keep going. Could there be new chapters in my book?