When we allow ourselves to remember that God already knows the pain in our hearts, we can confess our sins to Him. Then God will open Himself to us and show us His grace and mercy. We don’t have to hurt anymore. When we confess our pain to Him, He will fill our hearts with gushing rivers of Living Water from the Holy Spirit.
Transcript:
My brothers and sisters, in this morning’s gospel, there are really many different things that we could say about the gospel. We could speak about how Christ is willing to embrace strangers. We could speak about the importance, since this is Mother’s Day, the importance of women in the church. But I’m going to speak about something that I believe all of us can benefit from, and that is this woman’s confession of faith. Christ is at Jacob’s well in the middle of the afternoon, in the scorching heat. He finds himself at the well and he has nothing even to drink water from the well. Here comes this Samaritan woman and he asks for a drink of water, and they begin this dialogue.
Ultimately, Christ promises her that if she understands who he is, and if she asks him, he says, “I will give you rivers of living water and you’ll never be thirsty again.” She says, “I want some of that.” She says, “Give me some of that water.” In that moment he says, “Okay, go get your husband.” Uh-oh. She says, “Well, I don’t have a husband.” He says, “Correct. Not only do you not have a husband, you have had five husbands, and the man you’re with now is not even your husband.” In this point he says, “You speak rightly.” At this point, my brothers and sisters, her entire soul was exposed to God. In that moment, she saw right into him because he saw into her as God.
That moment of confession. She came clean. She didn’t have to tell him that she wasn’t married. She didn’t have to tell him anything. She could have gone back to the city and brought the man she was living with. But she confessed. In that moment of confession, God reached right down into her heart. She runs off to the city and she calls the entire city. She says, “Come, meet the one who said everything that I have ever done.” Now, we saw just a glimpse of the conversation, but this needs to be or should be or can be an inspiration and hope for us. Every one of us, every last one of us, my brothers and sisters, has something in our heart that is heavy.
It might be something from our past, it might be something from yesterday, but every one of us has something in our heart that hurts. We might think nobody knows, but God knows. God knows the pain in our heart. He knows everything that we have ever done, good and bad. I invite you to look at this confession of faith by the Samaritan woman as a invitation to come clean with God. Let’s remind ourselves one more time. God already knows everything we have done. Those things that are heavy on our hearts, why are we holding on to them? Why do we go through life heavy and bent down and burdened and thirsting for peace when all we have to do is come to God and confess?
All we have to do is allow God to see into our hearts, and we also can have rivers of living water and we can find peace. You see, this is how hope works. Hope is not something that I can convince you of. Hope is not something that I can write in the bulletin and you’ll finally understand. Hope is something you experience when you open your heart in confession to God. I invite you, open your hearts to him and allow him to see your pain and allow it to come out. As you can imagine, I have many conversations with many types of people. Because so many, even strangers, because I dress like a clergyman, “You’re a priest, right?”
Yes. It’s like a magnet for all sorts of confessions I hear on the street. And that tells me that we are hurting inside, but we don’t have to any longer. That is the great story of this morning’s gospel. Hear the words of St. Photini. Come and see the one who told me everything I ever did. When they came, when we come, it says they heard the word and then they believed in him. Not only because of what she said, but because of what he said and because they opened their hearts to him.
This, my brothers and sisters, is our great joy and hope. Allow God to understand and hear your pain, and then get ready for rivers of living water to gush from your hearts. That’s God’s promise, not mine. Christ is risen.
