Saturday, February 26, 2005
The Woman at the Well
I don't know who Wayne Forte, the artist, is, but he created the picture above of Jesus with the Samaritan Woman at the Well. There are many other pictures I could have used from a long past of artists, but I like this one. I like the two faces of the woman. Our first Scrutiny is today and our reading will be Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well.
I've said before that this is probably my favorite New Testament story. Jesus teaches us how to accept others for who they are and love them for their humanity (which is something I need to work on, just look at the rant I posted over Tom Cruise and Scientology this week -- that's hardly how Christ would handle Tom Cruise, is it). At the same instant, Jesus teaches us that no matter what our own story, no matter what we've done or how we've sinned, he knows and he loves us despite it all. Don't we all really have those same two faces as the woman in the picture? The one face the world sees as we're about our work, about our daily life . . . and the other face of who we really are that God sees. If God can love me just like everyone else, why do I struggle so to love others who hold different views from me. I am that woman, full of sin, loved by Christ; but the face I let others see isn't the "me" that Jesus sees and I fail so often to see the face of Christ in others.
