Does Jesus Still Walk the Dark Hills? Chapter 7

Here is another preview of my book, and my first post on medium that is not military related. I hope this chapter can give a good sense of what the book is about. I will post a few more as I finish things up. Enjoy!

Chapter 7: After All I’ve Done, There’s No Way I Would Be Accepted

“God’s unwieldy love, which cannot be contained by our words, wants to accept all that we are and sees our humanity as the privileged place to encounter this magnanimous love. No part of our hardwiring or our messy selves is to be disparaged. Where we stand, in all our mistakes and imperfection, is holy ground.” -Greg Boyle

God’s love cannot be measured. It is overwhelming, amazing, and we cannot fully comprehend it. Yet, it meets us in all of our mistakes and imperfections. Just as he did with Moses, he meets us in the messes that we have made. Where we stand, in God’s presence, is holy ground, and God accepts us as he meets us right where we are.

Scripture displays this incredible love time and time again, and in this chapter, we will explore where Jesus accepts us right where we are- even in eye of the hurricane that our mistakes have brought. We don’t need to get everything right before coming to the Savior. No, we come just as we are, and he finds us, no matter how broken we are. The labels, they don’t define us, but Jesus, it is in him where we can find our identity. Though there are several examples throughout scripture of God’s acceptance, just as we are, this love is fully on display in the familiar story of when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 as well as those final moments with the thief on the cross.

The Woman at the Well

It is about noon, and here she comes to draw water. She comes at this time of the day and endures the heat to avoid the glares and the ridicule from the other women. They don’t know what she has been through. All they see are the five failed marriages, and that she lives with another man who is not her husband. Word gets around, and everybody knows who she is. The water she has come to draw has more value than she does. She would rather be invisible than to be seen as worthless. But she carries on. She has no choice. She has done what she has needed to in order to survive.

Today is different. As she approaches the well, there is a man there. In her experience, this probably hasn’t gone well. First, not only is she a woman (which, culturally speaking, were “second rate” citizens), but she is a damaged woman. Secondly, this man is Jewish, and she is a Samaritan. What is he doing there? The Jews and Samaritans hated each other- so much so that they would often take roundabout trips to avoid running into one another (there was a bad history there, but that’s for another time). It must have been an uncomfortable approach.

I always read the exchange as kind of awkward for her, but I think the defining point for her life was in John 4:16–17. Jesus asks her to go get her husband and come back for living water. However, the woman states openly that she has no husband. Now, we can only assume her age, but after five marriages, it isn’t unreasonable for us to view her as at least what we would consider middle-aged. For her to not be married in their world would have been unusual. She could have easily lied to save face to this stranger, yet she volunteers the information. I can’t help but wonder, was this a test? Perhaps she volunteers the information as a sort-of self-fulfilling prophecy, knowing that she will certainly be rejected with this information? I don’t want to put into scripture what is not there, but I think it is a possibility.

Regardless, Jesus responds in the way that only Jesus would. He already knows everything about her life, and yet he chooses her. He knows her past, and he knows every detail (including the ones that we don’t), and yet he calls her. If we back up to John 4:4, it says that Jesus “had to go through Samaria (Italics mine, NIV).” That word in Greek, dei, mostly refers to “need,” but it can also refer to, “necessity established by the counsel and decree of God (Blue Letter Bible).” In other words, Jesus had to go there, as he was called there specifically to speak to this woman for a specific purpose. That purpose? To be the one to introduce the Samaritans to the Messiah. To be a missionary. She went from the central object of gossip around town, covered in shame, to a beloved daughter, chosen by God.

Notice what didn’t happen first. She did not make the first move. She did not get everything right before Jesus met her at the well. She was the recipient of grace. She didn’t earn it, and she didn’t have to clean up her mess first. No, Jesus met her right in the thick of it, and he showed her her true worth. It didn’t matter what the town of Sychar thought of her or what they said about her. Her past didn’t matter to Jesus (other than he wanted to redeem her). No, she was accepted, just exactly as she was, by Jesus. No matter what she had done, it did not change how she was viewed in the eyes of Jesus.

Maybe this story is familiar to you. Maybe not everything lines up, but you’re the subject of the town gossip and you’re viewed as “less than” for your mistakes. This was the case for Marissa. Pregnant as a teenager in a small town of a couple thousand people, and a common topic of conversation. Imagine the labels. Can you hear the gossip? Her and the child’s father tried to work it out, but it wasn’t a good relationship. They had been through too much. So she carried on as a young mother, wearing her scarlet letter. Then a few years later, she became pregnant again by another man. This relationship lasted for a while, as he would end up being her husband for more than a decade..before leaving her for another woman. The weight was heavy, and the road was lonely. She was broken, ridiculed, and pushed aside (sadly, even by one church in town). Yet, through it all, Jesus had to go to this small town and meet her right in the mess. He met her as a teenager raising a child. He met her through the loss of another child. He walked with her through a difficult marriage. He carried her when it all became too heavy after her husband left. Now, she is happily married and a key member and leader at her church. She has been a mentor to several young women in the town, and though her story isn’t perfect, she wouldn’t change it. For it is in this story that Jesus met her right in her pain.

He will do the same in your life. Jesus is not ashamed of you. He accepts you, takes you by the hand, and he calls you into something so much more.

The Thief on the Cross

We don’t know much about the two thieves on the cross who were crucified on each side of Jesus. They are identified as criminals, but not much more. We don’t know the crime, only the punishment. The punishment (crucifixion) suggests that they were a threat to Rome and likely dangerous and/or violent (Green, 1997). We don’t even know their names in scripture (though Christian tradition names them both), just that, unlike Jesus, the punishment fit their crimes.

In their story (as found in Luke 23:39–43) we see that one stayed rebellious to the end and the other sought forgiveness, recognizing who Jesus is. This man, knowing that these were his final hours, boldly asked for Jesus to “remember” him in his kingdom. Now, I don’t know how many of us would have given the same response as Jesus did to this criminal. I often hear people say of those who have caused harm that they will “get what they deserve.” This man, after all, hurt people, perhaps even killed people. It’s even possible that they were a part of beating and robbing people alongside of the road, leaving them abandoned and left for dead. Maybe they lived their whole lives this way. Who was this man, after all he had done, to ask Jesus for forgiveness? But Jesus forgives him. Why? Love. Grace. Jesus said that this man would be with him in paradise today!

When Jesus promises paradise “today” in the text, we see how immediate salvation is (Green, 1997). There wasn’t a program to go through (programs are great tools for healing, but salvation is immediate and the first step toward healing). There was no process for this man on the cross. There wasn’t some scale that said his good had to outweigh his bad. He didn’t have to get things in order and then come to Jesus after the fact. He came to Jesus, after having lived a life of sin, moments from death, asking that Jesus would remember him in his kingdom. And Jesus? He didn’t make the man wait, he didn’t give him a lecture about all that he had done wrong first. No, Jesus promised paradise in that moment.

That promise of paradise is for you as well. Maybe you are at your lowest point and you feel that you are one mistake away from death. You are suffering either in your own internal hell, or a lifetime of wrong turns has caught up with you. Maybe you think that it is too late. It’s not. If you simply come to Jesus humbly, acknowledging where you are and acknowledging Christ as Savior, and you ask for forgiveness and that Jesus would save you and remember you in his Kingdom, can you guess what his answer will be? Yes. 100% of the time, Jesus will say yes. How do I know? “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:13, NIV).” You’re not too late. You’re not too far gone. You’re not too broken. You are an Image Bearer with intrinsic value, loved by God, and he is waiting for you to simply say, “Jesus, please remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

References

Blue Letter Bible (n.d.). G1163 — dei — Strong’s greek lexicon (NIV) Retrieved September 6, 2022, from https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g1163/niv/mgnt/0-1/

Boyle, G. (2011). Tattoos on the heart: The power of boundless compassion. Simon & Schuster

Green, J.B. (1997). The Gospel of Luke. Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co.

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