But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. John 4:23 NIV

Jesus intentionally traveled through Samaria, even though the Jews would avoid the Samaritan’s at all costs. They would walk around the country, adding rugged, dusty miles, rather than encounter the people they despised. Not Jesus.

Jesus loved the outcast. Jesus broke cultural norms and in doing so, he showed us how to do the same. Jesus did not seek out the popular social elite. Jesus looked for the broken, the lonely, the marginalized. What we see on the surface is just that. Superficial. The masking of what is going on below the surface where who we really are dwells. The hopes and dreams, the fears and the heartaches. The thoughts I think but never speak out loud. The real me.

Jesus could (and does) look right through the masks and the smoke and mirror attempts to camouflage our true selves. That was the conversation he had with the Samaritan woman at the well.

It was at noon, the warmest part of the day, not the usual time for drawing water from the well. The women had the task of drawing water for their family's needs in the early morning and at sunset. By going to the well midday, she could avoid the stares and rejection. She never expected to meet anyone, let alone a Jewish Rabbi who would speak to her. A man who would tell her things, revealing that he could look into her broken heart and life and extend compassion. Jesus is Truth and he spoke truth about her and to her. She mattered. She had value and she was loved. He asks her for a drink.

Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” John 4:6-20 NIV

As they continue their conversation, Jesus reveals that he is the Messiah. Not to the social elite in Jerusalem, but to a Samaritan woman of ill repute. Her spirit responded to the words of Jesus and she ran to tell everyone about this amazing man who “told me everything I ever did”. She was the first missionary in Samaria. In spirit and in truth, she shared the good news from Jesus himself.

Maybe you have felt invisible, judged, too broken to be fixed and without hope. Jesus sees you. He knows all about you and he loves you. No mask is needed. He sees you as you are. Fully known. Loved completely. Open your heart, drink the living water and never thirst again.