Jesus knows your pain

My church recently read through Belonging by Karoline M. Lewis. It’s a deep dive on the story of the “woman at the well”.

In this short book Lewis makes several point about dialogue between Jesus and the unnamed samaritan woman (5 in fact, if you could guess from the subtitle). I want to share just one that stood out.

Christ sees and knows your pain.

You’re probably familiar with the story of the woman at the well (If not it’s here in John chapter 4. Go ahead and read it. We’ll still be here when your finished).

There’s a bit of a miracle moment there where Jesus tells the woman “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.”

Jesus knows her past.

If you’ve heard your fair share of preaching, you’ve probably been told this passage is Jesus calling out this woman’s sinfulness. You’ve heard she’s promiscuous, that Jesus is offering her forgiveness and redemption. Certainly Jesus knows this woman’s sin, but that is most likely not what is happening here.

Jesus isn’t calling out her sin, but her pain.

In first century Judaism it was extremely difficult — near impossible — for a woman to initiate divorce. There was an ongoing debate within Judaism the reasons a man may divorce a wife for. One one side was only adultery (the one Jesus sides with), the other “for any reason”. What has more than likely happened to this woman is she has either been divorced by her husbands (because of their hardness of heart) or her husbands have died.

This woman lived a hard life with many sorrows.

Jesus doesn’t condemn her here. He sees her sorrow and names her pain. A little later in the conversation she expresses her hope for the coming messiah and Jesus reveals Himself to her as that longed for messiah. She believes Him because He knows her pain.

Now why am I sharing this?

If you’re anything like me, you are your own worst critic. You focus on all of your shortcomings, all of your problems, all of your sin. You may imagine Jesus pointing all these out to you (because that’s what you would do to yourself). Christ is better than this. He knows our weakness — of course — but He also knows our pains and sorrows.

Jesus knows the full spectrum of human suffering.

He offers us understanding and sympathy.
Not only forgiveness.
He brings healing.

Spend some time with Him and find out for yourself.
- Daniel Otto Spencer Polehn