John 4:17-18 Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 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.”
Jesus and the disciples arrived in the village of Sychar in Samaria at about midday. As it was lunch time, the disciples had gone into the town to fetch some lunch while Jesus picked up a conversation with a woman who came to draw water in the heat of the sun. Women draw water either at dawn or dusk in the desert dry countries. If a woman is at the well at the sixth hour, there is something wrong with her life. This woman had been ostracized not to mix with the other young girls of the town. Knowing who she was and the pit that she had come from, Jesus decided to rattle her cage.
Soon the conversation about a drink of water turned into ‘living water’ and with no hesitation, Jesus said, “Go, call your husband and come back” (John 4:16). Jesus was an expert in rattling the cage! And He still is. The last thing that this woman would have wanted to discuss was about her personal life, failed marriages and the illicit relationship that she is living in. Bible scholars say that she was divorced five times as she could have been infertile. In the Jewish culture if a woman is unable to have children, the men are allowed to marry again. Thunder stuck by what she heard, the woman switched the conversation from a drink to destiny. “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. (John 4:19).
God rattles to release us from the cage:
1. Seclusion: This unnamed woman was living in a solo cage of seclusion. She was the least influential person in the town of Sychar. Jesus chose the excluded, excavated and exterminated to become His evangelist. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony (John 4:36). The rattling in our life is to bring us to a place of acceptance.
2. Stigma: This secluded stigmatized woman who was hiding under the shroud of stigma, was freed from the cage of shame. Jesus addressed her real issue. It was not ‘weakness with men’ but a longing desire to be loved and accepted. She boldly ran back into the same village that had marginalized her as a hooker and shared about Jesus. The rattling removes stigma.
- Salvation: This woman, disqualified by society, became the first woman evangelist as she opened her heart to the hidden hideous secret that was destroying her life. The rattling opens the door to salvation.
Rattling is not to make us uncomfortable but to rind the sin and stigma that makes us unapproachable, un-teachable and unusable. Rattling the cage gives us a fresh start.
John 4:42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
Prayer: Heavenly God, shake and rattle my life to remove any hidden stigma and sin. Make me pliable and usable in your hands. Amen.
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