I had never really thought of myself as a cowgirl until I stood beside a pen with more than a dozen cows and calves being instructed to “man the gate” while my husband did the work of separating the herd. It couldn’t be helped, I suppose. We were alone on the ranch doing a routine check of the livestock when we spotted the blighted cow, an infectious wound having swollen half of her face.
She couldn’t hide the sickness. She had to be cut off from the rest.
I was rather annoyed at first, sweating in the heat of a Texas summer, my boots caked with cow manure, the offensive cow not cooperating as she should. We had all these healthy, obedient cows. Why did this one sick one have to take so much time and cause so much trouble? The herd was plenty irritated as well, brought up from the peace of the pasture, forced into a too small space, temporarily losing track of their calves in the process. There was a lot of mooing and shuffling and gate opening and closing, and we were pouring sweat by the time the ordeal was over, the sick cow finally secured by herself in a place away from the rest, squeezed into a chute, bound by her affliction.
The cure would not be easy. I was told I would not want to be there for the treatment, but I overheard the call with the vet. A sharp knife would be needed to cut a three inch gash through the stubborn hide of her cheek so the infection could be exposed. The pus would run out, but it would have to be cleansed. The gentle dab of a sterile alcohol pad was not enough. It would take a garden hose, water gushing out and over and into the wound to cleanse it of all its impurities. Then the medicine could be applied, injected directly into the gaping infirmity.
The cowboy had to draw near to the infected cow, his face only inches from hers, the offensiveness of the wound running down the hands of the healer as the cure was applied.
The other cows stood, back in the comfort of the pasture, chewing cud and obediently growing calves, watching it from afar. It made me think of Christ and his story about the ninety-nine sheep and the one that wandered away. How much trouble the shepherd went to in order to find that sheep, to draw it close and carry it on his shoulders back to the flock. Jesus exemplified that parable, I think, with the woman at the well (John 4). She was alone, separated from the rest in a place where the women usually came together, a mundane task of getting the day’s water supply turned into a time of glad laughter and sharing wisdom. But this woman came alone, her blight too obvious to ignore, an infection that drove the others to separate from her, leaving her bound to a life as an outcast, everyday a reminder of her sores.
I feel their annoyance as they step over the refuse of her life, barely glancing her way, glad to be out of the circle of ill repute and gross offense, the task of raising and protecting their own families filling their lives, providing an excuse to avoid the woman at the well. I feel it because I know it well. I do not want to be bothered by the uncomfortableness of the toil it takes, the sweat and tears I will have to shed to reach her. I do not want my boots soiled with the rubbish of her life. But not Jesus. He has a time appointed to meet with this woman, to look right into her wounds, to expose the infection and affect a cure.
He draws near to her, knowing where she will be, crossing beyond the stigma of ethnicity and cultural norms to be there as well.
It takes time and trouble and more work than any of us cares to do, but Jesus does it, wading through the refuse of her life to meet her where no one else dares to go. Why would he do that, I wonder, when there are so many perfectly fine Jewish women pleasantly living as they should? I think the disciples wondered as well, shuffling feet, averting eyes, clearing throats, as Jesus drew near to this wounded soul.
She was an outcast! Not just the wrong race, not just the wrong gender, not just the wrong lifestyle, not just the wrong religion, not just the wrong worldview but all of these things, completely and utterly unlike the disciples, a living blight on their existence.
She would not have been allowed in their temple, or their homes, or even in their city. More astonishing still, she was an outcast to her own race and gender and religion. She is utterly alone, unable to hide the stain of her sin. And I think that is why…why Jesus goes to her, for it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick (Luke 5:31). Rather than be annoyed, Jesus draws her in close. He goes to the place she visits everyday, and when he meets her, he does something astounding, something I am so utterly convicted by. He asks her for something he needs that only she can provide. “Give me a drink” (Jn. 4:7). By this time in John, Jesus has already been lauded as the Messiah. He already has a following. He has turned the water into wine. He certainly could have created a drink of water for himself, but instead the Creator of all things asks the outcast for a drink. God presents himself to the woman at the well as one who has a need that she can meet for the purpose of exposing the need she does not yet even realize she has. He meets her at her necessary and everyday place of being and he engages her, gently, lovingly, with eyes that see beyond the stigma of race and lifestyle and gender and religion and worldview. He enters her world, exposing the sin, tenderly, personally, for the purpose of cleansing and healing her.
Christ is showing her, this one who has been labeled and categorized and rejected, that she is a person of great worth, and a person in need of redemption.
It is the kind of story that undoes me, exposing my own sin of arrogance, my own lack of compassion, my own tendency to make myself busy with the things I am comfortable with- the people I am comfortable with, so I can find an excuse from going to the well. For I do not yet comprehend how deep the piercing had to go to heal me of my sin. I still see myself, so often, as the healthy cow in the pasture, annoyed by the woman at the well, forgetting that I too was once bound by sin, separated from God and alone. Shame was a cloud that shadowed my life, sin a ravaging force that devoured my dreams; a lifetime of actions and reactions separated me from even my closest friends. Do you remember the feeling of utter loss, the taste of rejection and the fleeting hope that someone, anyone, would see your pain and go out of their way to remind you that you are not forgotten, that you are a person of worth, a person in need of redemption, and that there is healing, even for you?
Christ came to us, knowing our healing would take a great wounding, a painful and deep piercing of soul and body.
The Lord knew how much it would cost, how much it would hurt; he knew that the cure could not be affected from afar. He would have to leave his place of glory, draw near to us, entering into the bondage of flesh, the defilement of our transgressions running upon him, the cleansing requiring a great gush of blood and water from his innocent side. And he didn’t just walk across the street or across town. He descended across a chasm that we could not cross, and when he was on the earth, he didn’t spend all his time at home or in the temple. No, he spent his time among those whom the religious people deemed to be unworthy of time, a sort of plagued people whose sickness might get on them if they got too close. Jesus was so often among them, so often in their space, that at one point He was accused of being a drunkard (Luke 7:34).
When Jesus went to that well and stepped into the shattered world of another, he did it on purpose, and it is what we are called to do when we follow the Savior. Your companions may misunderstand you. The norms of culture and religion may oppose you. The realities you encounter will be messy and offensive, and you may find yourself repulsed at the hideousness of them. When you go to the well, you will feel the pain of the soul that has been left wounded and alone; the carnage of their life will seep into your own as you draw near and share with them the healing found in Jesus.
Do not go as a savior. Go as a sinner, imperfect and weak, rescued by mercy, compelled by love, enabled by grace. Go to the well.
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