When Jesus chose to whom He would make the first official declaration of His divinity, it was to the Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well. What a surprise! His choice defied expectations for several reasons.
She was a Samaritan and the Jewish antipathy for Samaritans was vast and intractable.
She was a woman. Why would a Rabbi talk alone, extendedly, and theologically with a woman? Even His disciples were amazed at His actions.
She was a sinner. After five husbands, she was cohabiting. Presumably she went to the well at midday because she could not tolerate the sideways glances and snide comments she got when others were at the well at the preferred morning hour. She simply was the poster child for disreputability in her community.
But Jesus chose to have a deep, revealing, and transformative conversation with her. He chose to announce that He was the Messiah!
Jesus keeps surprising us. You would rather expect that He would make the declaration of His divinity to a gathering of influential community leaders or thought leaders. He didn’t. He went directly to a marginalized and disregarded woman. When she ran back to town and declared, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” who would believe her? Who would respond to her invitation?
Probably only those who knew that their own lives were in shambles and that they desperately needed redemption. And those were the people Jesus was after. The respectable leaders of the synagogue were not ready for His message; He came for those who knew they needed redemption.
There is a message for us in Jesus’ choice. No matter how far we have fallen, no matter how many mistakes we have made, no matter how dismally we are seen by others, Jesus is ready to embrace us. In fact, our desperation is His opportunity.
The starting point in every human’s spiritual journey is to know that “His relentless redemptiveness exceeds my recurring wrongs.” As long as we feel like second-class citizens in the kingdom, we will not be first-class partners.
Have you felt Jesus reaching for you? Have you felt His love? Or, have guilt and feelings of spiritual inadequacy kept you from feeling His embrace?
I have previously made my confession; it was not until I felt the powerful, engulfing love Jesus has for the sinful people I counseled as a bishop that I realized just how relentless His love is! It was only then that I finally accepted that Jesus might love me in spite of my weaknesses, failings, and abundant shortcomings.
Jesus and His love are the foundation on which we build good lives and strong relationships. So, what do we do if we haven’t felt that love?
Justin Collings made a confession that may feel familiar.
It has sometimes been hard for me to accept that God can forget in mercy what I remember with so much pain. I have sometimes felt like I was playing a game of mnemonic whack-a-mole—resolving one remembered sin only to recall another. I have doubted at times the adequacy of my repentance, even as I have anguished over the sins that made repentance necessary.
Divine Law, 2024, p. 30
Feelings of spiritual inadequacy are common among the earnest and conscientious. While they may be our reality, they are not God’s conclusion. Beyond our fallenness, God sees a beloved child to be rescued. Our goal is to join Lehi in testifying that “the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Nephi 1:15).
How is it done? How is our guilt swept away and replaced with humble confidence in God?
Enos asked the same question. The answer he received, “Because of thy faith in Christ” (Enos 1:8). Faith? Don’t we all have faith? Yet this is a special kind of faith—a faith that goes beyond knowing that Jesus is real and good to knowing that He is determined to rescue even me. When we fully experience that love, we are changed by it.
We must not just believe the doctrine but have the experience—feel engulfed in His love as the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus knew full well that her life was a mess. But, in that short conversation by the well, she felt something that changed her life. Jesus came to save her!
So, what does Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman have to do with marriage? Everything.
Most of us enter marriage with high hopes and expectations. But usually over many years we discover aspects of our spouse that annoy and frustrate us. Busy lives and the demands of work and children frequently rob us of time for connection and romance. We might face challenges such as mental or physical health trials, financial stress, disagreements over goals and priorities, etc. And it is human nature to place our needs ahead of our spouse’s. As a result, our marriage may not meet those early hopes and expectations.
As we navigate marital challenges, we may question whether faith can make a meaningful difference. But that is when we most need to invite Jesus into our marriage.
When we feel that, despite our best efforts, we have fallen short, we have insulted our spouses and God too many times, and there just isn’t a way to make our relationship holy, we are ready for His transformative touch. We are ready for His message.
The starting point for making our marriages heavenly is the realization that as with the woman at the well, Jesus is committed and able to take our fallen natures and imperfect efforts and mentor us toward holiness.
Jesus knew that, in a fallen world, we are all sick. He knew that marriage would likely be the relationship in which we are most challenged to love as He would have us love and we will struggle in the face of that challenge. But only some people acknowledge these things. Only the humble seek the Physician. The rest ignore the symptoms of fallenness and declare radiant health. Those who know they are blind, halt, leprous, diseased, and possessed run (or crawl) to Jesus.
I think King Benjamin got it right. “For the natural spouse is an enemy to God and their partner, and will be, forever and ever, unless he or she yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and is transformed by the atonement of Christ the Lord” (liberal paraphrase of Mosiah 3:19).
The ONLY way to be clean and whole is to be changed by Him! He is the only way. No amount of communication training and no amount of marriage enrichment can remedy our fallenness. Only Jesus can heal our souls. Only Jesus can redeem our relationships.
Unfortunately, we often talk about Jesus in rather abstract or academic ways. We have our favorite pictures of Jesus on the wall and warm feelings in our heart. But we fail to fully invite Him into our lives and our marriages. What if we did things differently? What if we took our failings seriously and took them to Jesus? What if we truly had faith that He could help us to elevate and redeem our marriages in a way that we cannot on our own? What might happen?
What if we recognized our tendency to excuse ourselves and blame our loved ones? What if we recognized our painfully human habit of putting ourselves at the center of everything? What if, like the blind men and lepers, we cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (Luke 17:13). He declared:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the [year of the Lord’s acceptance].
Luke 4:18-19
The Gospel of Jesus Christ provides the solution for our brokenness in marriage. As King Benjamin observed with perfect inspiration, “men drink damnation to their own souls except they humble themselves and become as little children, and believe that salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent” (Mosiah 3:18).
When King Benjamin recommends that we become as little children, He is not suggesting that we get demanding, pouty, and self-centered. He is recommending that we recognize that we are as dependent on Jesus for our spiritual survival as any child is dependent on parents for physical survival.
Points to ponder:
1. Will I really allow Jesus to love me–even in my weakness and at my worst? Do I believe He truly wants to redeem me and help me with my weaknesses? How would that change me? How might that help to reset my marriage?
2. Do I really believe that Jesus could make a difference in my marriage? Do I have faith that He wants to enable us to have a more fulfilling relationship? Am I willing to fully invite Him to mentor and guide me in navigating my marriage? How do I do that?
3. As I turn to Jesus for guidance in helping me to be a better spouse, am I willing to make changes? How can I commit to acting on the lessons He wants to give me?
Do you want to grow in your recognition of Jesus and the way He can heal your soul and your marriage? Do you want to learn what good research on marriage teaches us about how to apply true principles that will strengthen your relationship? Join us for a marriage retreat on September 13, in Alpine Utah: Jesus’ Lessons for Marriage. To learn more and to register, go to DrWally.com
Thanks to Barbara Keil for her substantive contributions to this article.
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