Seeing Through The Eyes of Love

In his book, "The Jesus I Never Knew," Philip Yancey tells the story of a prostitute who confides in one of his friends some of the deep pit of struggle that she has been living in. When the friend asks her is she ever thought about going to the church for help, she chides, "Church! Why would I ever go there? They'd just make me feel worse than I already do!"
Yancey goes on to write, "Somehow we have created a community of respectability in the church...The down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome." (p. 150)
God has been driving a message home to my heart recently. It deals with how we see people. Somehow we in the church have become programed to be repulsed by people who are caught in sin instead of attracted to them. They are looked down upon, labeled, and rejected with a big red stamp on their lives. We have made the church a "respectability club" and put up a sign that says "No Sinners Allowed!" And I have been just as guilty of this as anyone else.
In the Gospel of John chapter 4, there is a remarkable story of a conversation Jesus has with a woman from the Samaritan village of Sychar who came to draw water from Jacob's well. We all know the story. The woman had a pretty "shady" background having had five husbands in the past and was currently living with a man who wasn't her husband. Now, I can only imagine how this woman would be treated in the church today.
Jesus sees her differently. He knows even before he asks what kind of history she has had, but he sees something in her that we as the church today need to learn. Since they were at a well, Jesus begins by chatting with her about water and offering her water that would cause her to never thirst again. This, of course, piqued her curiosity. Jesus soon changes the subject and goes right for the sore spot by asking her to go get her husband. It is then that she says that she doesn't have a husband and Jesus reveals that he knows that she has had five husbands and the man she is living with now is not her husband.
Possibly trying to change the subject, the woman goes into a spiritual discussion concerning worship and the on-going dispute the Samaritans have with the Jews. The conversation ends in Jesus revealing to her who he really is, the Messiah that she has longed for.
I have read this passage many times in the past, but not until God began opening my eyes did I catch what was going on in it. The first thing we need to recognize is that Jesus knew her history with all its ugliness. The second thing we need to see is that Jesus didn't condemn her. So what exactly did he do, then.
As we read in the first part of the conversation, Jesus offered the woman living water that would cause her to never be thirsty again. He was referring to her spiritual yearnings. The yearnings that God has created in all of us.
Jesus knew the woman's history of having five husbands and her situation of living with a man. But Jesus didn't concentrate on that. He saw those things as symptoms of a greater issue. It's actually the same issue we all wrestle with in one form or another. The need to be satisfied in God. The need to be made complete again by being re-connected with our Father and Creator. The need to experience true love that only He can give.
You see, in having these five husbands, this woman was obviously searching for something. She had a deep need that was much deeper than the obvious need she was seeking in human relationships of romance. She needed to be romanced by the King of kings! That is what Jesus saw.
This comforts me because it tells me that when I fall, when I sin, Jesus doesn't cast me aside and reject me. He sees a deeper need within my heart. The need for Him.
I received a letter recently from a family member who was lambasting my step dad for his practice of verbal abuse and brought up how I had to put up with that while growing up. She was obviously trying to incite anger in me in order to get me to see her side. I did not respond right away, but instead decided to wait and pray.
During this time of waiting and praying, God did a remarkable thing in my heart. Up to that point, although I had chosen to forgive him, I still held a pretty good amount of bitterness toward him. But this changed during this time. In writing her back I responded this way:
"While it is true that I had to live through his verbal abuse, and Lord knows it was no picnic, it is not my place to judge him. I, too, have been guilty of sins that were just as sinful as his in God's eyes. When I see my step dad, I see a man who grew up with a strict and maybe unloving father himself, who most likely verbally abused him. I see a man who needs the love of God in his heart above all."
From that point on, I have seen my step father differently. I am no longer bitter against him, but I have compassion on him and pray for him. Somehow, Jesus allowed me to see him through His eyes--through the eyes of love.
Does that mean we excuse sin? Not at all. Jesus raises the standard farther than even the Pharisees did concerning living right before God. But what it does mean is that condemnation and guilt never motivated anyone to have a true heart transformation. These things can only spur a person on to try harder, to put forth a better effort at living righteously. But it never, ever lasts. What always results is a frustrated, bitter person who ends up angry at God and full of shame for his own repeated failings.
Jesus knows a better way. He sees us--our sins and all--through eyes of compassion. He sees the need of our heart that is causing us to act the way we do. He knows that we are created to desire God and to find our fulfillment in Him alone. Our sin, therefore, is our attempt to find this fulfillment elsewhere when we need to know that it can only be found in Him. Jesus comes to us, not with judgement and condemnation, but in understanding. He sees us through eyes of love.