If you were making a film portraying the life of Jesus, at the end of the movie when the credits are rolling you would have a lot of unnamed characters: “A certain man,” “Syro-Phoenician woman,” “tax collector,” “centurion,” “scribe,” “boy with 2 fish and 5 loaves,” and so on.

These ‘bit parts’ are critical to the telling of the Gospel.  On February 26, the church remembers the Samaritan woman who had a conversation with Jesus at Jacob’s well.  You remember, Jesus asks her for a drink and ends up leading her to the source of living water.  She meets Jesus as a wary, almost hostile stranger, but before the story is over, she is inviting others to consider whether this foreigner might be the promised Messiah.  In the Gospel of John, she is the first person to identify Jesus as Messiah.

In the West, we know her as just the “woman at the well.”  In the Eastern Orthodox Church, she is called “Photini,” which means ‘enlightened one.’  According to tradition, she continued to be an evangelist from the day she met Jesus at the well until she was martyred for her faith by order of the Emperor Nero in AD 67.

Obviously, “Photini” was not this woman’s given name.  She wouldn’t have a Greek name; she would have had a Samaritan name – one in the Aramaic language.

But Photini is a great name!  ‘Enlightened One’ — that’s the name for every person who has come to see God revealed in Jesus.

As Christians, we are not just enlightened about who Jesus is, but we are also enlightened about who we are.  We are the forgiven ones, the accepted ones, the sinners welcomed home into God’s welcoming embrace.

Prayer:  Lord, you know my eyesight is poor.  Often, I can only see through lenses of shame and regret.  Enlighten me, that I may see your mercy and see myself as your beloved child.  Amen.