Photini - The Luminous One

Jesus said to her, ‘I am he,* the one who is speaking to you.’ John 4. 4 - 26

No name, out alone at the well at noon, an enemy and five husbands surely make her suspect, and yet Jesus not only talks to the Samaritan woman more than he talks to any person in the gospels, longer than he talks to any of his disciples, longer than he talks to any of his accusers, longer than he talks to any of his own family, but she is the first person to whom he reveals himself in the Gospel of John.

In Eastern Christian tradition, the woman's name at the time of her meeting Jesus is unknown, though she was later christened "Photina" the Luminous One, a fitting name for one who despite her suspect reputation, abandoned her water jugs, her life sustenance, and returned to the village speaking boldly to the people who maligned her saying, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.”

Barbara Brown Taylor says,

'The Messiah is the one in whose presence you know who you really are—the good and bad of it, the all of it, the hope in it. The Messiah is the one who shows you who you are by showing you who he is—who crosses all boundaries, breaks all rules, drops all disguises speaking to you like someone you have known all your life, bubbling up in your life like a well that needs no dipper, so that you go back to face people you thought you could never face again, speaking to them as boldly as he spoke to you."

Her continuing witness is said to have brought so many to the Christian faith that she is described as "equal to the apostles". Eventually, having drawn the attention of Emperor Nero, she was brought before him to answer for her faith, suffering many tortures and dying a martyr after being thrown down a dry well.

"Christ at the Well" by Peter Koenig from Art in the ChristianTradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville,TN

Today, as we remember this luminous one, we might reflect on when and where we have been touched by the luminosity of Christ in Creation and brought to a greater understanding of who we are and our purpose in the world. Where have we been given the courage to stand up and face those people in the world who have misunderstood us and whom we have misunderstood and empowered by the Love of God to speak truth and be reconciled?

Oh Photini, who were you really and what happened to the rest of your life? Wouldn't that story make a great novel!!!