CAN YOU SEE HER? Joe Stowell

CAN YOU SEE HER? AND BEHOLD, THERE WAS A WOMAN IN THE CITY WHO WAS A SINNER. —Luke 7:37

What a contrast. Jesus loved and forgave the town prostitute. Simon, the good person in town, was repulsed by her presence.

Lisa DePalma, a recent Moody grad, ministers to prostitutes on Chicago’s West and North Sides. Always used and never loved, they hear—some of them for the first time—that God has wonderfully loved them in Jesus Christ. Recently, I sat in a small gathering where Lisa was describing her work with these women. We sat stunned, gripped by the awfulness of her stories of shattered throwaway lives. For most of us, prostitutes are some distant reality, a repulsive part of the dark underside of society. Few of us have ever thought about them, let alone of taking the love of Jesus to them. My guess is that more often than not we think of prostitutes with Simon’s kind of sanctimonious aloofness—the aloofness that often plagues our kind of Christianity.

Lisa wrote these pleading lines:

Can you see her? Will you let God show you?
Her face instead of her clothes? Her eyes instead of her body?
Can you see her? Will you let God show you?
She has a name instead of a label, A broken heart instead of a hard one
Can you see her? Will you let God show you?
The image of God instead of an object of scorn
Her worth to the Savior instead of her worthlessness to the world
Can you see her? Will you let God show you?
His heart of forgiveness instead of your heart that judges
His blood that covers instead of your rules that condemn
Can you see her? Will you let God show you?
And when you do see, what then?

I wish Lisa had been there to whisper these words to Simon as he watched with revulsion the outpouring of the prostitute’s love at Jesus’ feet. His well-conformed life had shut her out. Christ welcomed her in. Are there any sinners that you could love in Jesus’ name? - Joe Stowell