We’ve all experienced it, and it reminds us of the extraordinary wonder of Scripture.

We encounter a pericope from our Bibles—a passage that we’ve read countless times before—and we discover something completely new to us there, a hidden precious gem. Our gospel reading this past Sunday (the Third Sunday of Lent) was the story of the Samaritan woman at the well and our Savior’s unlikely interaction with her: the well, the curiosity of a Jewish man asking a Samaritan woman for water, His offer of living water, the revelation of her many husbands and her current live-in boyfriend. She perceives her well-mate as a prophet.

But it was this past Sunday, as our deacon read from the Gospel of John, that I recognized something that I have never noticed in my 40 years of reading the Scriptures. This revelation was not the subject of Fr. José’s homily. It hit my heart personally in our reading.

This unseemly woman by that day’s standards became the Church’s first evangelist—and quite a successful one at that. It’s all there in John 4:28-30 and 39-42.

At the well, in the midst of a discussion about water, she was called out on her sin. She was not crushed, but fully captivated. She runs to town with such haste that she leaves her cherished water jar behind (it was her family’s primary source of sustenance) and proclaims to all who will listen that she has found the man that must be the Christ. Her zeal for this discovery electrified her hearers so that they left town and hurried out to meet him. It is likely that this was the first time strangers—minding their own business, going about their daily lives—were physically drawn to our Lord through the word of another, the very work of an evangelist. Those who responded to this unlikely evangelist’s work were the unlovely, the despised. A woman. Some Samaritans.

Here is the meaty verse that newly grabbed my attention (John 4:39):

Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”

Many believed… because of the woman’s testimony. Their passionate reception of the woman’s proclamation and thus, the Savior, compelled them to invite him to stay with them in their town. They invited him into their hearts as well as their homes—perhaps the first time our Savior had been given true hospitality by strangers. Jesus stayed with them for two days, and then we are told (John 4:41):

And many more believed because of his word.

Many more believed… And these who heard grew in their faith in short order, telling our lady evangelist (John 4:42):

…It is no longer because of what you have said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Can any Christian think of sweeter words coming from the mouths of those with whom we have shared the gospel: “…and we know that his is indeed the Savior of the world”?

This realization and confession has been the primary purpose and work of the Church at Christ’s great commission. Our Savior came to the world through the labor of a blessed woman, and the beautiful proclamation of his saving grace came to the world through a very different kind of woman.

Such is the Kingdom of God and the boundless marvel of the life-giving gift of divine Scripture.