This is the promised redemption of the cross. Whether we find ourselves on the cross, or at its foot, or on the judgement seat – Jesus is there with us, either in loving opposition or in loving consolation, but with us, in love.

Christian hope is found in the willingness to face death, in all its costliness, because we trust in the promise of the resurrection. And resurrection is impossible without death.

The Samaritan woman is the kind of Christian our world needs today – not afraid to spar with Jesus, not afraid of the stirrings of the Spirit in her own soul; not afraid to tell other people about her experience and not afraid to invite them to come and see for themselves and tell her what they think is going on.

The judgment, it seems to me, is not about what you or I mean when we say “belief in Jesus”. The judgment is about deeds that people don’t want exposed – dangerous secrets, wicked acts, hidden selves. Things of death that people will not raise up to be transformed, by repentance and forgiveness, into a doorway to true life.