It was another dry and dusty day. The morning rush to get the cool, fresh water had subsided. A lone woman approached with her heavy waterpot on her shoulder. Needing water for the home, she also couldn’t wait to get a satisfying drink for herself.
As she approached, she stopped suddenly. A man sat there at the well, a man she didn’t know but quickly recognized as being a Jew. She was a Samaritan, an outcast to the Jews. She hesitated, and at that moment the stranger asked her for a drink. She responded to His request with a question, asking why a Jewish man would want anything to do with her, a Samaritan. His answer was as deep as the well. He let her know that not only was He no ordinary man but He could give her a gift no one else could.
She thought He meant water from the 135-foot deep well; she found out that what He could give her was the water of everlasting life. To prove He was divine, He told her of her sinful lifestyle – she changed the subject. He spoke of God as His Father and of true worship. Before His kind and piercing eyes, she felt her deep need of spiritual life, the very longing of her soul. Her life had been unhappy and unfulfilled; the offer He made to her and the love with which He spoke to her caused her to want what this stranger was offering. As she processed His wisdom and discerning, she thought of the Christ, the Messiah, the One who was to come. Both Jews and Samaritans awaited the Messiah. To her stunned amazement, He then revealed to her that He was the One she was waiting for!
In God’s great purposes and plans, nothing ever happens by chance; nothing is a coincidence. If you are reading this just now and you do not know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, this is also not a chance happening. The God who loves you dearly is giving you yet another opportunity to have your sins forgiven.
As with this dear woman, He knows all about you. Perhaps you consider yourself an outcast, out of the reach of His grace. But just as Jesus came to this well to meet and save this woman, He is willing to meet you where you are and give you the amazing gift of everlasting life. The entire message of the Old Testament is to present the Lord Jesus as God’s anointed Messiah. She had heard about Him, perhaps for all of her life. And when she met Him for the first time, she knew. He was real. He was kind. He knew the sadness of her life. And He offered her, in love, exactly what she needed.
What about you? Are you willing to trust this Savior? He saved this woman even before He went to the cross. What He did on Calvary, just a couple of years later, proves beyond doubt that He truly loves all sinners. He bore God’s wrath so that you and I would never have to face it. Trust this Messiah today. Everlasting life is promised!
