December 5 Hope Arrives

John 4:28-29 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
 
THE woman had come to the well for a bucket of water. She received “the spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14b) Suddenly she becomes urgent to leave behind the physical water to pour the hope of Living Water into her village, “Come see. Could this be the Christ?”
   Hope surely has suddenly sprung in her heart! Imagine the jolt to her soul, how dramatic change had so unexpectedly overwhelmed her. Her life has been one of strain and loss. She has had five husbands. Had they each died? Perhaps some had died, others had left her. Shame ruled her heart. She lived in the death of a pagan culture. Poverty and loneliness darkened her daily life. Physically and spiritually the woman at the well lived without expectation. Where was any cause for hope? Never would it be possible for life to be any different, any better.  
   Then suddenly, the Savior came. Miraculously hope filled her heart. The Christ had come! How long had her people anticipated “the Prophet” as Moses foretold in Deuteronomy 18:18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.  How impossible had it seemed that such a one would walk into Sychar, Samaria on a dry, dusty day. Surely no one would hear the Messiah speak to a lone woman at a well the great promise come true, “I who speak to you am he.” (John 4:26)  
   Yes, it’s true, isn’t it? “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” (Luke 18:27) When life’s circumstances bind us with burdens and worry, what can we do? We must believe and anticipate God’s love will come to us. He has stepped into our dry lives to say, “I am he, your God come to you.” Yes, that is our God. Lovingly he went to the “strangers” before he went to his home in Galilee. Tenderly he speaks to the most hopeless lives of that time to promise his gift of living water.
   God came that day to “refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” (Jeremiah 31:25) He came to encourage and transform. Hope burst into the woman’s heart. Her physical thirst was left behind. Her spiritual thirst was flooded with the Messiah’s grace, love and forgiveness.
   Do you need some hope today? Drink of Jesus. Hear his voice. Know his promises. Believe he will come to you, even into the dry places to wash you fresh and anew with his eternal hope.
 
Prayer. I pray, Spirit, “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that (I) may know the hope to which (you have called me).” (from Ephesians 1:18). Amen.