The Gift

By Michelle Wise

The square box was beautifully wrapped in crisp, silver paper with blue ribbon neatly tied around the middle.  I held my birthday present in my hands and was curious to know what lay inside the shimmering wrapping.  To my delight I discovered an item that I had been wanting for some time. I warmly thanked my friend and promised his gift would provide many hours of enjoyment.

I love presents.  Who does not?  I love new gifts that replace old, torn ones.  But the reality is the shine of a new present will eventually fade.  It will quickly become worn and perhaps fall apart.  However, there is one gift that I received a number of years ago that has still not lost its vitality.  In fact, it is the most amazing, precious gift that I have ever or will ever receive.  It was a gift from God.  It was the gift of God’s own life.

I know another woman too who received the same gift.  She was a Samaritan woman who lived about 2000 years ago.  John 4:5-26.  She encountered Jesus Himself, sitting next to a well near her town.  Strangely, she had walked about a kilometre in the heat of the day to draw water from this deep well.  It was usual practice in those days for women to gather at the well in the cool of the morning or evening.  We can assume that this Samaritan woman was probably avoiding something or someone.  She had been married five times before and was currently living in a de-facto relationship with a new man.  Most likely, she was avoiding the disapproval of the other women in town.  She was probably ashamed of herself too and the mess she had made of her life.

Jesus Christ was no religious snob, so regardless of her social status, He took time to speak to her and engaged her in conversation by simply asking for a cup of water.

At first, this surprised the woman as she was used to being ignored and despised.  But Jesus calmly answered her suspicious reply by describing an amazing gift.  The gift of living waters.  ‘If you knew the gift of God, and Who it is who says to you, ‘give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.’  It was the middle of the day and she was hot and thirsty, but she had an inkling that Jesus was not talking about water from her town’s famous well.  Jesus then stated the heart of His message to her.  ‘Whoever drinks of this well will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.  But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’

There was a reality in this stranger that inspired her trust, and something in the word in His mouth that was igniting faith deep within her heart.  In coming to Jacob’s well she sought natural water, but in avoiding the other women, she also betrayed another thirst, a thirst for validity and peace, and for real life.  So she asked for the water Jesus was offering.  ‘Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.’

How was Jesus to answer her request?  Would He lay His hands on her, or invoke a blessing of some kind?  No.  Before she could receive His gift there was something she needed to acknowledge.  So He gently asked her a question that gave her the opportunity to express, and own, the sad realities of her condition.  The well within her was full of the stagnant waters of her own guilt and shame about her repeated failure in life. 

It was becoming clear to her that this stranger knew all about her, yet somehow she did not feel condemned in His presence.  She continued to seek for the living water.  If it was not to be found in the famous well of Jacob, was it to be found through the correct worship tradition?  So she asked Him, ‘was Jerusalem or Samaria the right place to worship?’  No, this was not the source of living water.  Where was it to be found, then, if not in a location or a tradition? 

The answer was swift in coming.  The water of life was to be found in a person – in the Messiah – and it was He Who was standing before her.  She had longed for His coming, and now He was here.  He was not rejecting her, nor condemning her for her failures.  He had come here especially to meet her and share the message of His life.  He was the Son of God Who, in coming as a man, had brought the divine life of God into flesh.  Very soon He was to be killed upon the cross, and His life poured out as an offering, to deal with the sin of the world.  Then He would rise again from the dead, and life He had brought into the flesh would become a boundless well-spring for all who would receive it – including this woman. 

She could not have known the details of what was to happen to Jesus, but somehow this woman received His word and trusted Him.  Immediately light and hope dawned within her.  Her heart was changed as she believed in the Son of God, the bearer of eternal life.  She knew she was accepted by God because she had heard and received the word.  The burden of guilt and self-rejection she had carried for so long was lifted.  She was free!  Leaving her water pot beside the well, she raced into the city.  This empty pot now stood in stark contrast to the well of hope that was springing up inside her.  No longer ashamed, and no longer caring who knew about her past, she excitedly called everyone she met to come and meet the Messiah.  She was now His disciple, her life committed in joyous relationship to Him. 

Since then, multitudes who have heard and received His word, including myself, have experienced the water of  God’s life within them.  If you would like to know more, please feel free to contact us at Chapel on the Boulevard.