The deeper we go.....

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11).

 

The deeper we go into the life toward which Jesus offers us, the more "Wow!" we experience.  I think the pattern of the woman at the well illustrates it perfectly.  We imagine that we first have to "clean up out act," and then Jesus will bestow His gifts of love and mercy and kindness and justice on us as a reward --- but, indeed, the truth is the reverse.  In fact, Jesus takes us wherever we encounter Him, and draws us into a life we could never have imagined on our own.

 

He begins with a simple request to this woman, who came alone to the well because she was an outcast in her community.  Back in the 50's, Liz Taylor was a scandal to upright and respectable folks, with her five husbands, and always on the verge of moving on to the next one.  So, too, the Samaritan woman.  She could not come to the well early in the day, when the respectable woman gathered to exchange gossip and family news.  She needed to wait until the noon hour -- and, even then, as scholars tell us, she needed to go to the well not in the center of town, but the one located 1 and 1/2 miles away from the village.  That's a long way to haul two heavy buckets of water needed for cooking and cleaning.

 

But He spoke to her:  Give me a drink of water.  He, the Son of God, the Creator of the Universe, was hot and thirsty, and He had no bucket to lower into the well.  He needed her; He needed her bucket; He needed her willingness to be compassionate toward a stranger -- and she needed what He had to give in return.  For He was to give her "living water...a fountain springing up to eternal life (zoe).  She desperately needed divine energy, enthusiasm (Literally, "God within"), friendship, acceptance, community, respect from others -- all of which came to her from that one Encounter with God.

 

All of the Apostles -- Peter, James, John, Simon the Zealot, Matthew, the Tax Collector -- all of them without Jesus would have remained tax collectors, fishermen, zealots, etc. who lived and died obscure, unknown, unfulfilled with God's plans for them, plans to heal and not to harm, plans to draw them into the center of a community of those who centered on Jesus as their common bond, and who were to find joy in one another.

 

Last night, we began a new Scripture study at the church.  The last series, which went from Labor Day to Advent, drew together 180 people for six weeks --- not people who "had" to be there because it was a Sunday obligation, and who left the church still strangers to one another, but people who came to gather together around a deeper study of the Word of God, who came for a deeper understanding of the faith we all profess, who came hoping to enter more deeply into the gift of the Holy Spirit.  And, through teaching and asking questions, as Jesus did in the Temple when He was 12 years old, we grew together around the Word, no longer strangers, but friends. 

 

Again, last night, I could feel us being drawn together around the only thing we all have in common--revelation of the Word of God and of Jesus, the Incarnate Word.  The plans God has for all of us are greater than anything we can imagine on our own: plans to prosper, and not to harm us, plans to give us a future and a hope. 

 

In the 35+ years since my "baptism" in the Spirit, the "Wow!" factor has never been diminished, but ever increased.  The deeper we go, the more joyful, the more communal, the more amazing!  Like the woman at the well, we begin in sadness and disillusionment, in discouragement and depression -- and we are drawn deeper and deeper into the well of living water, and of the streams of living water flowing out of us into the lives of others.    A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  Would that all would recognize the Gift of God and come to the Source of Living Water!