Consider the Samaritan woman. By the time Jesus met her, she was on a first-century version of a downward spiral. Five ex-husbands and decades of loose living had left her tattooed and tabooed. Gossipers wagged their tongues about her. How else can you explain her midday appearance at the water well? Other women filled their buckets at sunrise, but this woman preferred the heat of the sun over the heat of their scorn.
Were it not for the appearance of a stranger, her story would have been lost in the Samaritan sands. He entered her life with a promise of endless water and quenched thirst. A fresh start, a clean slate. Scripture says, “Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, ‘He told me everything I ever did” (John 4:39).
Jesus came for people like her. And He came for people like you and me.
