The Waiting Jesus

About midway through December when all the Advent blog postings were done, I decided to focus my scripture reading on the gospel of John.  It seemed like last year I spent more time in the Old Testament than the New Testament which has created a yearning for a slow reading of the good news about Jesus.  While I can read through a novel at a rather rapid rate, scripture reading has always been a much slower process.  Reading the Word always requires some quiet time to ruminate (a favorite word for a man who has cows).  So, I have started, but not nearly as far along as one might think. 

 

Whenever a section of the Word is read again, there are those truths which stand out as having been read the last time, but there are always things which stand out in new and fresh ways.  As I was reading the story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well in the fourth chapter of John, I found myself captured by the word, "encounter."  The woman at the well had an encounter with Jesus that day.  It was not something she was expecting to happen.  Actually, it was the farthest thing from her mind.  She was much more into getting her water for the day while avoiding the wagging tongues of those who saw her only as object of community scandal and gossip.  Caught up in her stuff, she finds Jesus sitting there in the noonday sun, waiting.  Waiting on her.  

 

All of us can think of moments which were very much like that for us.  Some of our encounters with Jesus may be the result of our knocking, seeking, and crying out to Him, but is also true that more times than we can count, we have simply found Him waiting for us to come.  Where were we?  Maybe we were caught up in our games of trivial pursuit.  Maybe we were wrestling with the darkness of some committed sin in our life.  Maybe we were out there angry because it did not seem to us that He was doing for us as He had promised.  Regardless of where we are, where we have been, He is found to be there just ahead at some place in the road...waiting.