Jessica in the Well

IN OCTOBER of 1987, a little girl named Jessica McClure fell down an abandoned well shaft. The shaft was eight inches in diameter and twenty-two feet deep. She was lost to her parents with no way on her own to get out. She was trapped.

In this little town of Midland, Texas, she became the focus of the whole nation. Every major news network focused in on Midland, Texas, and the girl named Jessica, who was trapped in the well. For fifteen hours, men dug and drilled. They didn’t know initially that to get to her they would have to go through some limestone.

This stone cracked the bits on the drills they were using to make their way through the shaft. Getting to little Jessica took a lot longer than anyone expected. After fifteen hours or so someone was able to get down into the shaft, untangle little Jessica, and bring her up to the top.

Cameras blazing upon the opening to the shaft caught the man bringing Jessica up out of the shaft and into the arms of her waiting parents. The site, filled with people hoping and praying, was filled with joy. The rescuers were crying, the parents were crying, newscasters were crying, and onlookers across the nation were crying because little Jessica, who was most certainly dead, was now alive. Little Jessica, in order to live, had to have somebody else save her.

Similarly, every member of the human race is trapped. We have fallen into an abyss out of which we can never lift ourselves. If we want to get out of this hole we’re in, somebody up there has got to come down to where we’ve been trapped by sin. Somebody has got to drill a hole to where we are.

Even though we try hard, the hole is too deep and we can’t climb out. At the heart of the gospel, that’s what Jesus did. He saw you and me in a hole. We were trying to get out with good works, but we weren’t getting anywhere.

But God, coming as the person of Jesus Christ, entered the hole of our death, and offered deliverance from above. Not only did God offer deliverance, He also offered assurance. The same Jesus Christ not only saves, He also assures.