Jesus sat down to rest Himself by the lip of Jacob’s well, the well that Father Jacob had dug in days of old. Jesus was worn out from His journey. And as He rested, His disciples went into the nearby village to buy some needed supplies. And while He was resting, a Samaritan woman came to fetch a pail of water.
Now, what was a Samaritan woman doing, drawing water from the well at high noon? Women would draw their water early in the day or late in the evening. Then, it was cool, and the sun wasn’t beating down on you. They didn’t do such a hard task under the full heat of the blazing, middle-Eastern sun. So, why was she there?
Most likely, the other women made it clear that she wasn’t welcome in their company. She had a reputation! And so she came to the well when she wouldn’t have to deal with other people. But when she arrived, she found a Jew sitting beside the well. Could the day get any worse?
The Jews disliked Samaritans the way they disliked pigs. They were the people who came about after the Assyrians captured the 10 Northern tribes of Israel, deported most of them, and brought in other people to replace them. So, the Jews considered the Samaritans as half-breeds and mongrels, better to be avoided. The Samaritans didn’t worship in Jerusalem. Their religion was a hodgepodge of paganism and truth.
Their hatred was so deep that a good Jew traveling from the north to Jerusalem would cross over the Jordan River, travel south, and then cross over the Jordan again–all to avoid the Samaritans! And the hatred went both ways. Samaritans resented the holier-than-thou attitude that the Jews had toward them.
So, the Samaritan woman at the well goes to work, hauling up her water, ignoring the man who sat and watched her. But then, just after the bucket had made it to the top, this stranger of a man startles her by breaking the silence. “Give me a drink,” He says.
Can you picture the pose she struck as she turned to Him and raised her eyebrows and said: “Let’s get this straight! You, a Jew, would put Your precious lips on something that I, a dirty Samaritan, touched?” Those who are often hated, become hateful in return. It’s part of our fallen, human nature. And the Samaritan woman acted like a fallen sinner in need of saving grace.
But her posturing did not put off the man sitting at the well. “If you knew the gift of God, and who’s asking you for a drink, you would’ve asked Him for a drink, and He would have given you living water.”
But the woman thought the man was talking gibberish. For the term “living water” referred to what we would call moving or running water. In the same way that a person who is alive moves, so also does living water move. But like poor Nicodemus a chapter earlier in John’s Gospel, she doesn’t get what Jesus is saying.
When Jesus told Nicodemus about being born anew by water and Spirit, poor Nicodemus thought that Jesus was taking about physically being born a second time. That’s why he asked: “How can a man be born when he is old? He can’t go back inside his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?”
And with a similar misunderstanding, this Samaritan woman asks Jesus a question. But her question was more confrontational and pointed. She asks: “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep! Besides, where would you get this living water?” And then, although she does not voice these words, she may have thought them: “This water isn’t moving, river water; it’s well water. Are you just a crazy man?”
Oh, the Samaritan woman is feeling feisty. So she continues jabbing this Jewish man: “Are you claiming to be better than OUR father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself?” Oh, she just poked Him with another barb. After all, didn’t the Samaritans have as much claim on Jacob as any Jew? He was their ancestor, as well.
Who are these Jews to think they have an exclusive claim on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? So, she asked Him, “Are you greater than Jacob?” Of course, the answer is no. Who’s greater than the patriarchs old? No one! He’s not greater than Jacob. And so it must’ve been hard to hide the smirk on her face as she knew that she just put this surly Jew in His place!
The man at the well must have smiled at that. For He goes on to say: “Look, everyone who drinks from this water will again get thirsty. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give will not get thirsty. Even more, the water will become spring of water, bubbling up into eternal life.”
She wasn’t listening to everything Jesus said. He just said that He gives water that isn’t ordinary moving water, but a spring of water, bubbling up into eternal life. This was living water on steroids; it’s so powerful that it even gives eternal life! But all she heard was, “You won’t be thirsty anymore.”
You can then see her sitting down next to Jesus, looking into His eyes to see if He’s playing some game with her. When she realizes He’s not, that He’s serious, she says: “OK, I’ll buy. Give me this water. That way I’ll never be thirsty and won’t have to keep coming here to get water”–in the scorching heat of the day.
This man at the well wants more than anything for her to have this gift of living water, of overflowing love. But right now she has no idea that she needs it. All she wants is a respite from the hard labor in the heat of the day. So, Jesus casually says, “Go get your husband and come back here.”
Why is it then that her face flushes a bright red, which you can see even through her tanned, Samaritan skin? But she continues the conversation: “I don’t have a husband.” Knowing what is within her, the man at the well responds, “You’re right in saying that. You don’t have a husband. For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now isn’t your husband.”
Jesus was reminding the Samaritan woman that earthly wells don’t satisfy us. There are thirsts in every heart. And that Samaritan woman was bone-dry: living a shriveled life of adultery and dead-end affairs, drinking stagnant water.
But she wanted to avoid that. For when God exposes our sin, it hurts. I mean, the Jews didn’t need any more help thinking the Samaritans were garbage. “And now this self-righteous Jew knows that I’m the garbage of garbage? Will He condemn me further? It hurts to think about how messed up my life is. This Jew knows too much. I’ll divert His attention somewhere else, off the topic of my life. Ah, I can talk about religion? That’ll set off a spark and get us talking about something else, anything else.”
So, the Samaritan woman says: “I can see that you’re a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Ah, that’s a good diversion. Will it work?
And Jesus responds: “Believe me; the time is coming when that question won’t matter. You worship what you don’t know; we worship what we do know, for salvation comes from the Jews. But the time is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth. The Father seeks such worshipers because He is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and truth.”
The woman is gob smacked and stunned. This man says stuff she’s never heard before or has even given a glimmer of a thought. The Father seeks worshipers? The Father seeks those who worship Him in Spirit and truth–and this worship isn’t tied to a specific location like Jerusalem for the Jews or Mt. Gerizim for the Samaritans?
And how does this man know what the Father seeks and wants? She looks at Him and sets all her sarcasm and bitterness aside. She says: “I know the prophesied Messiah is coming. When He comes, He’ll tell us everything.” The man at the well looked her straight in the eye and said: “I, the One who is speaking to you, am He.”
The gift is given and the truth is spoken; Jesus gives the gift and speaks the truth. He pours out the Spirit on her as living water, bringing her back home to the Father. If you were to read through the rest of John chapter 4, you’d learn that she runs back to town to tell everyone that she met a man who told her everything she had ever done. And you know what? She forgot her bucket of water at the well. She didn’t need it anymore. The living water was springing up inside of her, just like Jesus promised.
The woman at the well was a serial adulterer. Maybe, you think you don’t have much in common with her. But like all of us, she was looking for love. Sadly, she was looking for love in all the wrong places. Her search for love led her into some self-destroying behaviors, which left her isolated and lonely.
Yet, when she despaired of ever finding real love, Love came looking for her. Love was waiting for her at the well. His name was Jesus. He came to pour out His love on her–all of us, even you and me. His love is the gift of living water to those who are parched and dry. He came, not just to say that God the Father seeks and wants us, but to be the living incarnation of that in human flesh. In Jesus, the Father seeks us as His worshipers, to be those who in Spirit and truth receive the gift of His love.
Jesus died to give that gift to you. From His open heart, He calls you to become a worshiper of God the Father–a worshiper in Spirit and truth. For from His heart flowed the water and the blood, which poured from Him as the Roman soldier pierced His side on the cross. That saving water of love came to you in holy baptism. And, in a few moments, that saving blood will come to you in His Supper, where you will drink deeply of His love. So, come now to receive Love Himself, Jesus Christ, in His Supper for you. Amen.
