Chapter Fifteen
The Woman at the Well
JN 4: 4-42
Jesus decided to make a quick trip to Jerusalem for the Feast of Sukkoth. So we all left Galilee and traveled through Samaria. This is a part of Palestine where centuries ago the people had intermarried with pagans. Their religious beliefs were also a little different from those of the majority of the Jews.
We came to a town called Sychar, near a well that the Jewish patriarch Jacob had given to his son Joseph over 1500 years ago. Jesus was tired from our journey, so he sat down there at the well. It was about noon. He sent his disciples to town to buy some food. Then a Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. This was unusual because it was not the right time of day to get water, and she was not with other women. Women are not supposed to go off by themselves.
The day was very hot, and Jesus had no water jar so he said to her, “Please give me a drink.” This was also unusual because Jewish men are not supposed to talk to women in public if the women are alone. I knew from the old Jewish stories that many famous Jewish men had met their future wives at wells, even Moses and Jacob. I wondered why Jesus was speaking to this woman. Was he possibly interested in her as his wife?
I burrowed more deeply into Jesus’ robes when the Samaritan woman spoke to him, “I can’t believe that you, a Jew, would ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink.” Jews thought Samaritans were unclean and would not touch anything they had touched.
Then Jesus said to her, “If only you knew the gift that God is waiting to give you and who I am, you would have asked me for a drink. I would have given you God’s living water.” I thought that “living water” meant cool water flowing from a spring, not the tepid water from that well. I did not know where Jesus was going to find a spring or a river near the town of Sychar.
The woman replied that Jesus did not even have a bucket. He couldn’t give her any water.
Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks from this well will get thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give will never be thirsty again. The water I give will bring eternal life.” The woman liked this idea about not having to come to the well to get water. Not only was it hard work, but I sensed that she was some kind of an outcast and did not like to be seen in public. Maybe that was why she was here at this odd time of day. She did not realize that the water Jesus was talking about was God’s Holy Spirit.
Then Jesus told her to get her husband and come back. When she replied that she did not have a husband, Jesus said that she had had five husbands and that the man she was now living with was not her husband. I had been right about her being an outcast.
The woman looked down at the ground. Then she looked up at Jesus and said, “I know that the Messiah is coming, and he knows everything.” It looked as if she had some hope in her eyes that Jesus might be the messiah she was waiting for.
Jesus said to her, “I am the one that you are waiting for.”
Right then the disciples returned with the food, and they were amazed that Jesus was talking with a woman, but none of them said anything. The woman was embarrassed by the crowd. But she was also excited about Jesus, so she went back into the town and said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything about my life. Could he be the Messiah we are waiting for?” I was surprised that she had the courage to talk to the people who had so often treated her with contempt.
A little while later the townspeople came to Jesus. Many of them had begun to believe in him because of what the woman had said about Jesus. They asked us to stay with them, and we stayed there two days. More people began to believe in Jesus because of his teaching.
bridgingthegaplessgap 