A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How do You, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, being a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” She *said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst—ever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
John 4:7-26
The woman *said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come back here to draw.” He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come back here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I see that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when He comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus *said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”
Introduction
Like the calling of Nathanael, this intimate episode demonstrates that our God is not distant and uninterested in the lives of His creatures, but instead is intimately familiar with every aspect of our lives: good, bad, and otherwise. But it was not merely a scene where Jesus revealed to someone He knew more about them than a stranger ought to. He was intentional about taking this time in this place to teach a lesson about what it means to follow Him.
After meeting with Nicodemus and gathering a small following near John, Jesus makes His way into Samaria, which lay between Galilee and the rest of Judea. Much has been said about the Samaritans, but for a brief background, they were called such because of the capital city in the Northern Kingdom called Samaria. After the time of Solomon, his son Rehoboam incited a split of Israel into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom (called Judea). Each kingdom was guilty of straying from God, but the Northern Kingdom even more so with wicked king after wicked king. They worshiped a new golden calf and followed after the religion of the pagan people around them. For this, God sent them into exile. While the Southern Kingdom would later be exiled into Babylon (and then return under Ezra and Nehemiah), the Northern Kingdom was taken by the Assyrians.
Something the Assyrians would do when they captured a people is relocate them to a foreign nation’s land. So they took Israelites and spread them around the Assyrian empire, while taking surrounding conquered pagan people and putting them into Samaria. Thus the people of Samaria became a hybrid of pagan nations and natural Israelites. Because of this hybridization of the people, a hybridization of their religion soon followed. In fact, in Samaria they had their own Temple which, after the conquest of the Greeks, was dedicated to Zeus.
And so the people of Judea despised the Samaritans. They were not quite gentiles, but neither were they Israelites. They were something else: an unclean mixture who formulated their own religion and hatred of the Jews because of their claim to fidelity to the Hebrew scriptures. For a Jewish rabbi to intentionally travel through Samaria was unusual. For that rabbi to speak to a Samaritan woman was scandalous. To speak with a Samaritan woman with this woman’s past is unheard of.
The value of water in motion
But it was all to demonstrate a point. This entire episode takes place at a well. And not just any well, but one located specifically where Jacob purchased land for his favorite son Joseph (Genesis 48:22). Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh were later referenced in the Old Testament as alternative names for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. It was part of the land promised to Abraham in the original covenant God made with His people.
Wells like this were necessary for life to exist at all in this dry land. Deep underground, water flowed. It was filtered through the rock and soil, becoming clean and worthy to drink and to irrigate crops. Because the water moved, it was likened to being alive. Living water is water in motion. Such water sustains life. But still water is something we instinctively avoid. It smells. It looks strange. And it breeds all sorts of disease and danger.
In still water, mosquitoes lay their eggs, bacteria grows, and algae blooms. Still water, when drunk, initiates all sorts of bowel diseases that cause dehydration and eventually death. Because of the limitations of technology at the time, living water was absolutely vital for the perpetuation of human life. And this is where Jesus chose to meet the sinful woman: at a well.
Here people gather from all around to collect one of the most necessary resources for life. And here is where Jesus made Himself found by the Samaritan people. So beyond telling this woman about her past, Jesus tells her about Himself. He tells her that He provides something that gives life everlasting. The well that springs up from Him never runs dry and is always overflowing in abundance. No drought, storm, or catastrophe can ever cut someone off from the life that Jesus provides because that life is a direct line to the creator who sustains all things. Where the Samaritan people had stagnated, becoming infested by the pagan religion of the surrounding nations, Jesus came with pure living water from which they might find life.
True worship
Then comes the shift. As part of their hybrid religion, the Samaritan people replaced Jerusalem and Mount Zion with Mount Gerazim. Here they planted their Temple, and here they believed worship properly took place. But Jesus, God in their midst, flips that. He does not say they must come south to Jerusalem to properly worship. Instead, He continues His teaching that those who drink from Him will have the wellspring within them.
God did not intend to make His dwelling among His people in a fixed location. Instead, He would fix that location within each believer, going with them as they spread the good news of His incarnation and arrival. While we were barred access to His dwelling place in heaven, He came to us in our lowly state. He came to this woman whose life was far from the picture of righteousness in order to make His dwelling even with her and her people.
The true worship of God does not happen by taking a pilgrimage to exotic lands or ascending mountains. True worship of God happens in spirit and in truth when we declare the mighty works He has done. He has made the heavens and the earth. He has redeemed a people for Himself by bearing their sins on the cross, dying, and rising again on the third day. In Him we have life, and in Him we have hope. We worship God in our repentance and our faith, singing His praises from now into eternity.
May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.
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