Each of Us is the Woman at the Well

I have been meditating on John 4 the past several days. At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus is passing through Samaria on His way to Galilee when He stops to rest at the city’s well about noon. A woman comes there to get some water, and Jesus, being thirsty, asks her for a drink. She is stupefied by the fact that a Jewish man is talking with her, and He replies, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

Wells in the Old Testament were the places that the patriarchs often met the woman they would marry, so there is a marital undertone throughout this passage by the well of Jacob. The Samaritans were some of the most hated people to the Jews since they were the unfaithful remnant of the ten northern tribes of Israel after they had been mostly wiped out by Assyria in 722 B.C. and partially repopulated with foreigners. Samaria, for the most part, was what was left of Israel while the Jews remained strong down south in Judea. The Jews and Samaritans simply didn’t talk to one another if they could help it.

So here was Jesus, a Jew, talking to a Samaritan and a woman at that. She could not believe it. Jesus tells her that if she knew that she was speaking to God, and if she knew the good gifts God wants to give, she would ask Him to give her living water. She asks Him how He is going to get the water, and He responds, “…whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Jesus doesn’t answer her question, but He further clarifies the water He is talking about: the living water that He gives becomes in the one who receives it a spring of water which leads to eternal life.

The conversation moves toward the woman’s husband; she currently has no husband. She has had five, and the one she is with now, she has not married. This has a double meaning since the Samaritans had had five rulers, or husbands, too. Both the woman and the Samaritans were looking for ultimate, lasting happiness in their husbands, but they had not found it. Now Jesus, True Husband of Souls, meets her at the place of meeting a spouse, and offers to give her His life which we call grace and which is symbolized by living water.

His disciples come back from going to buy food and are amazed that Jesus is talking to this woman. The woman left her water jar to go and tell other Samaritans that she had found the Christ. “Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat of which you do not know.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Has any one brought him food?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work’ ” (John 4:31-34).

This is the passage I want to look at most closely. When Jesus says to His disciples, “I have food to eat of which you do not know,” He is making a linguistic reference back to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Jesus has food to eat of which they do not know, and in a similar manner, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not to be eaten: in both instances, there is food and not knowing or not eating. Jesus refers to the tree of life when He says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.” The tree of life is the heart that loves, trusts and obeys God; in other words, it is to do the will of God and accomplish the task given by Him.

The Samaritan woman at the well, unfaithful and sinful, symbolizes every one of us. Even though we are unworthy, Jesus is thirsty and seeks us out. He thirsts for our love, and asks us for a drink; He asks us: “Will you marry me?” On our own, we have nothing to give Him, but we can ask Him, and He will pour out His life into our hearts, making them springs of living water. In the middle of each day as we go about our mundane tasks, Jesus asks us if we will satisfy His thirst. We do so when we give our entire self to Him in love and trust and do what He commands, even and especially in the little ways.

Jesus seeks to be our husband and to give us the gift of God, which is God’s very life. To receive this most awesome gift, we have to ask for it just as the Samaritan woman did. Jesus is eager to give His life to us if we ask Him for it; He does not force His life upon us. When we receive His life in our souls, it becomes a spring of living water and leads us to eternal life.

A while later, Jesus went back to Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles and said the same thing that He had said to the woman at the well. “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, ‘If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’ ’ ” (John 7: 37-38). When we love, trust, and obey God, our heart becomes a tree of life which flows with living water and bears fruit ever month of the year.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.