Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places
In John 4, we meet an anonymous Samaritan woman who’s entire life is about to be transformed by the untold love of a Jewish carpenter. I imagine this encounter as a stage-play with three separate acts. But, that being the case, before we can get to the opening scene we’ll have to set the stage.
Jesus was tired. He and his followers had left Judea and headed north for Galilee. “But on the way,” the Bible says, “he had to go through the country of Samaria” (vs. 4). Glance at any map of the Holy Lands and you’ll notice that the most direct route from Judea to Galilee takes you right through Samaria. However, the average Jew would never have gone that way. Most Jews would have crossed the Jordan river and traveled along its eastern shore just to avoid Samaria, then crossed over again into Galilee.
Jesus, however, was anything but average. So, he traveled westward through the region of Samaria. Now, he and his followers had been walking in the arid desert heat for roughly thirty miles. Although Jesus is God, he is also a man. The feet that used the mountains as their footstool were weary. The throat which called into existence the heavens and the earth was dry and soar. Jesus was tired. He was also thirsty.
Jesus and his followers approached the small Samaritan town called Sychar. Jesus knew that there was a running spring in the village that feed a well which had been dug out centuries before by Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, “near the field Jacob gave his son Joseph” (vs. 5).
The Bible says, “Jesus was tired from his long trip, so he sat down beside the well” (vs. 6), while his followers went ahead of him into town to buy some food. Now, the curtain opens, our unnamed woman enters stage right, and act one…
A Scandalous Conversation
…begins. “It was about twelve o’clock noon,” the Bible says, “when a Samaritan woman came to the well to get some water” (vs. 7). The conversation began innocently enough; Jesus asked her, “Please give me a drink” (vs. 8). His request seems insignificant—and obvious. He was tired and hot. He’d walked a long distance. He had nothing with which to draw water himself—no buckets or pales—so he asks for some water. What’s so scandalous about that?
The woman immediately recognized the taboo nature of his solicitation. “The woman said, ‘I am surprised that you ask me for a drink, since you are a Jewish man and I am a Samaritan woman.’” (vs. 9). For one thing, it wasn’t proper in those days for a man to just start talking to a strange woman in public. But more importantly, there is a parenthesis at the end of that verse which says, “Jewish people are not friends with Samaritans.” That’s quite an understatement. The footnote in my Bible adds, “This can also be translated ‘Jewish people don’t use things that Samaritans have used.’”
You see, Jews saw Samaritans as unclean. “The Samaritans were a mixed race,” Wiersbe explains, “part Jew and part Gentile, that grew out of the Assyrian captivity of the ten northern tribes in 727 B.C.” When the Jews were held captive by the Assyrian empire, many of them intermarried with their captors and became known as Samaritans. Since the Samaritans couldn’t prove their Jewish heritage, the Jews rejected and despised them. They weren’t allowed in the Jewish Temple, so they built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim where they too worshipped the God of Abraham. They followed the first five books of the Torah, those written by Moses, but reject the rest of Scripture. Thus, they had some knowledge of truth, but with a somewhat distorted view of who God really was.
For Jesus to speak to a Samaritan woman and even to ask to drink from the same cup that she had used was, well… scandalous. But listen to his reply, “If you only knew the free gift of God and who it is that is asking you for water, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (vs. 10).
And this is where it would be nice if the Biblical writers had included some inflection details, because I think I detect a bit of sarcasm in her retort, “Sir, where will you get this living water? The well is very deep, and you have nothing to get water with. Are you greater than Jacob, our father, who gave us this well and drank from it himself along with his sons and flocks?” (vs. 11-12).
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give will never be thirsty. The water I give will become a spring of water gushing up inside that person, giving eternal life” (vs.13-14).
The woman said to him, again I think with a bit of sarcasm, “Sir, give me this water so I will never be thirsty again and will not have to come back here to get more water.”
Jesus told her, “Go [the word translated “go” here means “as you are going,” so apparently she was already turning her back on Jesus] get your husband and come back here.”
The woman answered, “I have no husband.” And this is where we learn, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. It’s not that the woman lied. In fact, she told the truth—for which Jesus commends her—but it’s not the whole truth.
Jesus said to her, “You are right to say you have no husband. Really you have had five husbands, and the man you live with now is not your husband. You told the truth” (vs. 17-18). The original language stresses the word your, implying that the man she was living with was someone’s husband just not hers. She didn’t try to hid her sin, but she certainly wasn’t proud of it either.
Maybe, by now, you’ve noticed that Jesus and the woman are the only two people at the well. Well, there’s a reason for that. In villages like this one, it was customary for the women of the city to visit the well early in the morning to draw their daily ration of water. By going to the well early they avoided the heat of the noonday sun and it allowed them time to socialize with the other ladies of the village. So why didn’t this woman draw her water then with all the other ladies? Could it be that she wasn’t welcome?
She had apparently been ostracized by the other women of Sychar, probably due to her sordid past. By Jewish standards she was from the wrong race and the wrong religion. She was condemned by her own people with the wrong reputation. Yet, knowing all of this, Jesus offered her the water of life. Through this encounter, we see in Jesus a love that keeps no record of wrongs.
Once she realizes that Jesus was someone special, she asks him about what she thought was an essential theological issue—worship. And Jesus didn’t criticize her for changing the subject. Instead, he gently steered her back to the real issue, saying, “The time is coming when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, and that time is here already” (vs. 23).
Jesus was “telling her that a new age was dawning when neither Gerizim nor Jerusalem would have a monopoly on the priesthood. The era of the New Covenant was just on the horizon. There was a subtle expression of messianic expectation in his words, and she got it.” Which leads us to the second act in this unfolding drama…
A Surprising Confession
She said, “I know that the Messiah is coming.” (Messiah is the One called Christ.) “When the Messiah comes, he will explain everything to us” (vs. 25). Consider her confession closely. “She knew the Messiah was coming. That was a definitive expression of [faith]… And how did she think the true Messiah would reveal himself? ‘When he comes, He will tell us all things’ (vs. 25 NKJV). Jesus had already demonstrated his full knowledge of all her secrets.”
Remember, she knew the first five books of the Old Testament and was familiar with the prophesies about the Messiah. And I think she was already beginning to suspect that Jesus himself was the Messiah. The Holy Spirit was already at work in her heart, opening her eyes and ears, drawing her to Jesus.
And this is where Jesus takes center stage. Stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight, Jesus told her, “I Am the Messiah!” (vs. 26 NLT). The Message paraphrase says, “I am he… You don’t have to wait any longer or look any further.” And there’s an interesting footnote about this verse in my Bible. The original Greek reads “I Am, the one speaking to you.”
This was a reference, I believe, to the book of Exodus, when Moses asks God who he should tell the people sent him. God spoke out of the burning bush, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14 HCSB). Jesus was confessing himself to be not only the promised Messiah, but the I Am, the God of Moses, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is one of the most direct and explicit messianic claims Jesus ever made.
When the Jewish crowd demanded, “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly” (John 10:24 NKJV), he refused to give a straightforward answer because he knew their hearts were wrong and weren’t genuinely seeking the Messiah. But surprisingly, during a scandalous conversation with a Samaritan woman with a sordid past and outcast status, Jesus chose to reveal himself as Messiah for the very first time.
It isn’t enough that we believe Jesus was a respected Rabbi or an inspirational leader. The Bible requires and Jesus demands for us to believe that the Jewish carpenter from Nazareth was and is nothing less than God himself. The voice this Samaritan woman was listening to, was the same voice that spoke into the darkness when the universe leapt into existence. The tiny little hand that squeezed Mary’s finger so tightly, is the same hand that shaped the mountain peaks and formed the dry land. The I Am. The God of the universe.
“The disciples returned about this time,” the Bible says, “and were surprised to find Jesus talking with a woman. But none of them asked him what he wanted or why he was talking with her. The woman left her water jar and ran back to town” (vs. 27-28 CEV), closing the curtain on act two, before it rises for our final act...
A Startling Conversion
After running back to town, the woman says to anyone she can find, “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Do you think he might be the Christ?” (vs. 29). Her reaction was similar to many young believers with a new found faith.
I remember Bill Hybels recounting his conversion experience. He was a teenager at church camp and had been going to church for most of his life. But he never really got it. Deep down he always thought his relationship with God was all about doing good works. It was a performance based relationship, which is really no relationship at all. He was sitting up late one night with his Bible and his flashlight when it hit him. Things like sin, salvation, and grace suddenly made sense and he gave his heart and life to Jesus right there in his bunk. Almost immediately he started waking up his cabin mates, sharing his experience with them. And he couldn’t understand when they just waved him off saying, “we know, we know,” and sent him back to bed.
I think it’s a sign of genuine faith, when a person can’t keep it to themselves. And her testimony had an immediate impact. As the drama continues, “the people left the town and went to see Jesus… Many of the Samaritans in that town believed in Jesus because of what the woman said… they begged him to stay with them, so he stayed there two more days. And many more believed because of the things he said.” (vs. 30,39).
The woman at the well had been tired and thirsty. She hadn’t walked thirty miles through the desert. She hadn’t spent the better part of the day under an Arabian sun. Her thirst was different. Her thirst came from a dry and weary soul searching for love in all the wrong places. This was a woman who was seeking something—but she didn’t know what. With each new relationship she probably thought that she would find some sense of fulfillment. But when the newness wore off and infatuation subsided, she was left with feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and discontentment. So she would go from one man to another, to another—each time hoping that this relationship would bring with it the love that she so desperately needed.
“Scripture doesn’t tell us what ultimately became of the Samaritan woman. Her heart was clearly changed by her encounter with Christ. It is an absolute certainty that her life changed as well.” The Bible says, “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT). She had been transformed from the inside out. And not just her, but her entire village was forever changed as more and more people came to know the love of Jesus. It’s amazing what one person’s faith can do in a small town.
And it was all possible because Jesus chose to love—to keep no record of wrongs. He chose to look beyond her sins and mistakes, to see a dehydrated heart that was in need of the water of life—a heart that was in need of him.
Are you tired and thirsty? Couldn’t you use a drink from the river of life? Jesus, in his love, allows us to can drink freely from the rivers of his Spirit. And when we surrender everything to him, when we love him and trust him, we’ll see a startling conversion take place within ourselves as the Spirit of God works within us to make us more like the Son of God… to give us a heart like his.
