JOHN 4__1-42 THE WITNESS FROM THE SAMARITAN WELL
A cartoon pictures a medieval Crusader, standing in full armor and holding his shield. He also held his long sharp spear at the throat of a prisoner on the ground. The prisoner on the ground struggles to say, “Tell me more about your Christianity. I’m terribly interested!”
That’s the picture many in this country and around the world have of evangelism and evangelists. In view of Jesus’ teaching that we should love our enemies, and pray for those who use and abuse us, one can’t help but wonder why the picture of the Christian as a Crusader in armor, with sword, spear and dagger became such a popular image of an ideal Christian. We sing, Onward Christian Soldiers and Soldiers of Christ arise, put your armor on with much more gusto than we sing Bread of the World, in Mercy Broken. Why is that?
We Americans don’t want to impose our beliefs on other people. We don’t want to appear to be preachy or fanatic. It is easier to talk about a sports team or a new product than about a faith that changes our life. Why is that?
In the past 150 years, all Christian communions have increasingly attempted to hire professionals to tell the story of Jesus. Across all communion lines, Christians expect people to come to Church, instead of going to the people.
What did Jesus do? Jesus had 132 contacts with people. Six were in the Temple, four in the synagogues. All the others were out in life situations. One of the accusing comments the religious leaders threw at Jesus, was He connected with people they considered to be untouchables - outcasts - little people, rejects in their religious culture.
Who better to show us how to relate Christ’s message than Jesus Himself? As He encountered men and women, He defined for us gracious, personal interaction with needy people. The woman at the Well of Samaria 4 had deep needs. By every human standard, she’s didn’t matter to anyone. If she had dropped dead carrying water back from the well, people would barely have noticed. We don’t even know her name.
She lived in a culture that viewed women as less than fully human. They had few rights and were considered to be property. She was a Samaritan, a people despised, especially by the Jews. But, in His amazing way, Jesus transformed this woman’s life and used her as a model of personal witnessing to which He calls every Christian. What does He show us?
Think how John, the Disciple who wrote down this story saving it for us, used this story.
When Jesus talked to the Woman at the well, it likely was in Aramaic - a language similar to Hebrew. The version of the story we read today was written by John in Greek for it was most likely written a half century after the event in the City of Ephesus located on the Mediterranean Sea. The way Jesus taught the love of God to the Samaritan woman crossed many miles, 2 languages, 4 decades and a culture to bless the people at Ephesus. Jesus’ example and words still crosses cultures.
High on the hill above the city of Ephesus was a temple to a goddess the Greeks called Artemis and the Romans called Diana of the Ephesians. Paul , visiting the city 20 years after Jesus death, preached Jesus and was the cause of a riot. Demetrius, a silver merchant who made shrines to Diana stirred up the people of Ephesus saying, “Paul says that man made gods are no gods at all.” There was not only a great commercial interest at stake in the worship of the pagan gods, there was the political tie as well. Rome ruled. The Caesars were referred to as deities. Sacrifices and places of worship were erected in every European and Asian city where the local dieties and the Caesars were worshipped. The sacrifices at the altars provided a free meal for the locals who gathered there.
There was something special about the Ephesian worship of Artemis’Diana. Her image was not only of the huntress Diana, her imagery had merged with that of Cybele, the mother goddess of fertility. The worship of Diana of the Ephesians was made even more appealing as she was served by prositute priestesses at her temple. Ephesus was full of erotic imagery. Demetrius and his cohort knew that sex sells. Archaeologists have found many images of Diana-Artemis in Ephesus that date to the first century. Luke’s description of Paul’s visit to Ephesus rings true.
What has Paul’s visit to Ephesus and the worship of Diana-Artemis have do with the Gospel of John?
John the the Priest, John the Elder, the man who composed I, II, III John is the Son of Zebedee, the beloved Apostle and the person who wrote the Gospel according to John. John the Apostle, the Son of Zebedee, in obedience to Jesus’ command recorded in Matthew 28 to go to all the nations preaching the Gospel, went to Ephesus. He established a Church there and served as Priest-Bishop in that city until he was quite aged.
The sexually charged climate of Ephesus helps explain some of the contents of the Gospel of John. Why does John alone record that poignant scene on Mt. Calvary where Jesus looked down from the Cross and addressed Mary saying, Mother, behold thy son John? Was it not to elevate the mother of Jesus above the sexual, fertility goddess- Artemis, Diana of the Ephesians? John was the only apostle who had not fled from the scene of the crucfixion. Jesus said to John, “John. John, look at Mary, behold your mother. John, your mother is not Cybele -Artemis - Diana of the Ephesians. Look after Mary. Mary, take care of John for me.”
Why does John in Revelation 12, include the picture of Mother Israel, and Mother Church as an icon filling the heavens when he speaks of the woman bringing forth a child who would rule all the nations with a an iron scepter, yet was in danger of being devoured by the dragon and was snatched up to God and his throne? Was it not to counter-act the cult of Cybele that infested Ephesus and the near East? Christianity, if it is authentic, true to Jesus, is in every age and every location a counter cultural movement; its teachings are contrary to the influence of the world, the flesh and the Devil.
John preached the Good News of the Messiah, of Jesus the Son of God in pagan Ephesus in plain view of the Temple of Diana of the Ephesians. Just as the media constantly poisons the mental and emotional atmosphere of the world today with perverse images, the atmosphere of ancient Ephesus needed an antidote to the sexually charged image of Cybele-Artemis-Diana. It wouldn’t hurt for Christians to restore the image of the Holy Family in American homes.
Mother Mary and the Holy Family were for Christians a wholesome image to counter-act temple prostitution. Pornographers of our time rely on the hallowed constitution and Bill of Rights as a sort of word from heaven entitling them to ply their trade. Modern media soaked America is not unlike ancient Ephesus in the way children’s minds are poisoned by the prevailing culture.
.
Look through the Gospel of John and think of the women that John introduces to us.
Early in the book, we meet Mary the mother of Jesus as an authority figure at the wedding feast of Cana. Thus at Cana, Jesus does the “first of his miraculous signs” turning water into wine and revealing his glory. I refer to marriage as the first Sacrament because it is a sign given by God to mankind in Eden and it is the place where Jesus’ ministry of signs begins and our real life begins.
Marriage, the relation of man to woman is holy, an enduring sign of God’s love for the world.
In the 4th Chapter we meet the Samaritan Woman at the Well. In chapter 8, Jesus had pity on a woman who was being stoned by the Pharisees and teachers of the law because she was caught in adultery. The Rabbis ask a popular question, literally, “What would Jesus do?” Does he throw the first stone? No. He asked the teachers - which of you is without sin and can throw thus is pure enough to throw the first stone? Then to the woman,”Woman where are they? Has no one accused you?” No one accuses you! All have sinned, then neither do I throw rocks at you.” After pronouncing this absolution, Jesus declared, “Now go and leave your life of sin.”
What a message this must have been to the congregation gathered at the foot of the hill that led to the fertility Temple of Diana of the Ephesians. Even the temple prostitutes could be forgiven if they would forsake the life of sin. What a message that is to our culture as well!
Further along in John, we meet other women: Mary and Martha of Bethany who were sisters of Lazarus. The worship of the pagan fertility goddess, with the sexual perverseness of this worship - was actually an attempt to affirm life. The goddess Cybele, whom the Ephesians identified with Artemis Diana, had been worshiped in Asia Minor and Egyptian Africa from stone age times. Recently, inscriptions carved in rock in mountainous areas of southern Europe and the mid-east have been translated: “Mountain Mother.” Cybelle-Artemis-Diana of the Ephesians had been worshipped in caves and, mountains and was identified with the rebirth of life - identified with the birth, living and dying of animal life in nature. To those ancient people it wasn’t “West Virginia, Mountain Mama, take me home. . . .” it was Cybele, Diana, Artemis - restore life.”
“Great is Artemis, Diana of the Ephesians, the crowds shouted in the days of St. Paul’s visit. A few decades later, an aged John the Elder wrote how Jesus wept when he and the disciples visited the burial place of his friend Lazarus. John, Thomas and the other disciples in the company of Mary and Martha of Bethany heard Jesus say, “Your brother will live again . . . .I am the Resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Martha responded with a baptismal confession, “Yes Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” Then Jesus and the entourage made their way to the tomb of Lazarus and Jesus called. “Lazarus, come out!”
What a powerful gospel message John wrote in plain sight of the Temple of the Mother -Goddess. The message - you will live was powerful in Jesus day, powerful when spoken by John a generation later in Ephesus, and powerful to us today in America.
In our quick tour of John, we have met Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Mary and Martha.
Now in chapter 12 there is another reference to Mary of Bethany. At a dinner, served by Martha in Jesus honor, with Lazarus present at the table, Mary of Bethany comes with a pint of expensive perfumed ointment and anointed Jesus with it. Again, in pagan Ephesus belonging to Diana of the Ephesians, it is not the Mountain Mother that is to be worshiped and her image adorned with expensive metals jewelry, it is Jesus the Christ who is to be adored.
After Jesus’ arrest, the disciples with the exception of John scattered.
Only John stayed with Jesus and was with him at the crucifixion along with Mary, Jesus Mother, another Mary, and Mary Magdalene. Mary of Magdala made her way to the tomb on Easter morning to anoint Jesus’ body. Finding the tomb empty, she ran to the disciples to tell them that the body may have been stolen. The disciples went back to their homes, but Mary returned to the tomb and wept. “Woman, why are you crying,” Jesus asked. “Who are you looking for?. . . .I am returning to my Father, and your Father, to my God and your God.”
Mary the Magdalene went again to the disciples to relate what she had seen and heard. “I have seen the Lord,” she declared.
These affirmations again, were being preached first by St. Paul and then by John at the site of the shrine of Artemis/Diana of the Ephesians. The Gospel for the day, the story of Woman at the Well of Samaria, is richer, now that we know the context in which it was remembered by the Apostle John and included in his message to the pagans in Ephesus. We can see how her message changed a culture then and can change ours..
IN John 4:1 the Pharisees, the hyper-critical religious teachers who were always critical of Jesus because he visited, ministered to and sat at table with sinners. Note that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disicples than John the Baptist. Jesus turned to the country hated by the Pharisees, Galilee of the Gentiles.
To the Jews, no good thing could come from Galilee: they were lower class, infidels, they housed the Romans and the merchants. Galilee was the Las Vegas of Palestine - Herod’s palaces were along the Lake of Galilee. The Pharisees could not conceive of any good Rabbi coming from Galilee, nor could they conceive of a good teacher or miracle working man from God going to Galilee of the Gentiles.
Remember the difficulty that the role of women played for the Christians and Jews of Ephesus. They could hardly look to the popular religion for guidance in morality or family life.
John, by recalling this story from his life and travels with Jesus, gave women a clue as to how they are to be received in the Kingdom of God and the desired moral behavior and role in the Kingdom.
The woman came without a name to the well. No name, simply, women of a despised race. Jesus saw more than the Pharisees would see. . . .he saw a person and began conversation by asking for a drink.
The woman was aware of her humble and despised circumstance, but had a sense of dignity, a strength of spirit to carry on her assigned role. She dared to reprove Rabbi Jesus of impropriety in addressing her. “You are a Jew - I am a Samaritan woman. . .How can YOU. . .HOW CAN you ask me for a drink?”
Jesus response, on the surface seems a non-sequitur, if the woman had no knowledge of who this Rabbi really is. But think of it, Jesus had already become well known. The Pharisees were already concerned with Jesus’ rising popularity, according to John 4:1 .
The Samaritan woman may well have been aware of the reputation of the man who asked her for a drink.
She listened as he said, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
How much she understood of that statement, we don’t know. What we can’t see in the plain words of the narrative is the look that passed between the two. His kind words, drew her attention. She had been looking down, diffident, retiring. Now, something in his manner, in his speech drew her to him. She looked up. The Rabbi, the Jew was taking her seriously!
Was her response perhaps half- mocking half in wonder when she said, “Sir, you haven’t a bucket. The Wells is deep. You can’t care for yourself with no Bucket. How can you suggest you can help me. Are you greater than our forefather Jacob?”
Jesus’ response: “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. . .the water I give him will become in him a spring of water. . .welling up to eternal life.”
Hear old John the Elder, the Priest in Ephesus speaking to those who formerly had trusted in Artemis/Diana of the Ephesians. They had watched the cycle of life and death. . . .and though they had participated in the frenzied sexuality of the fertility cults. . .. . they knew they would die. The Samaritan Woman at the well had witnessed birth and death. . . .some of the people who once had drawn water from the Well at Samaria, no longer came for its refreshment. . . .they were long gone. Yet, this man spoke of eternal life.
Could she have hope? He sounded kindly enough. . . .she must try. Respectfully now she said, “Sir. . .give me this water, so I won’t get thirsty and have to return here.”
How many in Apostle John’s audience were tired of the false hope raised by the priests of Diana of the Ephesians? How many of them would like not to have to return to that order? How many Americans are tired of the cynical seductions offered by our media?
Give us this water . . . .slake our thirst. We are real people - we want to have a real life. . .where do I find it? “Rabbi Jesus”, said the woman, “Give me this water.”
Seeing the first glimmer of hope in the woman’s eyes, but being well aware of how little faith she had, how little reason to believe, Jesus gzve her convincing proof.
“You want the living water? You want to know how to have a satisfying life?
Go call your husband. . .then come back for the water.”
“I have no husband she said.”
Jesus said, “You are right, you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
Her eyes widened: he knew. He knew her life’s secret. He knew the shame, the abuse she had suffered, the degradation. He knew her shame. He saw the ugly, petty, grotesque evil of her life. But he did not accuse. He did not blame. He did not make her ashamed. She needed to understand she was not bound by past choices and present circumstances. The offer of living water, made by this Man who knew the awful truth, was really an offer of life, forgiveness, and freedom. His offer healed her. He did not blame or scold. He simply acknowledged her wretched plight and offered forgiveness; acceptance.
The Samaritan woman made no denial. She made an honest plea for help. "Where do I go to get a life? Where does a woman who has been rejected by 5 men find a life?
Then she made her good confession and asked for instruction.. “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” She did not get to complete her thought because Jesus quickly responded, answering her unasked question. The question was, “Our Fathers worshiped on this mountain; you Jews claim we must worship in Jerusalem, but how can I, a Samaritan woman go to Jerusalem? I won’t be accepted.”
Why wouldn’t she be accepted at Jerusalem? The Samaritans were a mixed race and they mixed worship of God with pagan rituals. After Jews were deported to Assyria, the Assyrians repopulated areas with captives from other countries to settle the territory and keep the peace. Those new peoples intermarried with the few Jews left and formed the mixed race of Samaria. The Jews hated the Samaritans because they weren’t pure and felt they’d betrayed their religious heritage. The Samaritans reminded the Jews of the foreign oppressors. Jesus had to go through Samaria, to keep his divine appointment with the woman at the Samaritan well. Jesus crossed social barriers.
Two odd things in the woman’s behavior: First, there was a closer well to which she could have gone. Secondly, women would come to get water early or late when it was cooler. This woman was probably forced to go further and to go in the mid-day to avoid contact with the “proper” women.
Think about her situation. Women had no power. It wasn’t her choice to divorce one husband after another and move from one to the next and the next and the next. She didn’t move from man to man. She was discarded by one after another. Now, she’s living with someone. He’s not her husband. And that’s not necessarily because she had no standards, but because no one cared about her. With her reputation, no respectable Jewish man would talk to her. No rabbi would ever engage a woman in spiritual conversation publicly. One rabbi is quoted as having written, “Better to burn the Law than give it to a woman”.
Isn’t it odd that Jesus, his associates and his teachings are often not welcome in the halls of the religious?
In John chapter three, Jesus was in Jerusalem. He had a conversation with Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, telling him he must be born of water and spirit, and telling him that God loved the world so much he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. After that event, Jesus started down the hill, out of Jerusalem, into the Judean countryside down to the river Jordan where he preached and his disciples baptized after telling them the same story of God’s love for the people of the land, not just for the rabbis, the rulers. Then, having left Jerusalem and Judea he entered the Samaritan country side where he met the woman at the well.
In answer to her “what next?” question Jesus responded to the effect that she didn’t have to go to Jerusalem. “Believe me woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The time is coming when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. God is a spirit and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
Relieved that she does not have to go to Jersualem where she would not be kindly received, and touched by His insight and kindness the woman said, “I know that Messiah, the Christ, is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Hope was awakening in this woman so often abandoned. “God will come. Messiah will visit and explain it all to us,” She said with yearning hope.
Jesus responded, “I who speak to you am he.” Jesus used in the language of the people of that land, the name of God in describing himself. “I am”. He said it quietly, gently, convincingly to the Samaritan woman. Shalom. . . .I am; I am He.” Non-verbal communication is left out of the story. The woman who approached at noon time with her veiled face down, would not look directly at the Rabbi standing by the well. But as His words indicated she was being taken seriously, she looked up and saw in His eyes the possibility of a new life.
The Samaritan woman left her water jar and ran back to the town where she spoke to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. He knew; He could see me. Could this be the Christ?”
How like another woman at a well! Hagar, thrown out of Abraham’s household by a jealous wife, so starved she could not nurse her child, despaired of life, left her child hopefully to be found by someone who could care for him after she died. Then the Lord appeared and showed her water to save her life. This well, she said, is the well of the God who sees me.”
The well at Samaria for the Samaritan woman would live in her memory as the well where the Lord saw the real me, a woman thirsting for righteousness - a better life.
The words “aionian life” found in the Greek and often translated eternal life, in the Greek means more than quantity or length of life described. Aionian life has been translated as life everlasting or eternal. Hell is also described as everlasting; a place populated with unending fire and undying, gnawing worms.
The aionian life Jesus speaks of has quality, not only quantity. Eternal life is the ideal, the blessed, the happy fulfilled life. Eternal life begins when one meets, sees and knows Jesus and is known by Him, and extends into the life of the world to come.
2000 years have passed since Jesus met the Woman at the Well. More people than ever affirm this Jesus is the long awaited Christ. The woman at the well of Samaria gets some of the credit for this. John 4:39 reads, “Many of the Samaritan from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. He told me everything I ever did.” She said.
Then the Samaritans came to him and urged them to stay. For two days Jesus visited with the people of Samaria and taught them. Then the people of Samaria said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
In His amazing way, Jesus transformed this woman’s life; and simultaneously He models the sort of personal witnessing to which He calls us. What did He show us?
First, he showed that Christ connected with thirsty people. People do need to hear our Lord’s kindly words; his call to virtuous life. People will respond. Jesus’ message transformed the woman, and as she repeated her experience, Jesus’ message transformed Samaria.
Remember the geography of the two places Samaria and Ephesus.
Ephesus was on the plain. Above the city was a high place dedicated to Diana of the Ephesians. John the Apostle taught the people of Ephesus using the story of the Samaritan woman.
Jesus left Jerusalem, came down the mountain, taught and baptized in Judea. His ultimate goal on this journey was to arrive at Galilee in the North of Palestine. A proper Jew would not go through Samaria; instead they would cross the Jordan River, traverse its East side, then recross into Galilee. Jesus left the temple mountain, went through Judea to the Jordan and contrary to Jewish custom, traversed the west side of the Jordan going to the well of Samaria. After his two day preaching mission there, he moved on North to Galilee of the Gentiles.
His message was - Neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem will people go to worship God. Those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth. He preached the Kingdom of God and God’s love and righteousness. Jesus returned to Cana of Galilee where he had accomplished his first miraculous signs. The Galilieans received him gladly, welcoming him. A royal official from Capernaum, a city on the North Shore of the lake of Galilee went to Jesus and begged him to come to Capernaum to heal his son who was near death.
Jesus challenged the depth of the man’s faith, the depth of his trust in Jesus’ words. AUnless you see miracles , you won’t believe.” The official pleaded, “Please sir, come down to Capernaum before he dies.” Jesus said, “YOU MAY GO, YOUR SON WILL LIVE.”
John reported that the man trusted, not just intellectual acceptance of the possibility, not simply mental assent, but real belief - he trusted he took Jesus at his word and departed. His servants came with the report that the child has living, the fever having left at the exact time when Jesus had said, “Your Son will live.”
The Samaritans and Galileans heard Jesus words and saw His signs and trusted him.
Years later, the aging apostle John spoke these same words to people who had relied on the Mountain Mother Goddess Cybele, Diana of the Ephesians. “Your sons will live.”
“This man really is the Savior of the World.”
Do you see how John in his Gospel has demonstrated the Great Commission? Luke’s version of the Great Commission is this: Jesus said, on the occasion of his ascension: “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 2:8)
Consider what has happened in the 2000 years since that unnamed, anonymous Christian woman witnessed to the love and kindness of Jesus. Ephesus became a Christian city, - along with all of Greece and all the rest of Europe and the greater part of Russia and Asia Minor. Consider the status of women, how that has changed in countries where the Gospel has changed the culture. The woman at the well and Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus were among the first to testify to the reality of Jesus and remain to this day among the most successful of evangelists. They demonstrated the value of women in the Kingdom of God.
Philip the Evangelist had seven daughters who were teachers. The dignity and respect of women were upheld from the first in the Church. St. Paul clearly taught, that in the Body of Christ there is no distinction between male and female, bondman or freeman, Jew nor Gentile. He said we are all one man in Christ Jesus. There are different functions in the body of Christ, but there is only one Christ. All Christians, young or old, male or female are to be respected. Jesus extended his concern and kindness even to the children saying something we would do well to remember in this Lenten Season, “Child: receive the Kingdom as children or you won’t even see the Kingdom of God.”
So John, some 40 years after witnessing Jesus’ discussion with the Woman at the well could say, “You in Ephesus, you needn’t look to the mountain that houses the temple of Diana of the Ephesians.” We can say, “You Americans needn’t to the popular culture of this land for guidance.” This is implied in Jesus’ message to the Woman at the well when Jesus said, “Don’t worry about Jerusalem and the temple mount, or the high place in Samaria, God is a Spirit, you can worship him anywhere in His world.”
Look only to Jesus who has the water of life, who has the words of life, who promised we would have life abundant and eternal. He only know everything you ever did and can still speak kindly comfortable words to you at Eucharist saying,”Come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden and I will refresh you.”
We hear have heard Jesus call and responded. Some of us are fortunate in that we had Christian parents and cannot recall a time when we did not consider ourselves to be followers of Jesus. When it comes to sharing our faith, many haven’t the confidence of the Samaritan woman. Some say it should be left to the professional Christians to tell the story of Jesus.
Jesus’ story was entrusted not to the Pharisees, the professionals at the temple, nor to the worldly wise, those who ran the academies, the higher education strongholds of the Greek and Roman philosophers.
Jesus’ story was trusted to a few well placed people like the wealthy Zacchaeus, a tax collector, a public official. Among early Christians were a number of wealthy and people of influence; but most of his disciples and the early leaders were people like John, the Son of Zebedee, and other ordinary people. The first evangelists were fishermen, toll-gate keepers, soldiers, blind beggars, servants, and even despised women such as Mary Magdalene and the woman at the well of Samaria.
There are many things people will chase down and incorporate into their lives to slake their thirst for reality. But the pursuits are as empty as the people who go after them. As Augustine said, "the heart is forever restless until it rests in Thee, O God."
Will you follow Jesus into the realm of real, substantive relationships with thirsty people? Are you willing to pursue this? To make personal evangelism a real part of your lifestyle? Will you make room in your life to follow Jesus into people’s lives? It won’t be easy; most of us will have to make some major attitude and time adjustments; but it’s the need of the hour, and the investment will pay eternal dividends like no other. The greatest use of our life is to spend it on something which will outlast it.
JESUS USED a CHANGED PERSON FOR A WITNESS. The woman opened her life to Jesus Christ, and she became an immediate witness for Christ. Every Christian is a witness.
The woman gave priority to telling others about Christ. What did the woman come to the well to do? Notice how her priorities changed. She left her water pot and immediately began to invite others to Christ. That water-pot was not a bad thing, it had served. Maybe she needed a different one that had not been her companion as she came to the place in off – hours so she would not be noticed and discriminated against. Perhaps she needed one with new color and design to announce to the community, “Christ has come. All things are being made new.”
She left that old water jar. It sat there empty, an apt symbol of a life that had been empty, but had moved on, filled with the water of life; capable of refreshing others.
Charles Scott
http://www.goodshepherdindy.org
