The Woman At The Well: For The Third Sunday In Lent

The Woman at the Well

The story of the woman at the well is one of the most compelling stories in the Bible. It shows God’s grace is given even to a lowly woman of another race. Perhaps, it is too well-known. It is easy to create simple points that will preach, but this story is a lot more complex than first seems. In fact, there is more than one story here. We see Christ’s witness to the woman at the well, but there is also a narrative about the disciples attempt to save Jesus from death to exposure. these intertwined stories can be united by the theme of witness, something which is prominent in the book of John. Not only are Christians to witness about Jesus, Jesus demonstrates how to witness about by setting the example in His evangelical approach to the Samaritan woman.

The occasion for this narrative is found in the words that Jesus was returning from Judaea to Galilee and that “He must needs go through Samaria.” We could look at this is necessary filler material to set up the encounter to explain why Jesus came to Samaria in the first place. But is is more than filler to give life to the narrative. One should look further into the reason this statement is made. A little search into Samaria in the Bible and bible encyclopedias would show that a Jew going through Samaria was most unusual. A “good Jew” did not go through Samaria to or from Galilee, even though it was much shorter. The Jew going to/ from Galilee and Jerusalem took a long detour. They would actually cross the Jordan river to bypass going through Samaria. A further search reveals why Jews did not go through Samaria. There was a long history of bitter hatred between them. They had once been one nation in the days of King David and his son Solomon. But after Solomon’s death, the nation was split into two kingdoms. Later, the northern kingdom was taken captive by Assyria because of their idolatry and other evils they commited. A few were allowed to return from Assyria and intermarried with the pagans. These people were called Samaritans. The southern kingdom of Judah later went into exile in Babylon for the same sins her sister had committed. Even though Cyrus allowed all the Jews to return to their land after 70 years, the vast majority remained, The one’s who returned were the most committed of the Jews. They left comfortable surroundings to trek across the desert to a burnt out ruin of Jerusalem. They were encouraged by the LORD through Haggai and Zachariah the prophets to rebuild, which happened at a glacial pace. More than a generation later under Ezra and Nehemiah, the walls of the city remained in ruin as well as much of the city. Some of the Samaritans offered to help rebuilt but were rebuffed by the Jews who felt that their mixed race and religion would infect the city and cause the Jews to go astray.

The rebuffed Samaritans built their own Temple in Mt. Gerizim where they could worship. But the Jews came and burnt the temple to th ground. One can see that there was mutual bad blood between them. There was religious as well as possible safety concerns for a Jew to go through Samaria. They wanted nothing to do with each other. They would not even share things like eating utensils. These details are necessary to the full understanding of the story.

The statement “must needs go” does not mean that Jesus was in a hurry to return to more friendly turf as the Pharisees and Sadducees in Judaea were at odds with Jesus. Nor was it because some of the disciples of John were jealous that someone whom John had baptized was making more disciples than him. There is no mention like a family emergency at home. Rather this “must go” is to be understood as a divine imperative. He had an appointment there in Samaria.

It was this call of the Father that He went though Samaria with his disciples. We should remember that Jesus had recently endured a 40 day fast of both food and water which would have weakened Jesus, physically speaking. He and His disciples got as far as Jacob’s well near a village named “Sychar.” There Jesus sat at the well. He was exhausted and thirsty. But there was no rope or bucket to draw water from. It was approaching the noonday heat which would have made his condition worse. The Greek uses what is called the “Perfect Tense” to describe Jesus’ weariness. The force of this is to say that Jesus was exhausted and the rest of sitting at the well was not improving His condition, but He grew worse. It was so bad that His disciples felt they needed to intervene, even to go to a Samaritan village to get food and drink. In light of what we just learned about the poor relations between Jews and Samaritans, it must have been a matter of life or death. They head off to “save” Jesus. They will return later.