THE WOMAN AT THE WELL. I could have called this one ‘the Samaritan woman,’ but as that didn’t matter to Jesus in John 4, it doesn’t matter to me except for context! This woman reminds me that I can expect God to unexpectedly work in big and small ways.
Jesus meets this woman as she approaches the local well in Sychar, a town in Samaria which Jesus was walking through on His journey. Jesus was sitting there, tired and thirsty.
(Now I need to explain that to the Jewish people of the day, Samaritans were looked down upon as they had intermarried with the locals of the land, instead of marrying within the Jewish tribes. Those who followed that command didn’t like those that strayed from it, hence the tension in the background of this story.)
Jesus, a Rabbi with a growing following, asks this approaching Samaritan, a woman no less (again, a not usually done between unrelated folk, unless you were at the grocery store…) for a drink of water.
She is stunned at His request. A. for He is obviously a Jew, and B. He initiated a conversation with her. So she replies, pointing out their differences and asking why He would ask her that.
Jesus responds in a way which invited further conversation (Again, so not the norm!) by telling her if you knew the Gift of God and Who was asking you for the drink, you would ask for living water.
She acknowledges Him as a prophet & believes His word of knowledge about her past. Then this woman asks a very astute question about where the best place is to worship, another hot button topic between Jews & Samaritans over location. Jesus intrigues her all the more by saying the important thing is to worship in spirit & truth, to which she agrees, commenting if only Messiah would come to fully explain things.
When He tells her He is the Messiah? She gets up and goes to spread the word that He has arrived!
The disciples questioned Him about why He was talking to her & wondered why He didn’t want anything to eat. I believe He was fasting for the large number of followers about to believe in Him based on her testimony! One believing woman changed her town over a drink of water & a conversation with Jesus!
#SheBelongs #sharingHope
KARLA LEES 