Samaritan Woman: Living Water (John 4:5-15) 1 of 5

Part One of a Five Part Series on The Samaritan Woman

John 4:5-15 ⁵ So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. ⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." ⁸ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, "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." ¹¹ The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" ¹³ Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." ¹⁵ The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

The Samaritans were sort of "new-agers" in Jesus' day.  They combined Jewish theology with all kinds of other religions.  They didn't accept the temple in Jerusalem as their place of worship and, at one time, they had even dedicated a temple to Zeus.  The Jews would have nothing to do with Samaritans - in fact, Jesus became unclean in their eyes to even go through this territory - much less to talk to one of them.  And being alone and talking with a woman who he was not related to, was again, a whole other issue of defilement depending on which Jewish sect you belonged to.

But having a relationship with the "enemy" doesn't worry Jesus. It doesn't intimidate him in any way.  And so they talk about living water.  This living water that Jesus has becomes "a spring of water gushing up to eternal life".  You just need to drink it - and you won't have need for anything else.

The Samaritans had been searching for something... they'd been really thirsty looking for other gods and philosophies to follow.  But Jesus sits before this woman and says, "My water is the real deal - the only thing you will ever need."

I think it is easy to become disillusioned with being a follower of Jesus.  His "followers" are anything but real much of the time.  Who wouldn't want to look for something better if you base your choice of religion on those who are claiming it, but not really living it out?  And the Samaritans had been through a lot - they were descendants of the remnant of Jews who had not been forced to leave Jerusalem during the earlier invasions when other Jews were forced out of the land.  Their land was then resettled by foreigners with foreign gods and the Samaritans assimilated. 

But Jesus sits there inviting this woman to experience living water.  In fact, Jesus invites us all to drink!

The rest of the series on the Samaritan woman continues tomorrow...