Jesus had to go through Samaria. Traveling, He came to a town called Sychar,
near the land, which Jacob had given to his son, Joseph. Jacob’s well was there,
and Jesus, tired as He was, sat down by the well. It was around the sixth hour.
Along came a Samaritan woman to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Will you
give me a drink?” His disciples had gone into the city to buy food. The
Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, who are Jewish, are asking me,
a woman of Samaria, for a drink?” (For the Jews do not associate with the
Samaritans.) Jesus replied, “If you had known 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.”
The woman responded saying, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is
deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our ancestor,
Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his children and his
cattle?” Jesus replied, “Those who drink of this water will thirst again; but
all those who drink from the water that I give them will never be thirsty again.
The water I give them will become in them a fountain of water welling up into
eternal life.”
The woman said to Jesus, “Sir, give me this water, that I may never thirst nor
have to come here to draw.” Jesus told her, “Go and get your husband and come
back here.” She replied, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have
spoken honestly when you said ‘I have no husband,’ because you have had five
husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.”
The woman replied, “I see, Sir, that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped
on this mountain–and you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where people ought
to worship.” Jesus told her, “Woman, believe me, a time is coming when you will
worship your God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans
worship what you don’t know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is coming
from the Jews. For a time is coming, in fact it is now here, when true
worshippers will worship God in spirit and truth. For this is the way God wants
to be worshipped. God is Spirit and those who worship God must worship in spirit
and truth.”
The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ.
When Christ comes, Christ will teach us everything.” Jesus replied, “I who speak
to you AM HE.”
(John 4:4-26)
The shortest distance between Judea and Galilee took Jesus through the land of the Samaritans. In spite of that, most Jewish people would not take that road because they refused to associate with Samaritans in any way. So Jesus had to go there. There were people to minister to and to whom His message needed to be given.
Jacob’s well lies about half a mile from a small village of Sychar, and is at the foot of Mt. Gerizim, which was the center of Samaritan worship. The well had a prominent place in Jewish history. The great patriarch, Jacob, had bought the well, and on his deathbed had given it to his son, Joseph (he of the coat of many colors). The well was very deep. The only way to retrieve water was by means of a rope and a bucket.
Jesus and the disciples had been traveling all morning. It was about noon now, so He was hot and tired. He sat down to rest while the disciples went into town to see about purchasing food. Soon a woman came up to the well to draw water. This incident was quite telling. First, most towns and villages had their own wells, so it would seem that for some reason she might have been prevented from using the well in town. Second, the women didn’t usually draw water in the heat of the midday. It wouldn’t have taken long to put two and two together. She was an outcast from her own society, and wasn’t allowed to draw water with the other women.
Culturally, Jesus had every reason in the world never to speak to her. First, she was a Samaritan, and the Jews had no association with Samaritans, considering them unclean. Second, she was a woman, and Jewish men didn’t talk to women, most especially in public. Third, she most assuredly was an outcast in her community. That was evident by the fact that she had to travel a half-mile in the heat of the day to draw water for herself and her household.
Not only did Jesus engage her in conversation, He asked her to draw Him some water. That meant He was willing to drink unclean water, polluted by the unclean Samaritan. The Samaritan woman was dumbfounded. One can detect a note of sarcasm in her voice as she says, “How is it that you, who are Jewish, are asking me, a woman of Samaria, for a drink?” You can almost hear her saying, “We Samaritans aren’t good enough to associate with until you need something.” Jesus recognized the hurt and anger in her voice. As far as Jewish society went, she was an outcast, an unmentionable, unclean. She knew what it felt to be despised simply for being who she was.
But Jesus had no compunctions about her status with society. Jesus has a point to make, and as He had done earlier with Nicodemus Jesus, responds to her question with a riddle designed to make her think: “If you had known 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.” A gift from God? What kind of gift? What does he mean: give me living water? He doesn’t even have a bucket. Does he know of another well? Who is this person? These thoughts ran through her head.
Well, she didn’t know who this man was, but he was talking to her when nobody else would. Perhaps she could make a connection with him by speaking of their mutual ancestor, Jacob. If this stranger had knowledge of another well with living water in it, was he a greater person than even Jacob? Again, Jesus replied with a riddle, calculated to pique her attention: “Those who drink of this water will thirst again; but all those who drink from the water that I give them will never be thirsty again. The water I give them will become in them a fountain of water welling up into eternal life.”
He got her attention all right. This sounded too good to be true. If it was true, he surely was greater than Jacob, and she was willing to take a chance with him. “Sir, give me this water, that I may never thirst nor have to come here to draw.” She had missed the whole point Jesus was trying to convey. Jesus was not talking about liquid water that comes from a well, but of spiritual water that springs from the heart. Well water quenches temporarily while spiritual water wells up in the soul forever, to continually quench the spirit’s thirst.
Jesus’ comments and riddles were certainly designed to have a profound affect on her. When she replies that she has no husband to Jesus’ instruction to her to go and fetch him, Jesus overwhelms her with personal information that she had been married five times and was living with another lover. What could she say to this information? It was as though he was reading her soul.
She recovered from the shock long enough to pronounce Jesus a prophet. Then she quickly tried to change the subject by engaging Him in a discussion of an age-old controversy as to where was the proper place to worship God–on Mt. Gerizim or in Jerusalem. Ages earlier, Moses had instructed the people to set up an altar on Mt. Ebal, which faced Mt. Gerizim. Then the tribes were divided and half sent up each mountain. As the Levites would read the Law, the people on Mt. Gerizim pronounced the blessings of God, while the people on Mt. Ebal pronounced the curses of God on sin–kind of a responding chorus, where one side recites something, then the other side responds. The Samaritans understood that Moses thereby had established that God should be worshipped here on Mt. Gerizim. The Jews, on the other hand, held that since Solomon had been called to build the temple in Jerusalem, then God should be worshipped there. The argument was endless.
Jesus’ reply was that the argument was pointless. God is to be worshipped neither on a mountain nor in Jerusalem. God is to be worshipped in the spirit. Jesus then tells her, “You Samaritans worship what you don’t know.” Jesus most likely was referring to the fact that the religion that the Samaritans were practicing had been so influenced by the paganism of the foreigners whom the Assyrians had pushed onto their land, that the religion they practiced no longer bore much resemblance to Judaism.
Then He followed with a most profound statement: “we worship what we do know, for salvation is coming from the Jews.” Jesus acknowledges Judaism as the true religion, and pronounces that the salvation of the world comes out of Judaism. Jesus, the Word of God and the Salvation for the World, declares that the Jews remain the chosen people–the people chosen by God from whom the Salvation for the world would come. It is a great tragedy of Christianity that so many have forgotten or rejected Christianity’s roots. There is no indication that Jesus ever intended to start a new religion. It wasn’t until Paul reached out to the Gentiles and declared that they would not be required to be circumcised or practice the Jewish rituals that a rift between observant Jews and Christians (both Gentile and Jewish) occurred, and Christianity became a body separate from Judaism. All of the earliest Christians were Jews.
Jesus continues. “For a time is coming, in fact it is now here, when true worshippers will worship God in spirit and truth. For this is the way God wants to be worshipped. God is Spirit and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth.”
There are four descriptions of God, which are found in the Christian scripture: God is Light (1 John 1:5), God is Love (1 John 4:8), God is consuming fire (Heb. 12:29), and God is Spirit (John 4:24). God cannot be confined by time or space. Therefore, God is not to be worshipped solely on a mountain or in a temple, or anywhere else. God is everywhere and with everyone, and is to be worshipped in the heart of the individual, simply, personally and honestly.
The Samaritan woman responds, saying, “I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When Christ comes, Christ will teach us everything.” Jesus replied, “I who speak to you AM HE.”
The word, Messiah means Anointed One, and was first alluded to by Moses, recorded in Deuteronomy 18:15. This is the one and only time recorded in the gospels where Jesus voluntarily identified Himself as the Messiah. He usually warned the disciples not to call Him that. There were many self-proclaimed messiahs floating around Galilee, and He didn’t want to be taken for one of them. To many of the people, Messiah would be a political figure who was to inherit all of God’s promises given to David and like David would be a political ruler. This would put Jesus in a very dangerous position with Israel’s rulers and He would have been seen as a threat to order.
This ends our study for today.
Points to Ponder