Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
1 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “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.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 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.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
My Understanding: The scripture said that Jesus “had to go” through Samaria. It may be that was the most direct route between Judea and Galilee, yet I believe that he “had to go” through Samaria because he had a divine appointment with a woman at a well.
Jesus was tired from the journey. He sat down by the well. A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus asked her to give him a drink. The woman questioned Jesus’ request of her. After all, she was a woman and a Samaritan, and Jews did not associate with Samaritans. Jesus responded by telling the woman that if she knew the gift of God and the one who was asking her for a drink, she would have asked him for a drink and he would have given her living water.
Just as in the story of Nicodemus when Jesus tried to tell him that he must be born again, and he questioned the physical impossibility for him to reenter his mother’s womb, because he was thinking in the natural mind and the physical realm, the woman at the well also responded to Jesus by questioning how he could give her something to drink when he did not even have anything with which to draw water. And, just as Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus about a spiritual birth, not a physical one, he was speaking to the woman at the well about spiritual and life-giving water, i.e. he was speaking about the Holy Spirit of God, and he was talking to her about being born again of the Spirit of God, as well.
Jesus responded to her by telling her that physical water will always leave us thirsty and wanting and needing more, because it is temporary and cannot provide permanent satisfaction, because it goes in and then out of the body. Yet, the water Jesus was speaking about, i.e. the “living water,” would be a continual well springing up within her to eternal life. In other words, this “living water,” would remain within her and would continually supply all her spiritual needs. It would provide a permanent solution to her spiritual thirst which she had tried to satisfy with the things of the world and with wrong relationships.
The woman, still thinking that Jesus was speaking in the natural realm, asked Jesus for this water so that she wouldn’t have to keep coming to the well to draw water. That seemed practical. So, Jesus, knowing full well her marital status, told her to go and call her husband and come back. She told him she had no husband. He told her that what she said was the truth, and in fact she had previously had five husbands and the one with whom she was now living was not her husband. Imagine with me for a moment a complete stranger knowing about your entire life and telling it to you. The woman immediately responded by believing him to be, and declaring him to be a prophet of God.
The woman’s thoughts immediately jumped to questioning the appropriate place of worship of God the Father. There was not much of a segue there to know how she transitioned in her mind from proclaiming Jesus to be a prophet of God to declaring the difference between where the Jews worshipped God and where her people worshipped God. Yet, that is where she went next. I love Jesus’ response to her! He said that a time was coming when she would worship - or worshippers of God in general would worship - the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. He said that a time was coming and had now come when true worshippers of God the Father would worship him in spirit and in truth, “for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.” She said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes he will explain everything to us.” Jesus said, “I am he.”
How this applies to our lives
Jesus Christ has a divine appointment with each one of us. He was/is God the Son on his throne in heaven, yet he willingly came to earth, took on human flesh, suffered as we suffer, was tempted as we are tempted, yet without sin, was rejected and despised by men, was betrayed, abandoned and denied by his closest companions, was mocked, flogged, beaten and then he was crucified on the cross, although he had committed no wrong. He did all of this because of his great love for us. When he died, our sins died with him. When he was buried, our sins were buried with him. When he rose from the dead, our sins remained buried, as he triumphed over them by the cross and through his resurrection so that we could go free of the ultimate penalty of sin (eternal punishment in hell), so that we could go free from the bondage to and control of sin over our daily lives via repentance, and so we could be free to love, obey, worship, honor, glorify, magnify, and serve Him only.
Jesus is offering to each one of us the same thing he offered the woman at the well, i.e. he is offering us “living water” that will never leave us thirsting for anything else, because it will be a well within us springing up to eternal life. In other words, when we come to faith in Jesus Christ via repentance (turning from our sin) and obedience (turning to walk in God’s ways and in his truth), he puts within us the Holy Spirit of God, i.e. this living water, and he remains within us as our life-giving source to provide all that we would ever need in this life to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts, minds and souls. When we daily draw on that source of life instead of looking to the things of this world to satisfy us, we are filled to overflowing with this “living water” that will never leave us dry and that will always satisfy.
Jesus told the woman that a time was coming and had come (in the person of Jesus Christ) when men would no longer have to go to a specific place to worship God. When Jesus Christ, via the Holy Spirit of God, enters into our hearts, our hearts become his sanctuary and God lives within us, so we can worship him anytime and anyplace. The “sanctuary” is now in our hearts, not in a physical building or at a particular location. God no longer dwells in buildings built by human hands. We, the people of God, are the building of God. So, a physical building called a “church” today is not the church, and a “sanctuary” within the building is not the sanctuary of God, and when we enter a building, we are not in the house of God. When we enter into fellowship and communion with our Lord through our times of prayer and reading of his word, and when we enter into our times of personal worship during our daily quiet times alone with him, we are worshiping him in spirit and in truth, if indeed true worship is what is taking place and not just ritual or routine.
In Romans 12:1-2, the apostle Paul, inspired of the Holy Spirit of God, tells us of the kind of worship of God that is in spirit and in truth, and the kind of worship and worshippers that our Father God seeks. We are to offer our bodies (our entire beings) as living sacrifices to God, holy and pleasing to him, for this is our spiritual act of worship. God is not interested in our routines, rituals, forms of worship, empty vows, and/or going through the motions of what some call “worship.” The kind of worship that is “in spirit and in truth” is for us to offer ourselves to God to live holy lives, and to live lives pleasing to him, no longer living in conformity to the pattern of this world and all the things of this world designed to “satisfy” our deepest longings, but rather being transformed by the Holy Spirit of God within us in the daily renewing of our minds to be in conformity with God’s plan and purposes for our lives. We cannot do this in our own flesh. This is a work of the Holy Spirit within us in giving us this living water that springs up as a well within us, yet it is not forced upon us. We must daily surrender to the will of the Father in our lives in obedience to our Lord’s commands.
Not one of us is deserving of this living water. We did nothing to earn it. Jesus provided it for us freely by his grace, yet to receive it we must humble ourselves before God, repent of our sins and choose to walk in obedience to God. This is what faith means. Then, we can say, with Charles Wesley, the writer of this hymn, “My chains fell off, my heart was (is) free, I rose (rise), went (go) forth and followed (daily follow) Thee.”
And Can It Be That I Should Gain / Charles Wesley / Thomas Campbell
And can it be, that I should gain
An interest in the Saviour's blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
He left His Father's throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace,
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race:
'Tis mercy all, immense and free;
For, O my God, it found out me!
Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.
No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine!
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMCOyY0Rlus
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