“Living Water”
“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.” John 4:10, NIV
A dramatic first-person monologue based on John 4:1-42 from
the perspective of the woman at the well.
Shock, surprise, speechless, I was caught off guard by the
question from the stranger, “Will you give me a drink?” (v.7). I didn’t expect
to find anyone at the well at this hour, at least I was hoping no one would be
there. I usually come around noon to draw water to avoid the crowds of other women
from town. You know how some people can talk and gossip and stare. I think I’ll
scream at the next person who looks at me in that shameful way. Don’t they know
I already feel bad enough? Don’t they know that I’ve tried to make my marriages
work? That I’m trying to get my life together? Are they so perfect that they
have never messed up and made mistakes in life?
The stranger did not appear to be one of us, a Samaritan. You
know you can spot those Galileans a mile away. His request was simple and
harmless enough. It was noon and it was hot and he did look pretty weary. After
I got over the surprise of his question, I reminded him, “You are a Jew and I
am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (v.9). The Jews do not
associate with us Samaritans.
It’s hard for me to remember why that is so but it is and
I’ve heard it all my life. I’ve been
taught that our “family feud” started a long time before I was born. Following
the conquest of this land that I’m standing on now by Assyria in 722 B.C., many
of my people were deported, others resettled, and many foreigners moved into
these parts with strange ways and customs. It wasn’t long before there were
intermarriages between us and those who had come from distant lands to settle.
The Jewish people despised us, they saw us as selling out, but what could we
do? What would you have done? This hostility reached a breaking point when our
people erected a temple on Mount Gerizim. We had crossed the line as far as the
Jews were considered. They would not have anything to do with us. We were
considered “unclean,” “apostates,” just short of being considered complete Gentiles
(pagans).
This stranger at the well of our ancestors responded in an
odd way for he said that I should be the one asking him for a drink because he
had what he called the gift of “living water” (v.10). Of course, if he had such
water why was he asking me for drink? It didn’t make any sense to me. I somewhat
jokingly said to him that he had nothing to draw water with and that the well
was pretty deep (v.11). How in the world was he going to get me some water? Was
he “greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well?” (v.12).
Looking at me and then at the well, the man told me that
“everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the
water” that I give to him “will never thirst” (v.14). Naturally, I did ask him
for this water. Show it to me, give me to drink “this water so that I won’t get
thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water” (v.15). What I wouldn’t
give to not have to come back to this well again! Please, give me some!
I was expecting him to begin drawing water although I had no
clue how he would do that since he seemed totally unprepared to draw water. But
instead of giving me water, it seemed as if he began to give me a lecture. “Go,
call your husband and come back” (v.16). Why would he tell me to do that? I
told him that I didn’t have a husband, which was partly true. I thought that
would be the end of the conversation but he delved deeper into my life and told
me things that were true that I had wished were not. Sometimes you’re just not
ready to open up old wounds and the truth is too much to take.
This man seemed to know all about me. Somehow he knew that I
had previously had five husbands and the man that I was living with was not my
husband (v.18). How could he know this? Had he been talking to my neighbors? Had
he been snooping around and hearing the stories about me when the other women
came to the well? Who was this man?
He was different than all the others. He didn’t say what he
was saying in a hurtful or mocking way as I was only too accustomed to hearing.
He was not making fun of me or looking down on me as the others in town did.
There was something different about this man. He seemed to know all about me
and yet he was loving me anyway. I never knew this kind of unconditional love
before and it made me anxious and a little uncomfortable. I couldn’t afford to
let anyone in my life, it was too painful, I was tired of being hurt. And
because of that I was pretty good at protecting my heart, withholding my
feelings, of not letting myself get to close. I had been hurt plenty of times
and I was determined not to be hurt again, so I looked for a way to change the
conversation.
I told this man that he sure seemed like a prophet since
only a prophet could know these things about me. I had my opening. I would get
this conversation off of me and onto something else as quick as possible. What
better distraction then to bring up a question about worship (v.20). My people
had a long tradition of worshiping on Mr. Gerizim although I can’t say I was
very regular myself. And I knew that the Jewish people believed that true
worship could only occur in Jerusalem, Mount Zion. So I had the perfect
distraction, who was right? Us? or them?
This man became even more mysterious to me by the moment
because of the way that he responded to my question. He answered me in one
sense when he said that God’s “salvation” came through the Jewish people
(v.22), but then he quickly added that there was coming a time and that it
already was here, “when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit
and truth” (v.23a). “God is spirit,” he said and “his worshipers must worship
in spirit and in truth” (v.24). I had never heard such words before. Worship
was not so much about a place as it was a person! He was saying that it was
possible for anyone (for me) to be a true worshiper (truly forgiven) – not by
virtue of where one worships (Gerizim or Jerusalem) but by virtue of how one
worships (“in spirit and truth”).
I did believe that the Messiah, the Christ was coming some
day and when that happened, he would explain everything. But Jesus said that
the Messiah had already come and that I was looking at him (v.26)! It dawned on
me that this man might be more than just a man. I recognized him as a “Jew,” “a
prophet,” could he also be the Messiah? In my excitement I left so quickly that
I forgot my water jar and “went back to the people” (v.27) and said, “Come, see
a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (v.29).
Though my words were feeble and my understanding even more
so, many in town came out to see this man who I came to know was named Jesus.
They believed in him as I was now beginning to do, that this man Jesus was more
than just a man, he was the Messiah, the Christ, “the Savior of the world”
(v.42). We urged him to stay with us in our area and he did for several days.
And many of my friends and neighbors believed in him “because of his words”
(v.41).
I learned much that day I met Jesus, when he changed me
forever, when he gave me the gift of living water. I’ll never forget the day I
drank deeply from the well of grace. I learned that God is no respecter of persons. I learned that God in Christ had
come to break down the barriers that separate us from one another. No longer
are their males and females, slaves and free, Jews and Samaritans, for we are
all sons and daughters of God through faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:26-28).
I also learned that God
knows all about us and he loves us anyway. I learned that God is a God of
grace and mercy. I learned that what is important is not your past, your past
failures, sins, wrong turns, but where you’re heading, where your path is
leading. And I learned that true worship
is centered in a person and not a place. I discovered that worship is about
the attitude of the heart, God must be worshiped “in spirit and truth [reality].”
The Messiah has come. Living water is here, and only Jesus
satisfies. While the world’s wells offer temporary refreshment, they prove to
be shallow and unfulfilling, but God’s well of salvation never runs dry, it’s
deep and satisfying and it’s for all people even people like me. So come,
drink, and be satisfied! Here the words of Jesus, the words of the grace of
God, and believe in Him. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks
you for a drink [and now you know “who”], you would have asked him and he would
[and he will] have given you living water” (v.10).
Joe Alain, February, 2015
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