Editor’s Note: In honor of International Women’s Day (March 8), Women’s History Month in the United States, and the Lenten season, we published devotions written by women about the women who Jesus ministered to during his time on earth. This series was called, “The Women Jesus Loved.” We hope they reminded you of how Jesus loves all of us, including women. This is a bonus article to the series. Read the other entries here.
The water was right there. It was in the red cooler at the back of the tent. I didn’t care if it wasn’t cold anymore. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.
There were forty despondent children in front of me, sitting in rows on rickety wooden benches inside a church made out of plastic blue tarp, the perfect heat trap for an already hot and dusty Haitian summer. They had gone much longer without food or water than I will ever have to. Yet my mind cared little for their thirst and remained fixated on that cooler. Just one sip. The thought was all-consuming.
When I look back on that moment, I am confronted with the reality that my human nature is inherently weak. I was supposed to be caring for the children, yet my body was in full revolt, acting in accordance with the design of my physiology.
In light of his miracles and divinity, I sometimes forget that Jesus was not exempt from the consequences of being human. In John 4, we find Jesus on his way from Judea to Galilee. It had probably been several days of constant travel and he is weary from his journey. He sits down at the well. It’s noon, it’s hot, and it’s dusty. He’s thirsty.
Then enters the Samaritan woman.
From the moment we meet her until her story ends, this Samaritan woman remains nameless – a reflection of how she was viewed by society. And we see her live in this identity. She uses the midday heat as a shield to protect her from running into the persistent gossip of other women at the community well. She takes such an extreme just to guarantee that she would journey out and back in anonymity. But on this day, things don’t go as planned.
“Give me a drink,” (John 4:7b) she hears from the man sitting by the well. Why is this strange Jewish man asking me for a drink? Wait, why is a man talking to me at all?
The Samaritan woman is faced with options. She could politely decline, perhaps even ignore Jesus altogether. But she battles whatever intuition or cultural norm that would have usually stopped her. She boldly engages.
“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (John 4:9). She doesn’t say yes or no, but instead, she asks why. You know your kind and my kind never share with each other.
What does Jesus have to gain? Everyone knew that Jews and Samaritans despised one another. The former belittled the latter for intermarrying with surrounding nations and changing the words of Moses to worship where they wanted to. To provide water would be breaking bread with the enemy, and worse yet, to drink from her jug would make a pious Jew unclean.
Jesus responds: “If you only knew who I was, you would be asking me for living water.” Though Jesus is speaking of eternal life, the Samaritan woman takes his answer literally, and it catches her attention. If this water exists, she wouldn’t have to make the midday trek to the well anymore. Once again she speaks boldly and requests access to it.
“Go, call your husband and come here,”(John 4:16b) Jesus replies. This transition seems rough, abrupt, and strange. Wasn’t Jesus thirsty? Didn’t he also just say that he could provide “living water” that would satisfy her thirst forever? Why bring this up?
But I can imagine that sinking feeling of disappointment she must have felt upon hearing his response. Does he know? Did somebody tell him about me? The community had observed each of her failed relationships. She could not escape the piercing gaze of those who looked at her and only saw shadows of her previous lovers. She heard time and again the audible whispers of those who scoffed at her perpetual need for validation. So she tells a version of the truth and hopes for minimal damage.
“I have no husband” (John 4:17a). While she may have been trying to expose the least amount of information while still remaining truthful, Jesus sees through her statement and does not hold back in his response.
“You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true” (John 4:17b). Really, Jesus? Did you have to go that far? But looking a little closer, these words that seem to cut are actually rooted in love.
In his humanity, Jesus needed rest and physically felt the acute pangs of hunger and thirst. As he sat down at the well after a long journey, his mind was fixated on one thing.
But unlike me (and unlike all of us), he wasn’t thinking about himself. The one all-consuming thought on Jesus’s mind was this Samaritan woman, one whom God had given into his hand (John 3:35). He knows everything she ever did, all of the heartbreak she went through in her quest for love and validation. And he speaks directly into that pain. You’ve been looking for love in all of the wrong places. Each one of these relationships have failed you, and you’re even ashamed to tell me of the one you’re in right now.
She’s spooked. Something is clearly different about this Jewish man at the well. He is just credible and supernatural enough that the Samaritan woman begins to probe. “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship” (John 4:19-21).
Jesus’s response reminds us it’s not about where, but how. “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).
The Samaritan woman’s response indicates she doesn’t yet fully understand what Jesus means, but it also reveals that she wants to worship the coming Christ. She declares that he will be the one who will resolve the conflicts of worship between the Jews and Samaritans. “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things” (John 4:25).
With his disciples, Jesus often spoke in parables. Yet he speaks directly and plainly to the Samaritan woman.
“I who speak to you am he” (John 4:26). I can imagine the goosebumps, the whirlwind of emotion, elation, and excitement that must have pulsed her through her entire body in this moment of clarity. Could this really be him?!
So the woman left her water jar and went away into the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’ (John 4:29)
An encounter with Jesus is disruptive. Our insecurities are put on blast and the things we never wanted anyone else to know are suddenly exposed. It’s jarring and uncomfortable. Sometimes, it’s even terrifying.
But when we finally see Jesus for who he truly is, everything else fades in importance. We can leave the water jars we’ve carried around for our whole lives behind. We can run and tell everyone, even the very people who have hurt us, that Jesus is the one who saves. No matter what personal failings remain etched in our histories, the joy of knowing Christ begins a new story in our lives. Instead of a desire for validation, success, or material comfort, knowing Jesus and making him known becomes all-consuming. His mission becomes ours.
Maybe this interaction is a reminder of when you first felt the tug of Christ on your heart. Or maybe, like the Samaritan woman, you are questioning Jesus’s intentions toward you — why is Jesus talking to me at all?
Jesus wants us to look at him and see that truth is a person. A person we can talk to. A person we can walk through the hills and valleys of life with. A person who can name every one of our flaws and sins, yet still loves us to the skies.
To be loved so fully produces an uncontainable joy. It’s this joy that interrupts the lives of others. It invites them to peer through the window of our soul to see Jesus. And when the picture of who he is becomes clear, joy leads to worship in spirit and truth. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to worship the truth about Jesus – that he is the only way, truth, and life that will satisfy.
The more we meditate on this reality, the more we will marvel at our King who took up a cross instead of a crown, so that we might have eternal life.