Quenching Thirst

She carried the heavy earthen pitcher out to the well.  If she wanted to wash up or cook tonight, she needed more water.   She dreaded going to the well.  There was so much that could go wrong.  She could run into one of her many ex-husbands or one of the women who she had wronged.  She didn't want to think about the past.  She didn't even want to think about the future.
She waited until she thought the morning crowd at the well would be gone.  It was noon, long past time that the other woman would be there. She didn't want to see them.  Didn't want to be the focus of their stares.  The focus of their gossip.


As she rounded the last corner, she noticed that a man was sitting on the well.  A Jew, judging by his dress.  No one she had seen before in town.  She continued on.  A Jewish man would not talk to a Samaritan woman.  There were rules against doing that, after all.
 
Not that she had followed rules. she thought wryly.  Her parents had raised her to worship, but after her first marriage ended, she had been so ashamed that she stopped attending church.  Things had gone downhill from there.  After the multiple relationship failures, she knew that her appearance anywhere would set the local gossips talking.  Women shielded their husbands from her, as though by a mere look she could enchant a man.  She probably deserved it, she thought.  She hadn't always been honorable and honest in her relationships. 

The women certainly weren't forgiving.  And how could God forgive her?  She was living contrary to His law right now: living with a man, not her husband.


At the well, she ignored the man, who was now looking at her.  Lowering her pitcher into the well, she drew it out filled.


His deep voice interrupted her, "Will you give me a drink?"


She nearly dropped the pitcher at his words.  "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.  How can you ask me for a drink?" Where was this going? she wondered.


He smiled, and looked at 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.”

Was he being deliberately smart with her? she thought.  Or was he trying to trick her into doing something?  “Sir,” she said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

As he answered her, she realized he was either a teacher or a magician.  “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

He smiled at her again, pleased with her answer.  He replied, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 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.”
 
Stunned, she looked fully at him.  How did he know all of that?  Either he had been listening to the women gossip, which was unlikely, or he had other ways of knowing such things.  

"Sir,” she said, “I can see that you are a prophet." 

It would be better to talk of other things, not her horrible life.  Why would a prophet want to discuss her life and sin?  "Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 

“Woman,” he replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 

Searching the back recesses of her mind for those early religious lessons, she said, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then he stunned her again, by declaring, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

She gasped and stared at him.  Certainly, Messiah would know and could reveal her life.  Before she could ask him her questions, a group of men, apparently familiar to him arrived. They looked as startled to see her as she was to see them.

Leaving her water jar, she ran back to the town and said to the people,  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 

Amazingly, the people listened to her and  came out of the town to see him.


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The story of the woman at the well has at times resonated with me and at other times repulsed me. 

Like the woman at the well, I don't like it when Jesus points out my personal sins.  I'd rather discuss  this idea or the problems someone else has.  But Jesus wants to reveal Himself to me - to be my Messiah.  My Savior.


But that requires me to be open to drinking His water.  Open to letting him wash out those dirty areas of my life.  Open to sharing Him with others.
 
Jesus promises to give us water so we will never thirst again.  What a wonderful promise!  Jesus is offering to fill that hole in each of us that is crying out to be filled and to satisfy our deepest desires forever.


Jesus is promising nothing short of His presence in our lives. 

But first, I have to meet him at the well and accept his offer.


For more on this topic, check out the Women of Faith blog hop.