5 He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as He was from His journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will 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 will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered Him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ). When He comes, He will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”
27 Just then His disciples came back. They marvelled that He was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
Jesus and His disciples travelled north from Jerusalem to Galilee, and they went through Samaria. It was highly unusual for Jews to travel through Samaria, even though it was the shortest route. Most Jews would cross the Jordan River near Jericho, then travel north on the eastern bank of the river, before crossing back over just south of the Sea of Galilee, meaning they could avoid Samaria completely.
This is an important detail in the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, so it will help if we look at why it was just not the done thing for Jews to travel through Samaria.
The Jews had a deep dislike for the Samaritans going back more than 700 years. When the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722BC, they deported about 20000 Jews, and replaced them with settlers from Babylon, Syria, and other nations. These foreigners introduced pagan idols and intermarried with the Jews who were left behind, and this was the origin of the Samaritan people.
When the Jews of the southern kingdom returned from the Babylonian captivity in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, they faced resistance from the Samaritans as they tried to rebuild the temple and the city walls of Jerusalem. The Jews in the south looked down on their northern cousins because of their mixed marriages and idolatry, and this was the main reason for the mistrust and hatred which, now, 7 centuries later, had made it socially unacceptable for the Jews to interact with Samaritans. They regarded them as half-breeds. By Jesus’ day, it was virtually unheard of for Jews to even travel through Samaria. The hatred was so severe that the woman at the well was astonished that Jesus would even speak to her. As John wrote in verse 9, “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”
However, there is a small detail in the previous verse which gives us an important insight into just how radical Jesus was when it came to ignoring social norms. “His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.” That city was Sychar, a Samaritan town. On the very rare occasions that Jews did travel through Samaria, they would take enough food and water for the journey. Drinking “Samaritan” water or buying food from Samaritans was unthinkable, but Jesus sent His disciples to do exactly that.
So why did Jesus travel through Samaria? He was led by the Holy Spirit through Samaria precisely for the purpose which unfolds in John chapter 4. This woman had a divinely ordained appointment with the Saviour of the world, who also became her personal Saviour.
What John writes in verse 6 confuses us. “Jesus, wearied as He was from His journey, was sitting beside the well.” Although Jesus is God the Son, He is also a man. As God, He could never become tired, but as a man, He did. It’s that time of year again when we sing the words, “but little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.” I’m not saying we should ban singing one of the best loved Christmas carols, but there is some rather dodgy theology in that one line! When Jesus, as an infant was hungry or His nappy was full, He cried. He was fully God, yet at the same time He was fully man. This concept does confuse us, because the mystery of the incarnation - that God would take on human form - can never be fully understood by any mortal mind. The truth that God could come down into the world and live as a man among us is a mystery which passes our understanding. Jesus was really a mortal who lived every human emotion and experience, such as being tired and thirsty, with the one exception that He did not suffer the human curse of sin.
The Samaritan woman went to the well to draw water at about noon, the hottest time of the day. Her reasons are quite obvious. Because of her questionable lifestyle which we soon learn about, she was a social outcast. Even in our permissive, sin-sick society, a woman having had 5 husbands and now living with another man would raise a few eyebrows, but we cannot imagine the scandal in those days. Women went to draw water early in the morning or the late afternoon, so she was clearly trying to avoid any kind of social interaction, let alone having a conversation with a Jewish man.
One of the most remarkable things about this conversation we see in John 4 is Jesus Christ, the water of life , asking a social leper for a drink of water!
The first thing the woman does is to remind Jesus Jews and Samaritans simply did not socialise with each other. Regardless of how thirsty or desperate a Jew was for a drink, they would be ceremonially unclean by using a bucket handled by a Samaritan, but Jesus was not going to be dictated to by the sin of human racism. The person He was speaking to was not only a Samaritan but a woman. For a Jewish man to speak to a Samaritan woman was unheard of, but He knew that his question would lead to far more than an exchange of words and water.
He says to her in verse 10, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
It’s easy to for us to understand how confused she was here. She was still trying to come to terms with this stranger even talking to her in the first place, and was probably glancing nervously around to see if anyone saw them talking to each other. She would have been in serious trouble if she was caught.
So we can only imagine what she must have thought when Jesus talked about living water. As we saw with Nicodemus last week, it is hard for us to respond to spiritual truth in natural ways, so her response in verse 11 is quite logical. “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?”
But then she continues with an interesting question. Jesus was speaking about offering her living water, but He doesn’t even have a bucket, so, having been raised in a racially divided world, she challenged Him. “Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” For a Samaritan to claim they were descendants of Jacob was a huge insult to the Jews, (even though they were) so she was deliberately provoking Jesus here. In effect what she was saying was, “As a Samaritan, I have as much of a claim to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as you, but just who do you think you are anyway? Are you greater than our father Jacob?” At this point she was a long way from salvation, but Jesus showed her grace and mercy. He was on a divine mission to bring her to salvation, so He refused to be distracted.
Socially speaking, Nicodemus the Pharisee and this Samaritan woman were poles apart, yet there are some remarkable similarities before they came to faith. Both thought they were spiritually secure. Both reacted in a materialistic way to Jesus’ spiritual teaching and they were both spiritually empty and lost.
She had been drawing water out of this well day after day, yet her need was never completely met. And so it is with all the wells of this world. We look for pleasure and satisfaction in earthly things, but they cannot quench the thirst of the heart of man. St Augustine wrote nearly 1600 years ago, “O Lord, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in You.”
The woman had yet to understand just what Jesus was talking about. It was hard work drawing water in the hot sun, so if the water that this stranger offered could be made available without all that effort, so much the better. People who depend only on physical water will be continuously thirsty. So long as we remain ignorant or resentful of our need for spiritual water, we will always look in the wrong places to quench our spiritual thirst. The Rolling Stones had it right: I can’t get no satisfaction.
The prophet Jeremiah is more theologically sound. “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
So whether this woman was being sarcastic or was just genuinely confused, basically she was saying, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but if you can channel a stream into our village so I don’t have to come out here and get the water, then please, go ahead, or if you can produce water in some magical way, let’s see it.”
Just like Nicodemus, she was asking, “How can this be?”
And then in verse 16, the conversation changes abruptly. She had just asked for this living water, and now Jesus told her to go and call her husband. Why this sudden change? Simple. Before this woman could be saved, she had to acknowledge and recognise her sin. She needed to come to Christ in true repentance, confessing her guilt and shame. As God, Jesus knew all about the sinful life she had lived, and He was going to lead her, step by step, to see it for herself.
This is a crucial first step on the road to salvation. Only those who know they are lost can be saved. Because of the stain of sin which we are all born with, every human being is lost, but not all are willing to admit that truth. You’ll remember John 3:18 from last Sunday: “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
You cannot talk to the lost about being saved by avoiding the sin question.
Joel Osteen has been quoted many times saying that people hear enough negativity in the world, and he feels it is his duty to help people look on the brighter side of life by telling them how wonderful they really are. That kind of “preaching” will never bring the lost to salvation, and he is going to have to answer for his deliberate deception one day. If you listen to or watch people like Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Bill Johnson and Steven Furtick, run from them as fast as you can. Those people do not preach the Gospel.
The truth is that lost sinners must be brought face to face with the fact that they are dead in their trespasses and sins, they need a Saviour, they cannot save themselves, Jesus is the Saviour they need, and He will save them if they repent of their sin and trust in Him.
Look at how Jesus spoke frankly and openly with the Samaritan woman. Just like her, we need to recognise our sin and understand that God sees us for who we really are, regardless of how uncomfortable that makes us feel. The change in the conversation was sudden, but what she said was true. She had no husband, and fact that she spoke the truth was the opportunity for Jesus to draw her to Himself.
The first requirement for eligibility to receive living water is a recognition of sin for what it is. Now she was sitting up and listening. She realised that this man had some kind of supernatural power. She even called Him a prophet, but she still wasn’t quite ready to open up fully to Him, so she tried to divert Him. His probing was becoming uncomfortably personal, so she began to argue a religious issue, by raising the old controversy between Jews and Samaritans, whether worship should be offered on Mount Gerizim in Samaria, or at Jerusalem, where Solomon’s temple had been built. This was the main distinction between Jewish and Samaritan theology, so she was probably hoping that if she could argue with Jesus about where they should worship, He would stop asking her all these uncomfortable personal questions.
Jesus did talk about worship, but certainly not how she was expecting. He told her that from now on worship of the Father would be in spirit and truth. The Jews had reduced worship to outward forms and ceremonies. They thought that by religiously adhering to the letter of the law, and going through certain rituals, they were worshipping the Father. But theirs was not a worship of the spirit. It’s important to note here that Jesus was not talking about the Holy Spirit, but the human spirit, as in the inner person. Jewish worship had become an outward ritual, not an inward, spiritual form of worship. Their bodies might be bowed down on the ground but their hearts were not right before God.
The Samaritans, on the other hand, had a form of worship, but it was also false, because it had no Scriptural authority. They had started their own religion and had invented their own rituals. The Jews were not worshipping in spirit, and the Samaritans were not worshipping in truth.
So when Jesus said that worship must be in spirit and truth, He was rebuking both the Jews and the Samaritans, while at the same time He made it clear that it is possible to worship in spirit and in truth, but only through Him. This was an astounding statement to make in this racially charged society. What Jesus was doing here was breaking down a centuries-old racial divide by saying that Jews and Samaritans can worship in spirit and in truth, and they can do it together, because this is the kind of worship that God seeks then, and it is the same worship He seeks today.
In the Church we worship together as family. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of the labels the world imposes on us. We are one, and not divided on social, racial or economic grounds. The apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:26-28, “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Look again at Jesus’ words in verses 21 to 24. “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Again, He is not referring to the Holy Spirit, but the attitude of the human heart. Worship must be done in truth, in other words, honestly, Biblically and centred on Christ. In these verses Jesus is describing the difference between religion and the Gospel. Religion describes mankind’s futile search for God, while the Gospel teaches us how God has reached down to us.
The Samaritan woman says something very important in verse 25. “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ). When He comes, He will tell us all things.” What this means is that she did have faith. It was a mis-placed faith, as she had been deceived by the false Samaritan religion, but she did believe that the promised Messiah, when He finally came, would put an end to all bickering and confusion about the spiritual life, but she could hardly have been prepared for Jesus’ next statement. “I who speak to you am He.” The literal translation of the Greek text is, “I am the one speaking to you.” This is the only occasion except for when Jesus was on trial that He specifically declared His deity, and He chose to do so to such a social outcast as an immoral Samaritan woman. As He said to Zacchaeus in Luke 19:10, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
And then in verse 27 the disciples returned from their shopping trip to Sychar, only to find Jesus talking with this woman. “They marvelled that He was talking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you seek?’ or, ‘Why are you talking with her?’” The NASB translation says they were amazed to see Him talking to her, yet they didn’t dare ask her what she was doing, and they also didn’t question Jesus.
They were learning. They were learning slowly, but they were learning. One commentator said, “The disciples marvel that He talks with the woman. They would have been better employed marvelling that He talked with them!”
And then we see the dramatic change in this woman’s life. “The woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’” (John 4:28-29)
The social leper was now an evangelist. She came to draw water, but she was so excited that she abandoned her bucket and rushed back into town when, just a short time ago, she had gone to the well alone because she was a social outcast.
We read about the results of her sharing her new-found faith in verses 39 to 42. “Many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.’”
James Montgomery Boice called this story “the cry of a new life” and wrote in his commentary, “What happened was that the woman had been born again. She is the first clear example in the Gospel. She had come down the hill a child of Adam’s race, thinking only of the life she had known and of her very mundane need for more water. Instead she had met the second Adam, Jesus, who had filled her with a desire for a quality of life that she had never dreamed of and who had revealed Himself to her as the One through whom that life is imparted to men and women. As a result of Christ’s words the woman believed in Him and became His witness.”
The emptiness of her life could not be filled with the physical water from a well. After every drink, her thirst would return. But those who have trusted Jesus have within them a bubbling spring, a vigorous stream which satisfies our deepest need. That is what the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit brings in the lives of believers.
Recognise your thirst. Acknowledge your sin and your need for Christ, then come to Him for grace, mercy and forgiveness, and He will save you.