He had no business talking with her. In fact, Jesus had no business going through Samaria. No self-respecting Jew would ever associate with Samaritans. On top of that, she was a woman, and public interacting with a woman would raise too many questions.
Now he had to go through Samaria.
So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
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.
John 4:4-6
She came to the well during the sixth hour, in the heat of the day, long after the women of the village were gone. She couldn’t face them, not after the scornful looks and the silent treatment they would give her. She knew she deserved it, with her promiscuous lifestyle–having lover after lover. And now she was living with a man who wasn’t even her husband.
At the well, two figures who should have never interacted, yet their connection exemplifies the mission of Christ, and the love that God has for us. Jesus reached out to the lonesome woman:
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
John 4:7
He offered her living water, so that she would never thirst again. The woman marveled at this. What the woman didn’t understand was that Jesus was not offering her something physical, but something spiritual.
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
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.”
John 4:13-14
Jesus was offering her salvation–a relationship with God. Forgiveness of her sins, yes, but more importantly, peace with God and eternal life. A chance to be connected with the Father.
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.
John 4:23
The Father is seeking worshipers. He’s looking for people who will trust Him, bring Him glory, and know the truth.
Like this woman, we look for fulfillment in things other than God. She was trying to quench her thirst. For her, it was romance. There was a void in her that she was trying to fill. Sometimes we try to fill that void with success, popularity, academics, money, influence, or distractions. Like the woman, who was at least on her sixth lover, none of them satisfied.
Yet only God can satisfy that need forever. That void can be filled with a relationship with God. He can quench that thirst. That’s what Jesus was offering the woman at the well. God can quench your thirst forever. Will you trust Him, receive His gift of salvation through His Son, and fill that void?
