Few people realize when they wake up in the morning of a particularly fateful day that they will be forever changed before they retire for the evening. Such a day occurred for the Samaritan woman the day she went out and met Jesus at Jacob’s well. Looking back on the scene, we can only marvel over the compassion God has for our condition. What a contrast there is between God and mankind. He created us to be his image, but, if there is anyone mankind does not wish to imitate, it would be God. Whether it is in politics, education, entertainment or even religion, we simply refuse to be like God!
The Jews and Samaritans simply had no dealings with one another (John 4:9). Normally, Jews would make a wide birth of Samaria while travelling between Galilee and Judaea. While it took about 3 days to travel from one to the other via Samaria, it would have taken twice the time to travel back and forth in a caravan along the Jordan River.
However, Jesus had an appointment in Samaria, and he always keeps his appointments. As a rabbi, it would have been frowned upon to travel through Samaria, worse still to be seen in public talking with a woman; and, if he were seen speaking with this particular woman of dubious morals, it would be difficult to gauge the notoriety in which he would be held by the those who held strictly to the traditions of the elders. Yet, none of these things deterred Jesus from meeting with this woman in order to offer her consolation for her loneliness, peace from her guilt and genuine love from God to fill the void in her painful life.
This woman came to the well about noon that day, while the other women of the city would have filled their vessels much earlier in the cool of the morning. Was this her habit, because she could no longer bear the insults, the judgment and the contemptuous glances? Perhaps, but the text doesn’t elaborate; we can only guess. She seems to betray some knowledge of the religious customs and teaching of her day, but, if she avoided the painful insults of other women in the city by strategically timing the performance of her household chores, when others weren’t present, then we can probably assume she was not practicing her faith.
The text implies that this woman yearned for the stability that close relationships offered, but she had gone through five husbands, looking for love and acceptance, but the comfort of intimacy remained out of her reach. In fact, her failure in family relationships probably gained her ostracism in the neighborhood and among religious friends she may have had at one time. The fact, that she, presently, lived with a man, without the ‘respectability’ a marriage agreement would offer, implies she had given up on intimacy in a relationship. Love and personal acceptance seems to have been something she once heard about, but its reality had escaped her.
When all seemed lost, she heard a voice: “Give me a drink” (John 4:7)! In the discourse that followed, she noticed the absence of the usual sarcasm. There wasn’t any judgment or discrimination in his tone or his words. Even when her whole life seemed exposed to his view, she found him inviting and captivating—something that was lacking in everyone she had ever known. Most were offended with her very presence, but this man, far from taking offense, seemed to risk his own reputation just to enjoy and offer a token of friendship to her.
She came to the well for water to satisfy her daily thirst. Yet, he offered to satisfy her thirst forever. At first she misunderstood, but sometime between his asking for a drink and his revealing that he was the Messiah, the void within her seemed to vanish. What she had longed to have all her life, but seemed so illusive, was suddenly there before her very eyes, and she beheld his glory… full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
She found herself leaving her vessel of water with Jesus, while she ran into the village to tell everyone she met how Jesus had satisfied her thirst. No matter how she had tried to satisfy it before with other relationships, she failed, but now she was satisfied in Jesus.
We could place any number of signs above Jacob’s Well, but let’s call it the ‘Wishing Well.’ What do you hope for in this life? Is it love or success? If you draw from the ‘well’ of this world, you will thirst again. These things, though important, will not satisfy you forever. Do you wish for the pleasure of the party life? You may drink long and deep, but you will thirst again, because neither do these waters satisfy. Keeping up with the Joneses will also leave you thirsty, no matter how much of this world’s goods you are able to accumulate. The values of this world cannot satisfy the spiritual void in the lives of any who don’t know God.
Only in Jesus can we find full satisfaction. The world groans for what it knows not (Romans 8:22; cp. Jeremiah 12:11), but such a thirst can be satisfied only with the coming of Jesus into our lives. We all have an appointment with destiny, and Jesus is not the sort of Person who would keep us waiting.
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