There are two truths foundational to understanding everything in the universe. The first truth is that there is a Creator, and everything, including humans, exist because of the Creator's will. He defines what we are because we are made like him. By one terrible choice we have became corrupt and are now something less than we were meant to be, separated from our maker by our sin. The second truth is that Jesus Christ is the son of God sent into our world to restore the broken relationship. He has something to say about you, not just as a human being but specifically as a woman.
Jesus and his disciples were on a long journey on foot. They stopped to rest at noon in a Samaritan village called Sychar at a place called Jacob's well. His disciples left Jesus at the well and went into town to get some food. While waiting this happened:
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 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.) 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." 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? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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." 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."
Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "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 4:7-18
Give me a drink.
Jesus did the most logical and, to this woman, the most surprising thing. Since he was thirsty and had no way of getting water from the well, he asked the woman for some water. She was surprised because she could tell he was a Jew, and Jews despised Samaritans and did not deal with them. It was even more scandalous because she was also a woman. On two counts, she did not expect him to acknowledge her, let alone engage in a conversation with her. Furthermore, in their culture, offering someone a drink was an act of hospitality. By asking her for water Jesus honored her by putting her in the position of a host and making himself vulnerable as the guest.
Notice how she was the one who raised the "problem" of her gender and her ethnicity, not Jesus. "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" The first observation in this story is that the details of your identity are never an obstacle to Jesus. He came to that well looking for a Samaritan woman, not a Jewish man. The things that would make you feel unqualified for his attention are the things that draw him to you. When he comes to you, it is because he knows you as you are and wants you and no one else.
The gift of God
Jesus ignored her objection and instead made her an offer. If you knew who I was, you would have asked me for water, and I would have given you living water. At first, he spoke to her as a guest, but then he turned the tables and addressed her as the host. "You are in my house, and if you recognized your thirst and asked me for water, I would give you water that would quench your thirst forever." Disregarding her gender and ethnicity, he offered her amazing hospitality even though she had been reluctant to give him water.
The second thing to note is that she had misread the situation. Because he addressed her as a guest she failed to recognize that he was actually the owner of the house. When God comes to a person he often asks us to do something as though he needs something from us. This is God showing us dignity we no not deserve. He does not need anything from us. He is the host we are the guests. More importantly we are desperately in need of what he has to offer if we will only see our need and ask him.
Observation number three: The problem she thought existed between them was negligible compared to the real problem. She was a fallen woman, a rebel bearing the broken image of God in the presence of the Holy One. The separation between them was like a mountain compared to the separation between Jew and Samaritan. And yet he was the one who made the first move. The thing that keeps you from God is worse than you think yet, he is willing to set your differences aside and treat you like an honored guest in his house if you would only ask.
Living water
Not understanding his meaning and still stuck on the water in the physical well in front of them, she asked how he planned to get this water. So he corrected her by explaining that the water he offered was not what you get in a well. The water he was offering filled a person and became like a natural spring that flowed with this living water eternally.
Observation number four. What Jesus offers you is something greater than you have imagined. Jesus was talking about living water, which gave eternal life to those who drank it. It's almost tragic how far apart they were in their conversation, even though they were both talking about water. Could it be that God has something for you that is so much more than anything you have ever imagined, and that the reason you can't see it because you are focused on something too ordinary and earthly?
Even though she still did not really understand him she did what he suggested and said, "Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water." She did what Jesus said she ought to do; she asked him for water but for the wrong reason. She was asking for the wrong thing. Because she did not understand who he was and the gift of God that he was, the water she asked for was not the water he was offering. They were still talking at cross purposes.
Fifth observation: It is possible to appear to do the thing he is asking and still not really do it because we don't understand what he is asking. When God does not do what we ask, or trying to draw near to God does not seem to "work" the problem could be something as simple as our misunderstanding of who God is and what he requires of us. Fortunately Jesus is patient and he continued the lesson in spite of her confusion.
Go call your husband
Go call your husband and come here. Why this request? It seems so out of place with the rest of the conversation. They had been talking about thirst and water this whole time, and now Jesus touched on her marital status, probably the most painful thing in her life. In a society where a woman's security was tied to that of the men in her life, especially their husbands, she had no husband. She had been married five previous times. Most marriages end because something bad happened. In her case we don't know what happened those five times. Often, there is pain and trauma which lingers years afterwards. For some the end of a marriage can be as devastating as the death of a loved one. Now imagine having to do this painful thing five times. Maybe she was at fault in some of the broken marriages, and in others he was at fault. Perhaps some of those husbands had died. Regardless, at five different times in her life, she had gone into what was supposed to be a lifelong relationship and found that it did not last. Four times, she had had to get up, dust herself off, put back whatever pieces were left the best she knew how and get back in the game. Now she was in another relationship with a man, and this time she was not married, not yet anyway. Who knows where that was going? I get the feeling that for her, coming to the well was a good metaphor for her relationships. She went to the well because she needed the water, and yet her thirst was never quenched for long, so she had to keep coming back, doing the whole frustrating thing again and again.
The simple statement, "I have no husband," masked a lifetime of disappointing, painful and probably shameful detail. Why bring up the most painful thing in her life at this point in the conversation? Because the one thing he wanted her to know about him was that he saw her exactly as she was. To him, she was not an anonymous Samaritan woman at a well, but this specific woman with this particular past. He saw her thirst and he had living water for her.
Observation number Six. Jesus sees you. He sees the things you wish no one knew, the things from your past you wished you could erase or make amends for, the regrets, the sorrow, the shame, the loss, the pain, the anger, the injustice, everything. He sees beyond the mask you wear to the person under the mask, and that is the person he comes to converse with. He does not see you as someone watching from a distance, untouchable and untouched, but as one who sits across and looks you in the eye and says, "Tell me about that thing that you are so ashamed of, or so afraid of, or so hurt by, or so angry about." He sees all the stuff, past, present, and future. He will not pretend with you. He will go to the most tender places, not to wound further, but to heal. Notice that after he revealed how much he knew about her, there was no lecture, no seven-step plan to fix her, and no list of things to do to make amends. It was enough that she knew that he knew.
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