One of the most courageous things any person can do is to be able to say that they are wrong in front of everybody else. Almost anyone will apologize in person to a single individual. Imagine telling the whole town!! That is exactly what the “woman at the well” did.
Being able to forget about yourself and think of others is not a common characteristic these days. But a Samaritan woman (found in the Gospel of John, chapter 4), wanted only to bring others to Jesus. She was able to admit her sins to the whole town in order to get them to consider coming to hear Jesus speak. Many townspeople did go out to hear Jesus and many came to believe in Him.
It had happened that one day Jesus decided to go to Galilee from Judea. He had to pass through Samaria or go around it. The Samaritans and the Jews did not get along, and many travelers just went around it. Jesus was led by the Spirit to go through Samaria. The disciples were with Him. After a long journey they were tired and thirsty and stopped to rest at Jacob’s well near Sychar. It was about the “sixth hour” or around noon.
Jesus’ disciples went to the nearby town to get some food, and while they were gone a woman came to draw water. Our Lord opened up the conversation, “Give Me a drink.” This is an important point. We know that men were not allowed to speak to women in public. And besides, she was a Samaritan. And so, this woman was honestly surprised, “How is it that you ask me for a drink?”
But our Lord had a purpose in mind to bring this woman to belief in Him as Messiah and so He steers the conversation in the direction that He wants it to go. “If you knew the gift of God, and who was asking you, you would ask for living water.” The woman knows by His dress and speech who He is, that He is Jewish, but she really does not get His point yet. But Jesus has at least aroused curiosity in her, and she reacts as if she thinks He means the water in the well. “Sir, you don’t have anything to draw water with, and where will you get that living water?” The woman is still thinking on a physical level. After all, she has the water jug and the means to draw water. Jesus is the one who is thirsty and tired. Here He is by a well and He can’t get any water without her help. How is He supposed to help her?
At this point, Jesus gives her an unexpected answer, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” Jesus had asked her, “If you knew the gift of God,” Jesus is the gift of God. He is the One who offers us eternal life. The water in Jacob’s well can only satisfy a temporary thirst; the living water that He gives will last eternally. The Samaritan woman is still thinking literally, and asks Jesus to give her that living water so that she, “will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” Again, Our Lord responds in an unexpected manner with, “Go call your husband, and come here.” She responds, “I have no husband.” Jesus commends her honesty, but proceeds to startle her by telling her something only a prophet, or the Son of God, could know. She has had five husbands, and the one she was living with was not her husband. We do not know exactly what her status was, but Jesus’ answer makes the woman realize that Jesus must be a prophet, and so she shifts the conversation to religion. She points up a major difference between the Jewish worship and Samaritan worship. Perhaps she points to Mount Gerizim, seen in the background from where they are sitting. “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain.”
Jesus refuses to be drawn into that discussion. He is the living and true Temple; He is the focus of worship, not a certain mountain. The Messiah does come from the Jews, but an hour is coming when worship will be, “in spirit and truth;” The woman recalls that Messiah will come and declare all things to them. Jesus very plainly tells her, “I who speak to you am He.”
She now knows that the man to whom she was speaking is indeed the Messiah! She left her water pot and ran to the town to tell everyone about Him. “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” They must have been amazed that she would approach them so openly with her story! They believed her because of her testimony and later many would come to belief in Jesus.
And so, on an ordinary day, an unremarkable, lowly, nameless woman came to meet her Savior. Not only that, but her courage, and the enthusiasm of her testimony led many others to belief in Jesus as Messiah.
The apostle John chose to tell this story even though he had many to choose from. “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25) There is an important lesson here for us.
We see in this story what kind of boldness a follower of Christ will have. The strong woman is able to rise above criticism in order to speak the truth. It takes a courageous person to put her own feelings aside and think about the other people around her. Truly the Samaritan woman is an example of selflessness, courage, and faith for us.
