Woman at the Well—Epilogue

Allow me now to skip down a few verses to the last we hear about this woman. This is the part of the story I have had to wrestle with the most.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.”

First of all, let me say that on the surface of things, the people’s remarks are entirely fitting, and give glory to Christ. But again, from the perspective of the woman, I can only imagine that she found their words cutting. Having been lifted by Christ, she is again brought low in the eyes of men. Whether through insensitivity or the deliberate re-assertion of their status over her, she is essentially told that she is no longer needed.

I could speculate on the attitudes behind such remarks, but let me again focus on the woman, and the lesson that was intended for her. I believe that God allowed the remarks for the woman’s own good. And I believe that He preserved the conversation for ours.

She may have become proud. Or perhaps she was stepping beyond the role that Christ had given to her. Whatever the reality was, the perception was likely that she was acting beyond her station. And the people’s words, apart from giving glory to Christ, hold a note of correction.

In any case, the woman was in a precarious position spiritually. Having been an outcast, she must have been overwhelmed by the acceptance she was receiving. Having been disgraced, she was undoubtedly enjoying the honour that came from introducing her town to the Messiah. She was almost certainly in danger of exchanging the living water that Christ had given her for the temporal water of acceptance with her people.

And so, Christ bestows on her this final, difficult mercy. She is given an earthly disappointment to remind her to seek heavenly treasure. She will not find the restoration she needs among her people. She will need to draw that deep water from Christ alone.

Woman at the Well - Part 7

The woman said, “I know that Messiah... is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”

No sooner does Jesus reveal His identity to the woman than the disciples return. One can imagine the disciples assessing the situation as they walk up to Jesus, looking back and forth between Him and the woman. The gospel records that they are “surprised” that he has been talking with her. (Which is kind of remarkable, really, when you consider that they have seen Jesus talking with tax collectors, the blind, lepers.)

For the woman, the conversation is over. Yet this is clearly not an ending for her. She leaves the well without her water, without her jug. She leaves transformed. She came alone. She leaves calling out for others. She came an outcast. She leaves with a desire to draw others to Christ. She came in shame and condemnation. She leaves with confidence. She came for water, she left with living water. She met the giver, understood the gift, and left filled with a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Woman at the Well - Part 6

“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

If everything I have said about this woman hasn’t convinced you that her question was genuine, I invite you to consider this—that Christ’s response to the woman ought to be proof enough of the sincerity of her question. If she had been insincere like the Pharisees, we would expect to see Jesus ignore her question or rebuke her. But He doesn’t. Christ’s response is more like His response to Nicodemus. And the woman is given further honour by being the lone benefactor of a deeply theological discourse. Jesus told her,

“Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

I’m sure books could be written on this discourse alone, but since my focus is on the woman, let me keep this brief. Her theology is gently corrected. Her status as a Samaritan (that is, of being less than a Jew) is confirmed. But at the same time, Jesus lights within her a hope that some new order is coming (indeed, is already here) when being a Jew or a Samaritan will be less important. And true worship will not depend on a place, but on something entirely new.

The woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Again, I see sincerity in the woman’s response. It appears that she knows the scriptures well enough to see the connection between the “coming time” and the “coming Messiah.” And I would add that this woman, though fallen, exhibits faith. She expects that the Messiah will come to her people and will “explain everything” to them. And of course, this is precisely what happens.

Woman at the Well - Part 5

“The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.”

Most commentaries seem to pitch their tent here. They dwell on the woman’s guilt and shame. They even go so far as to dismiss the woman’s next statement as an attempt to deflect attention away from herself.

So, let’s talk about her shame for a moment. Of course there is a sense in which this woman must be faced with her true self, to experience repentance, to feel the need of the gift that Christ has come to give her. But I don’t believe His words were intended to deepen her sense of shame. She was already living an isolated existence. She was profoundly and daily aware of her condition before God and men—just as the lepers knew what it was to be a leper, and the blind knew what it was to be blind.

Christ did not speak to the woman in a way that would entrench her lowly status. Quite the opposite, His actions seem deliberately designed to lend her dignity, credibility and honour. After all, He was a Jew asking a Samaritan for water. He was a man alone, conversing with a woman. He was a person of good reputation associating with an outcast. In every practical way He was treating her with dignity far beyond her status.

By His words, Christ reveals that He is, in fact, someone greater than Jacob. And simultaneously, He reveals that he knows her, knows everything about her, and that He made no mistake when He spoke to her. She was not condemned on her previous accounts (of being a woman, being a Samaritan), and she is not condemned now.

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.”

I don’t believe that the woman is hanging her head in shame at this point. More likely, she is elated, released. She has been offered the opportunity to think and act and speak like a person after living a de-humanized existence. She knows, now, that the man in front of her is greater than every person who has condemned her, and yet He is talking with her as though she were worthy of His attention.

And so I conclude that the woman’s next statement, a question, is not borne out of shame—a mere deflection of attention away from herself. I believe it is the surfacing of a long-hidden hope to know God. A hope held lightly, as she could see no way to reconcile it with the reality of her life.

“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Woman at the Well - Part 4

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Finally, she asks for the gift He has come to offer. But what He has been trying to tell her hasn’t really sunk in. She’s missed a couple of steps. At the beginning of this conversation, He had told her:

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

She doesn’t know what the gift of God is. Nor does she recognize the giver. Jesus, in a tender yet expedient way helps her see both.

“Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

This handful of words brings everything into focus. The woman is immediately convinced of two things. First, that the man speaking to her really is important. She knows who He is now, or at least she is on the edge of knowing who He is. And second, that He knows who she is—that He is fully aware of her true condition and status.

Woman at the Well - Part 3

The woman asked Jesus, “Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well...?”

Jesus affirms that He is. He explains that Jacob established a well which satisfied an earthly thirst. But that He has come to establish a well which will satisfy a spiritual thirst—a spring of living water welling up to eternal life.

“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.”

But the woman is still ensnared in worldly thinking. Her desire for the living water has been awakened, but she wants it for the wrong reason. She considers, now, that the water might have supernatural power—the power to permanently quench her physical thirst. But she seems to have missed the part about eternal life. She is unaware of her deeper need.

Woman at the Well - Part 2

Jesus continues,

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

So what exactly is this gift? Some might answer “salvation” and others “the Holy Spirit” and others might call it “grace” but it is in effect the same gift: that we who are blind are given sight; that we who are captive are set free.

“...and who it is that asks you for a drink...”

I believe that Jesus is implying that the woman was capable of knowing the gift He speaks of, and of recognizing the one who would bring it. He is, in effect, saying, “You could have recognized me, but you didn’t.”

“...you would have asked him...”

In reality, she really would have asked. In fact, she does a few moments later.

“...and he would have given you living water.”

In Jeremiah 2:13, God calls Himself a spring of living water. If the woman had studied scripture, she would likely have recognized Jesus at this point.

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

She is struggling, now, to find a context in which Jesus’ words could make sense. There is no physical evidence to support his claims. But something within her causes her to search for another explanation. Perhaps He is greater than He appears...

Woman at the Well - Part 1

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. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
John 4:4-9

Most of the commentaries I have read summarize this story as another case of Jesus choosing a lowly instrument (in this case, a fallen woman, in other cases lepers and the blind) to announce His arrival to a town. That point being made, the remainder of their energy seems to be spent scrutinizing the character of the woman. She is examined with a microscopic analysis never applied to the blind or lepers. And such subjective comments are made that I truly have to wonder on what basis they are so widely accepted.

Take, for instance, the common view that the woman was “annoyed” when Jesus asked her for a drink from the well. I see no evidence of this in the text. I would expect that the woman answered Jesus the way that she did for any number of reasons. His request was not merely unusual; it probably appeared inappropriate on a number of levels. And while it may have piqued her interest in Jesus, it probably aroused a healthy suspicion of Him as well.

It would be like a man who is staying at a hotel coming up to a cleaning woman who has just exited the bathroom and asking her to bring him dinner. Since her identity is obvious, there is little cause to think she’s been mistaken. The request is not only odd, it involves a certain ethical dilemma: staff who clean toilets are not allowed to serve food. I don’t think the woman at the well was being difficult. She probably felt an obligation to warn Jesus (although she must have felt it should have been obvious) that fulfilling His request would force her into a position of breaking rules and possibly even defiling Him.

And perhaps that was the point. The woman at the well could have drawn water for Jesus. He had not asked her to explain herself. But in case He couldn’t see the obvious, she states it for Him. She has no desire to defile this man. Yes, she is a woman without honour. But that may be precisely where her sensitivity to protect the honour of others was born.