7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ John 4
The second woman we encounter in John’s gospel is an unknown Samaritan woman. (The Samaritans were considered a mongrel or mixed race people by the Jews).
The setting for John 4 begins with Jesus ‘leaving and going’.
4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptising more disciples than John – … 3 So He LEFT JUDEA and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had TO GO THROUGH SAMARIA. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, John 4
Jesus left the religious Jews for a time, because they thought they knew better and didn’t want Him (JOHN 5:39) and went through Samaria, where an untaught people WERE EAGER TO LISTEN TO HIM. Could this happen again? The people who were outcasts were the hungry and thirsty ones!
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Where are the Hungry and Thirsty ones today?) Matthew 5
Jesus began a conversation with the woman by asking her to give Him a drink – He broke every religious code to speak with this woman alone.
9 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.)
The conversation flowed until the woman in turn asked Jesus for the Living Water He’d spoken about.
15 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.’
The Lord changed the conversation by telling her to go and get her husband and then followed this by a personal word of knowledge to her. You’ve had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband. (Not judgemental, just a revelation of who she was.)
The woman spoke to Him of worship, she knew about God, despite the way her life had gone. (“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every [person] which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.” Blaise Pascal)
Jesus then told this unnamed woman, with the tarnished past, that a new era had now come, when God would not be worshipped in a certain place, but in Spirit and Truth.
24 God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.’
25 The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah’ (called Christ) ‘is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.’
26 Then Jesus declared, ‘I, who speak to you am He.’
This woman then told the people of Sycar about the man at the well who’d spoken with her about God.
29 ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done. Could this be the Messiah?’
These outcast people knew that the Messiah was to come, but they never dreamed He would call with them, that’s Good News this woman brought to her town.
WHERE ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS BESIDE US?
God bless and keep you today.