Jesus And The Woman At The Well

     Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon.
     A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
     His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
     The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
     —For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.—
     Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who 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 do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?”
     Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give 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 may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.
     Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.”
     The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.”
     Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
     The woman said to him, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
     Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.”
     The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
     Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”

     [John 4:5-26]

     This extraordinary episode is not reported in the three Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But the Gospel According to John is a unique document, in that it recounts the recollections of Jesus by one who had known Him personally. That the other three Evangelists did not record it suggests that John’s experience of the Redeemer was as unique as his Gospel.

     Throughout His ministry, Jesus was careful not to assert directly and unambiguously that He was the Son of God. He referred to Himself as the Son of Man, a phrase that has been variably interpreted. Yet when others – Peter, for example – called Him the Son of God, He did not deny it; rather, He changed the subject. Not even when Pilate challenged Him did He make an explicit claim of His divine status.

     That makes His encounter with the woman at the well particularly striking. He did not claim to be the Son of God, but rather the Messiah – and the Messiah was envisioned by Judeans and Samarians of His time to be a temporal leader, who would lead the people in throwing off the Roman yoke. But how does that square with His words about “the living water,” which scholars take to be a reference to the Holy Spirit? Worldly leaders don’t talk like that, do they?

     There seems a certain tension here.

* * *

     On several occasions reported in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus commands various of His disciples not to tell anyone about something He had said or done. Probably the most significant of all such episodes is recounted in Matthew, chapter 16:

     When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
     And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
     He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
     And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
     And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
     And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
     And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
     Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.

     Peter had identified Jesus as the Son of God. While Jesus acknowledged the statement of His divine status, it was information He did not want bruited about. It would have ignited an immediate religious war, which was contrary to His purposes. He wanted the New Covenant to take root among men without undue violence, though from the beginning it was sure to excite some drawing of swords.

     And so also in the aftermath of His encounter with the woman at the well:’

     And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.
     So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his own word; And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.

     [John 4:39-42]

     For He did not say it; they did. They recognized Him, and believed, just as He wanted.

     The tremendous power of this episode lies in that seeming tension between what He was and what He would allow Himself to claim. He left it to mortals to recognize Him as what He was. Mortals did, and went on to tell others of His words. Even at His torturous death on the cross, He made no explicit claim. Yet those who had crucified Him knew:

     Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
     And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
     Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

     [Matthew 27:50-54]

     God does not coerce. Neither did His Son. From first to last, He left it up to us to see, and hear, and believe.

     May God bless and keep you all.