Must I stay thirsty? (1)

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s spring was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the spring. It was about the sixth hour. (John’s first century eyewitness biography of Jesus Chapter 4: 1)

Has the above happened to you? Have you been “successful” over others as, seemingly, Jesus was – in number terms at least? And did others become envious of you? If so, what did you do? AD 30 Galilee was very unlike Judea. It was 100 miles away from that city and a despised place. Its residents were despised people, mainly because most there were of mixed race and not pure Judeans. Why did Jesus leave Judea? Was he aware of envy? Was he afraid? Why didn’t he stand firm? What motivated him – in the noonday sun – to walk on to Jacob’s spring until so absolutely weary? Was he really thirsty? Jacob and Joseph were descendants of Abraham who lived around BC 2000. Some Samaritan people around AD 30 would have respected them. 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 Judean, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
Was this woman seeking an argument - or an explanation?	.
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.” What didn’t the woman know? Two things, it seems. Can she be forgiven for not knowing the gift of God or for not knowing who was right there at Jacob’s spring? The woman said to him, “Lord, 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.” What do you make of the woman’s response? She first of all addresses him as, “Lord”, but then kind-of disbelieves him because there is absolutely nothing about him to suggest that he has any ability at all to give her water. 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 leaping up into eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Lord, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” The woman repeats “Lord” and now makes her request. Does she now know “the gift of God, and” also know “who it is that is” speaking to her? What is this “gift”? How can it be “leaping up” inside her? Also, why does she now want this supreme gift? Given her selfish reason for wanting “the gift of God”, should she be given it?
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”	.
Why, oh why, did Jesus bring this up? In recording this John the biographer five times used the Greek word andra translated “husband”. That word is usually translated “man”. Of all our secrets is this not the area which we least want to be seen by others? 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.” Will this “man” problem (all five) exclude her from this “gift of God”?

Sinner Syvret

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