The Woman at the Well

Early in Jesus’ ministry He makes His way through Samaria. He does this often during His three-year ministry because Samaria is centrally located and in order to make the most efficient use of His travel time He has to go through a region that most Jews avoid. This is the story of the Samaritan woman at the well is found in John 4:1-42. I will tell the story in my own words.

Jesus and His disciple chums were traversing through the region of Samaria when they came to Jacob’s well. Jesus stopped to rest and His disciples went into town to buy some grub. While He was resting at the well a Samaritan woman came up to the well to draw water. Jesus say’s to her, “Give me a drink.” The woman turns around to see who Jesus is talking to and soon discoverers it happens to be her. You see Jews and Samaritans don’t like each other very much so it was very unusual for a Jewish man to speak to a Samaritan woman.

The woman says to Jesus, “Are you talking to me?” “You must be talking to me cause there ain’t nobody else here with a water bucket.” Jesus said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and had any idea of who it is who is speaking you would have asked for living water.” The dame says to Jesus, “You don’t have so much as a soup spoon and you think you are gonna get some water out a this well? “I don’t think so.” Jesus said, “Everyone who chugs down this water will be looking to wet his whistle again before long but the water that I can give is living water and it will well up inside and bring eternal life.”

The woman doesn’t quite get it and says to Jesus, “Can I get that to go? I am real tired of commin out here in the hot sun day after day and doin all this grunt work. Jesus says to the dame, “Go call your husband.” Suddenly the babe has a strange look on her face and says, “Uh, I don’t have a husband.” Jesus says, “You have answered correctly when you say you don’t have a husband. “The truth of the matter is you have had five husbands and the guy who is currently pounding you is not even your husband.” “You are spending too much time on Bring Me a Hulk.com.”

The woman turns ashen. She says, “Sir I perceive you are a prophet.” Jesus says, “Ya think.” Then the dame does what we all do when we are caught with our pants down by someone who is far better at honoring God than we are, she changes the subject to a religious topic. Religion and politics are the best ways to change the subject and divert attention elsewhere. She says, “Our fathers worship on this mountain and you people say we should worship in Jerusalem. “So tell me who’s right?

Jesus says to her, “Lady, I don’t think you are smellin the coffee here.” The day will come when you will worship neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem but you will worship the father in a way that has not been understood before now. You will worship in spirit and in truth.” The dame says, “I know the messiah is coming and he will teach us all things.” Jesus says to her, “The one who speaks to you is he.” Then the babe drops her bucket right there and hi tails it back to town to tell everybody what just happened.

Meanwhile Jesus’ disciples come back to the well and see Jesus jawin away with the dame. Now no one says anything to Jesus because they know that Jesus is on a mission from God and whatever He does has to be God’s will. So even though the disciples don’t like Samaritans they are willing to overlook this incident because Jesus knows what He is doin.

Then the dame comes back with a number of people from the city and they are impressed with Him and come to believe in Him. Then they say to Jesus, “Why don’t you hang out with us for awhile?” So Jesus and His disciples stay for another two days and live in the guest rooms of a number of Samaritan residences. I’ll bet they didn’t brag about that when they returned to Jerusalem.

Then the people of the town said to the woman who was the first to speak to Jesus at the well, “We no longer believe because of what you told us about Jesus now we have seen Him for ourselves and believe that he is the messiah.”

The residents of the village make it clear that they originally believed that Jesus was the messiah because of what the woman has told them, but later became convinced by Jesus’ own words. Who would have believed that the first evangelist to this Samaritan town would have been a woman with more divorces than a Hollywood movie star. Clearly, Jesus’ disciples were experiencing things that would have been hard to explain to their Jewish friends, and even harder to explain to their Jewish families.

This story reveals that Jesus was a true revolutionist.