John 4Jesus and His disciples left Judea, traveling to Galilee. They passed through Samaria on the way and stopped at a city called Sychar to get some food. The disciples went into the city to buy food, and Jesus rested at the stairs of a well that had been used by Jacob hundreds of years earlier. A lone woman was there, carrying water down past Him in a clay jar. “Will you give me some of your water to drink?” Jesus asked the Samaritan woman. “Are you speaking to me?” said the woman in surprise. “Jews never talk to Samaritans.” “If you knew who I am, you would be asking me to give you water to drink. I would give you living water,” said Jesus. The woman gave Him water, confused. Appraising the Jew who was willing to speak to her, a Gentile, she asked him another question. “Sir, you don’t have anything to draw water with, where would you get living water to give me? Are you better than our father Jacob, who built this well for himself, his descendants and his livestock?” “Whoever drinks water from this well will be thirsty again,” said Jesus, looking down into the deep well. Raising His gaze back to the Samaritan woman, He continued. “But whoever drinks of the water that I give will never be thirsty again. The water I give will give them everlasting life.” “Sir, give me this water, and then I won’t have to come to this well to draw water anymore,” said the Samaritan woman, preparing to ascend the stairs to the well entrance again. “Go and get your husband, and we’ll talk together,” said Jesus, appreciating the woman’s conversation. “I don’t have a husband,” answered the Samaritan, pausing on the stairs. “That is true. You’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now is not your husband either,” said Jesus, taking another drink. The woman’s eyes grew wide. “Sir, you are a prophet,” she said. “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, but you say that Jerusalem is where men are supposed to worship.” Jesus answered her, “Salvation comes from the Jews.” The woman shrugged and began to pull up yet another pot of water. “All I know is that the Messiah will come, and He will be called Christ. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.” Jesus smiled at the woman’s belief. “I am the Christ that you speak of,” he said quietly. The woman looked at Him in awe, then left her waterpot and ran to tell her friends and neighbors that Jesus Christ had come to see them.
