How to Handle Your Emotions (Counseling Through the Bible Series) (60 page)

Samaritan Woman

“Will you give me a drink?” It’s a simple question, yet it stuns the woman holding the water jar by the well. She understands
what
He wants, but doesn’t understand
why
He’s asking her. A man she doesn’t know, and a Jewish man at that, is initiating a conversation with her. Certainly He is familiar with the Mishnah, which states, “Don’t talk too much with women.” This authoritative rulebook of the day continues, “So long as a man talks too much with a woman, he brings trouble on himself, wastes time better spent on studying Torah, and ends up an heir of Gehenna [hell].”
¹⁸

This woman is accustomed to being ignored. It’s the price she pays for simply being a woman.

Now, it has to be obvious to the Jewish stranger that she’s one of “them.” Jewish opinion concerning Samaritans fluctuated throughout history, but the bigotry and strife between Jews and Samaritans was at times so severe that violence erupted between the two groups.
¹⁹
Therefore, the fact this man would dare drink from the cup of a Samaritan…how could this happen!

The Samaritan woman had grown up under the stigma of social and religious prejudice. Because of past intermarriages— the Hebrews with the ungodly Assyrians—the Jews did not treat the Samaritans as equals. Considered “half-breeds,” the detestable Samaritans were excluded from Jewish temple worship. They were, at best, considered ignorant,
²⁰
and at worst, “excluded from eternal life.”
²¹

Furthermore, Samaritans were so loathed that many Jews in Israel would journey far to the east—adding days to their travels—to avoid setting foot inside Samaria. As the adage of the day went, “May I never set eyes on a Samaritan.”
²²
Imagine how this racial discrimination had been an assault on this woman’s sense of self-worth. So why would this Jewish man—easily detectable by His beard, robe and dialect—deliberately travel through Samaria and address a woman deemed racially inferior? That this was happening was simply shocking.

And there is yet another reason a conversation between the two would be considered controversial. Her immoral lifestyle was legendary among the locals—prompting her to fetch water
at the noon hour rather than in the morning when the townspeople gathered at the well to gossip and get their water for the day.

Perhaps the Samaritan woman feels a slight sense of relief that at least
He,
this Jewish traveler, wouldn’t know about her five husbands—and current lover. (But Jesus does know, and has sought her out to offer her a
new
life—eternal life.)

So she finally responds,
“
You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”

Jesus answers, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

Living water?
The woman is confused. Her focus is on the water well just a step away, but Jesus is describing how she can quench her spiritual thirst. He tries again to shift her thinking to the spiritual realm: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).

Although the woman doesn’t grasp the greater meaning, she wants what Jesus is offering because, to her, it means no more laborious trips to the well. Then Jesus proceeds with presenting her greatest need—not water, but the way of salvation, through the
Savior.
And He uses an unusual approach to help her see that need.

“Go, call your husband and come back,” He says (verse 16). Her secret sins are about to surface! She honestly replies that she has no husband, then Jesus reveals He knows about the five she has already had, as well as her present lover.

All of a sudden, a spiritual awakening begins. The Samaritan woman realizes she’s conversing with more than just a common stranger. She identifies Jesus as a prophet, and He identifies Himself as the Messiah. When she gets a taste of living water, she can’t wait to share it with others!

Leaving her water jar—and her old life—behind, this changed woman heads back into town and tells everyone she can about her divine encounter, encouraging them to come to the well and “taste” for themselves. They do…and many Samaritans ultimately become believers through the testimony of one woman who had been written off as worthless.

Once shunned and shamed, this Samaritan woman now has a new sense of self-worth—
in her Savior.
Her primary identity is no longer an immoral, detestable Samaritan woman. She is now a child of God, forgiven, and free to live in her new life.

The Jews might have thought she was unworthy of eternal life, but not Jesus. He stepped into Samaritan territory and brought dignity to the despised—to the one, and to the many. Heaven indeed will include even those whom the Jews referred to as half-breeds.

The woman at the well is so powerfully used by God that other Samaritans were compelled to say, “We know that this man really is the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).