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We were expecting a fabulous meal at the ski lodge's steakhouse. High ceilings, mahogany leather chairs, elegantly dressed staff. But by the time the entrees arrived, no one was talking. We marinated in the silence of a family trying not to make things worse. Whenever I stopped staring at my plate to look up, I saw angry, frustrated faces. We had everything, but it wasn't enough.
John 4:1-15
When Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John (though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), he left Judea and went again to Galilee. He had to travel through Samaria; so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. "Give me a drink," Jesus said to her, because his disciples had gone into town to buy food. "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered, "If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would ask him, and he would give you living water." "Sir," said the woman, "you don't even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this 'living water'? You aren't greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock." Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life." "Sir," the woman said to him, "give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and come here to draw water."
Jesus is tired, thirsty, and sitting where he shouldn't. It's like a white man asking a black woman for a bite of her sandwich in the Jim Crow south. A Brahmin asking a Dalit to share a cup of water. A megachurch pastor asking for a sip of a woman's cocktail at a bar. Jewish teachers strongly warned men against talking with women in public. They did not associate with Samaritans. Jesus breaks every rule of respectable religion in three sentences. The initial reaction to this story wasn't that Jesus is loving, but that he is scandalous. Remember the Gospel of John has already told us that Jesus is the Word made flesh. Yet here, Jesus is the thirsty man who needs help. Instead of a power play, he leads with vulnerability. The woman is perplexed. How can you ask me? If you don't have a bucket for well water, where will you get living water? She tries to rile him up by claiming to be the true descendent of Jacob (a claim that would make most Jewish rabbis angry). But Jesus has her attention, and he speaks to her heart. He clarifies that he isn't offering physical water, but overwhelming satisfaction. Instead of returning to a physical well for daily water, he promises to give her a well of life that endlessly supplies her heart. It's such an astounding claim that she can't process it (yet). She can only offer, "Ok, give me that water so I don't have to come get this well water." I woke up this morning, tried to pray, and felt nothing. So I grabbed my phone and scanned social media to see what notifications had come in overnight. I just wanted a hit to start my day, and Jesus didn't offer immediate gratification. We keep trying to fit Jesus into our expectations. He's just another bucket to lower into the well so we can make it through the day. But he offers us a relationship that brings lasting life. Jesus doesn't give us a better bucket. He becomes the spring.
What "wells" have you kept returning to lately (accomplishment, approval, distraction), hoping they'd satisfy?
Jesus asks for a drink before he offers one. How does his vulnerability change how you see him?
If you experienced Jesus satisfying your deepest thirst, what is one thing you would stop chasing this week?
Name one thing you keep running to that always leaves you thirsty (e.g., scrolling, snacking, venting). Text a friend: "I keep going back to [this]. Pray that I'd look to Jesus instead."
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