“But He needed to go through Samaria.”
John 4:4
It was around noon, and Jesus was tired from the journey, thirsty, and hungry. He sat down by a well while the disciples went to look for food. A woman approaches with water pitchers. Jesus has been expecting her. This woman needed to be overwhelmed by God; she needed a breath of life. She didn’t know it yet, but that encounter would transform her.
Nobody is unworthy; nobody is rejected
It was common for women to fetch water from the well, but they usually went at daybreak when the weather was cooler. This woman, however, always went at noon under the scorching sun. She wanted to avoid meeting anyone. Her reputation was the cause of gossip, and her own people despised her.
She was a sinner, a Samaritan, and an outcast. Jesus was a Jew, a respected teacher, yet when she approached, He spoke to her as if she had something of value to offer Him. He asked her for water. But behind His request was what He really wanted—her heart. He wanted to mend its broken pieces, and offer her His grace.
We all have broken parts, and have at some point in our lives felt rejected and outcast. God asks us to give Him our broken pieces. Regardless of our past, He offers us a brighter future.
Jesus is the only solution to an internal void
The Samaritan woman had been married five times and now lived with a man who was not her husband. No marriage had given her what she so desperately wanted. She was looking for happiness, security, but she couldn’t find it in any earthly man.
As they talked, Jesus gently revealed that she was trying to fill the void in her heart in the wrong way. What she really needed was a transformation from the inside out.
Perhaps we are also seeking earthly pleasures, trying to find comfort in futile things. Maybe we are addicted to buying, chasing that high by spending the hard-earned money God gave us, or filling our time with distractions. We may even be following in the Samaritan woman’s steps, looking for the perfect guy to make us happy.
At the well, Jesus offered to fill that internal void, forever. The Samaritan woman recognized Who she was talking to and that He was offering a solution to her sadness. In Christ, she would be complete, worthy, and content. She believed!
Transformation is contagious
The woman was filled with joy as she listened to Jesus speak. What she had found in Him overwhelmed her—forgiveness, hope, new life! Unable to hold back such discoveries, she ran back to the city to spread the news, abandoning her pitcher at the well. She exemplifies what happens when we drink of the Living Water. We leave behind our worldly worries, and can’t help but share the change in our lives.
We might not run into town to proclaim the change God has worked in us, but there will be a visible contrast to who we were before our encounter with Christ, and we will never miss an opportunity to explain it by glorifying He who made us new.
Jesus bought us with His blood, and He waits for us to accept Him, to allow Him to transform us. He wants us to experience “life, and […] more abundantly” (John 10:10).
May we be flooded with the love of Christ, and may it overflow into other hearts.
