In the previous post we saw how Jesus broke the social conventions of his day by starting to talk with a Samaritan woman by a well. The conversation that followed had a major impact on the woman's life and that of her community. 


The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)


Jesus answered her, “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.”


“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”


Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”


The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”


The Samaritan woman was surprised at Jesus. He broke the rules of their society by talking to her. Jesus now turns the conversation from water in the well to introduce the living water which God was giving freely as a gift. 

The woman appears curious but also sceptical: Where can you get this living water? As we shall see in the next post, this woman had had a colourful life. She was experienced in the way the world worked. She was not going to be taken in by some passing rabbi whose motives she could not be sure of. 

Jesus presses on undeterred. He contrasts the water in the ancient well with the living water which God gives as a gift. Physical water meets an immediate need but people have to keep returning to it to satisfy their thirst. The living water God gives as a gift satisfies spiritual thirst forever. In fact, the water Jesus is describing becomes a spring or source inside the person themselves. They are no longer dependent on external rituals to meet their spiritual need: they have a well on the inside! From this inner source of divine life, the person can drink and have their spiritual thirst quenched for ever. 

The Samaritan women is interested in this living water. She may not have fully understood the truth Jesus was talking about but nonetheless, something is happening within her that is going to change her life for ever. We'll find out what happened in the next post.

The Samaritan woman is never named in this story. In the next post we will consider why this may have been the case. It was not to ignore her identity but to protect her from potential public exposure as she revealed aspects of her past life. 

What do you think of the idea of people being spiritually thirsty? Do you identify this within yourself? What do you think about Jesus' claim that he can give living water that satisfies people's inner thirst? 



 

You can read the whole passage we have looked at here. 


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