This man was different. A man like him would never associate with a woman like her. Yet, not only did he speak to her, he asked her for a drink.
She longed to be loved. She turned from one man to the next, but nothing ever lasted. And then, he came along. They had never met, yet he knew everything about her, her darkest secrets and her deepest desires. Still, he didn’t look down on her. He didn’t shun her. He would never had joined in the whispering as she walked by on the street.
Yes, this man was different. For he saw through her imperfections and brokenness; he offered her the most perfect unconditional love that she had ever known. This man didn’t want to take anything from her except for her hurt, her sin, her shame…. He wanted to help her by giving her a joy, a hope, a love, a peace, a life that would last forever.
She questioned how he, a Jew, could ask her, a Samaritan, for a drink. He replied, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you or a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
She wondered where he could get this water when the well they stood at was so deep and he had nothing to draw water with. He answered, “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.”
“Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water,” she said to him.
He knew though, that she needed so much more quenched than her physical thirst for water. She didn’t realize her need for living water to satisfy her spirit.
He told her to go get her husband and come back, but she replied that she had no husband. “You are right when you say you have no husband,” he said to her. “The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
She thought him a prophet and began to ask questions of the correct place to worship since the proper place to worship was not agreed upon by the Jews and Samaritans. Again, the man spoke of something more important than the physical realm. “A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
Then he revealed himself to her as the Messiah, the Christ. Jesus himself was speaking to this woman who lived a life of shame.
His disciples returned from an errand they had been running, and the conversation was interrupted. The woman went back to town, leaving her water jar behind, but she didn’t run away in shame. She left excited to tell everyone about the man who knew everything about her and who had revealed himself to her as the Messiah.
She brought the people to Jesus, and he agreed to their request to stay a couple of days. When the people heard the words that Jesus spoke, many of them believed in him as the Savior of the world.
You can read this beautiful love story in John 4:1-42, and you too can accept His invitation to drink and be satisfied.
We have a deep desire that can’t be satisfied by anything here on earth because we were made for something more. What are you trying to quench that thirst with? If you’re tired of drinking only to be thirsty again, drink of him.
He knows everything about you, yet he still loves you and wants to reveal himself to you as the Savior of the world. When you accept his gift of forgiveness and surrender to his Lordship, his Spirit will dwell in you. Your life will be forever changed as the Spirit gives you wisdom, strength, peace, transformation and hope of eternal life in a perfect place with the perfect Savior who loves you more perfectly than anyone ever could.
How has your encounter with Jesus affected you, and what impact has that encounter made on the lives of others? So many are thirsty for something they don’t even know exists. Share the Good News with them so they too can drink the water he gives. Help them to know this man who is different.