Jacob, the woman, and me at the well (Part One)

Part One

[John 4:1-29]

This is the story of the woman at the well, or as my Bible says, Jesus and the Woman of Samaria. In short, the story goes down like this: Jesus goes to Jacob’s well, where a woman from Samaria comes to draw water. Jesus initiates conversation, saying “Give me a drink.” Shocked that a Jewish man “[asked] for a drink from [her], a woman of Samaria,” the woman asked him why he wanted a drink from her. He gave a great answer:

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

Immediately, the woman desires to know where the living water can be drawn. Jesus embeds the answer in a wonderfully true statement:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

He tells her that he is the source of the living water. Oh, and it brings eternal life. She wants this water, saying to Jesus, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus’ response to this probably surprised her, and unnerved her:

“Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Ouch. Some stranger just pulled out her ugly, disgusting, rancid sin into the open. At this point I decided to go back and reread the story. Coming to “Jacob’s well” in verse 6, I followed the cross reference to Genesis 33. The parallels between these stories amazed me.

Genesis 33 is the story of Jacob’s meeting with Esau. The context: Jacob is terrified as his brother, Esau, whom Jacob cheated out of a birthright, is coming with 400 men toward Jacob’s family. Jacob just knows that there exists no hope for redemption or forgiveness in their relationship, so he tries to keep his family safe by going before them towards his brother. “But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him and they wept.”

Wow. That’s forgiveness. In the same way, I think, Jesus meets and embraces the Samaritan woman. Here is this woman, who has had five husbands and is currently with a man who isn’t her husband, and the King of kings, Perfect Son-of-God, asks her to draw water for him. Even she questions why he would even speak to her (v.9). Just like Jacob and all of us, she refused the gift of grace, forgiveness, and eternal life until it was being spoken into her heart in an intimate moment of grace. For Jacob, it was when his brother–who had every right in the world to be resentful, hateful, unforgiving–ran to him with open arms and embraced him and kissed him. In that moment of closeness, Jacob knew he was forgiven. For the woman at the well, it was when her Savior spoke her sins into the open and proved his identity and offered grace at one moment at a well. For me it’s little moments when God makes his “physical” presence known in my life.

Esau represents Jesus in Genesis 33. Jacob represents the woman at the well (and mankind). Jacob wronged Esau, Esau deserved the full rights of the firstborn–to inherit everything. The woman at the well sinned against God, her many husbands being one example of her complete depravity. Because of their sin, neither Jacob nor the woman deserved what they received: grace. Because of my sin I did not deserve grace. All three of us were not just forgiven, we were forgiven beautifully. Esau ran to his brother, embraced him, and kissed him. Jesus, the King of kings, sat down and had a culturally unacceptable conversation with the woman.

And one sentence couldn’t even cover how beautifully I’ve been forgiven.

#Bible #Faith