I AM: Chosen Week Three – Day Five: A Narrative of the Samaritan Woman

By Central Women

Today would be like any other day. In the morning, women would be hustling about, and she would stay inside. By noon, it would be brutally hot out there; even the desert plants hoarded what little water they could find.

She had made a fool of herself, and a reputation she was not proud of. Women in town knew it. They taunted and made fun of her. Perhaps the worst of it all were the hushes, whisperers, and side eyes when she walked through town.

Never again. She was done with that humiliation. She resolved to make the trek to the well at mid-day to avoid unpleasant encounters.

Today, as she approached the well, she noticed a Jewish man sitting there. This was uncommon. Men don’t draw water, especially Jewish men. What is he doing here?

“Will you give me a drink?” He asked.

Confused she answered, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”

Never riled or impatient; he answered, “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.”

Living water? She contemplated. There is only this well. And even when she fills her jugs, the water runs out the next day, and she must return for more water.

“Sir,” she replied, “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 flocks and herds?”

The man 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.”

The wheels were turning in her mind. What does all of this mean? She knew the Pentateuch, the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy. The Scriptures foretold of a coming Messiah. Could it be?

No, surely not. He must know why she came to draw water at mid-day, in the scorching heat. The reputable women would never draw water at this time.

Why would he offer this to me? No one would ever choose me, she thought.

She put him to the test. “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

Crushed, she responded, “I have no husband.”

“You are right, when you say you have no husband. 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.”

How can he know this about me? We only just met. Could he be?

“Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

“Believe me, woman,” he responded. “A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet 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.”

“I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then he declared, “I who speak to you am he.”

Before she had a moment to process what she heard, a dozen men joined them. They were his followers, bringing him food.

She had so much to think about, but such little time. She left her water jar, slowly backing out of the crowd of men. She turned on a heel and headed to town.

“Come,” she exclaimed, “see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

The town followed her as they made their way toward him.

Jesus, the Christ, was still at the well. His disciples urging him to eat.

“My food,” Jesus said, “is to do the work of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for the harvest.”

As Jesus spoke, the disciples looked at the fields behind them. Approaching them was the whole town of Sychar. A brilliant cloud of white for Samaritan men wore all white from head to toe.

It was the harvest.

Jesus continued, “Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

She was chosen by Jesus, to be the laborer. To bravely run through town saying, “He told me everything I ever did.” This testimony from a promiscuous woman caused many in the town to believe. Jesus stayed with them two more days, and more became believers.

Then, people of the village spoke to her, an act she wasn’t used to. People of the village normally talk about her, not to her.

“We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

For generations to come, people would share this story of how God, through His Son Jesus, can use anyone for good works. Until the end of time this nameless, immoral, unchaste Samaritan woman would forever be remembered as chosen, by Jesus, to bring an entire town to the feet of Jesus.