Musings on the Book of John

• Water of Life• Jesus Is Truth Spoken in Love

by Connie Hecker

John 4:7-26 NIV

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

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.”

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

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “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.”

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

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, 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 the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Water of Life

How does Jesus respond to the question of an ignorant woman? Respectfully, lovingly, generously, graciously. With no condemnation, no shame. Rather, with the offer of the gift of life, real life, eternal life. He has a water to offer her which she cannot see. A water greater than the water she now depends on to survive in this not-so-nice life of hers. There is a new water, one that brings a change to her from the inside, not the outside (v. 14). She wants this! Water is given to quench our bodily thirst. Jesus is given to quench our spiritual thirst in our hearts. Jesus’ words cast a vision of hope eternal. Her heart is stirred to action.

Deep in every person is a longing for rescue from this life. Every cell of our being is made in His image, and while sin may blind our eyes, our hearts cry out in longing for restoration. It is THE story waiting to be told into each heart. Jesus lovingly offers her living water. Does she fully understand what He is offering? Of course not. Just like us, her world is full of daily care and survival. In answer to the need, Jesus is tilling the soil and planting the seed. Her first reaction and most visible desire is to avoid the painful and shameful yet necessary trips to the well (v. 15). Jesus is not done. He has brought forth into the light the pain she suffers from sin. She has spoken of her need—to not have a thirst that makes her come to this place of confrontation and shame.

• Like the woman, am I willing to speak my desires to avoid pain?

• Do I love like Jesus loved this cultural outcast?

• Do I seek to inspire a longing for truth?

• Am I gracious, generous, and respectful as He is?

• Lord, help me be like you today!

Jesus Is Truth Spoken in Love

This next passage brings a change in perspective. There has been a progression in how the woman is thinking about Jesus.

First, she sees Him simply as a Jew who has broken one of His cultural traditions by both being there and speaking to her, even requesting help from her. This got her attention.

Second, she calls Him “Sir,” respecting Him—an out-of-place Jew without resources to meet His own needs, let alone provide whatever “living water” is.

Third, she calls Him “Sir” again, this time seeing Him as one who might make her life a little easier by providing a way for her to no longer need to go to this well. Perhaps in this challenge, she is showing her openness to having a better life as she is not happy with the current life she is stuck in.

That is all the opening Jesus needs, and now He confronts her with truth. After He tells her she has had five husbands, she calls Him a prophet. Lord. Her opinion is greatly elevated. Why? Because He spoke truth to her in love. She asked Him for His water provision, perhaps with only a sliver of hope. Now the door cracked open, and His light rushes in like a gust of wind blowing the door wide open in the light of truth! A command. Go, call your husband, and come here. She can go, but she cannot lie about her life, not at this level and not to this ‘man?’. She speaks truth back to truth. No husband. She admits it. What rush of shame is she feeling, thinking that what He has to offer her cannot be given to her, a woman who is so lowly as to be used by men in her town? Yet Jesus does not condemn her. He instead commends her (v. 17) because she has indeed admitted her sin. Jesus reveals He knows the entire truth about her: she has had five husbands and is not currently in a proper relationship—she is not married but living with, or being kept by, a man. The amplified Bible gives us a note on the word husband in v.18, saying, “God does not regard cohabitation as marriage. Marriage is a binding, legal covenant between a man and a woman.”

Lord, Prophet, Jesus. You see inside hearts and minds. You test our willingness to admit our sin and trust You with truth about ourselves. You ask us for help; then You offer us more than we can imagine, knowing we are undeserving. I admit to You now those things in my life that I am ashamed of, but You already know. I do not even know my own neediness, Lord, yet I desire Your lifegiving water. I, too, am thirsty as situations in my life trap me. Release me, Lord, with Your truth. Blow open the hidden doors of my heart with your gentle, warm, life-giving truth drawn from Your Living Waters. Let me stand in your presence, accepted and washed clean.

Connie Hecker, MFA, is a Scenic Designer recently retired from teaching at Liberty University. She is mom, stepmom, and grandmother. Her “first career” was in interior and industrial design. Her “second” was as Manager of Operations and Maneuvers (note initials) in her extended family. Her “third” was as a professor. Now, she is looking forward to what God has in store as her “fourth”.