Memorable Encounters. Roberto Badenas

The well is the center of town life at these times. But not now. Not at midday. So why has Jesus stopped here?

      He has trekked through Samaria to Sychar to confront the pain and prejudice of human hearts. Jesus knows that Jews and Samaritans share only the rivalry of separate religious ruins. They share only the common ground of hatred, pride, arrogance, and grudges. Scarred by years of mistrust and insult, the people of these neighboring countries will not even speak to one another. Today, Jesus chooses to reach beyond the hatred and the hurt to the hated and the hurting.

      He has come at noon because He knows the Samaritan woman will be there. And so He sits waiting.

      She trudges up the hot, dusty path accompanied only by her shadow. Her lonely arrogance is as visible as her bracelets glinting in the sun. No one knows what she hides behind her aggressive look, but her midday trips to the well have long been a topic of conversation among the townspeople.

      She ignores the Stranger, but He is there to meet her, and addresses her in a way she is sure to understand. He looks up. “Give me a drink,” He says.

      The woman pauses. Why has this Jew spoken to her? What can He want from a Samaritan woman? Jews considered Samaritans less than dogs. His request is nothing more than an overworked line. Asking for water beside a well! She knows the Old Testament. Almost all the love stories in Sychar begin this way. When Abraham decided to find a bride for his son, he sent his servant to a well. Way back then his strategy was the same.

      “May it be that when I say to a girl,” Abraham’s servant prayed,

      “ ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac” (see Gen. 24).

      That was how Isaac and Rebekah came to be married. And today this strange Jew sits at the well that had been dug by Jacob, the son of that famous couple, and asks her for a drink.

      The Samaritan woman knows the line by heart. She has participated in the scenario alongside the well with five or six men, each time hoping that her dreams would finally come true. But that had been when she could still dream. Is this Man any different? Can He offer her hope for the future? Will she encounter her destiny here today? Can she dream just once more?

      She eyes Jesus cautiously, still unconvinced. Unwilling to trust again yet just as unwilling to end the conversation, she teasingly plays with her words. She speaks of water as one would speak of the rain when it is torrential or the sun when there is good weather. She speaks merely to fill the silence until she can decide what this Stranger has to offer.

      An abyss, seemingly impassable, spreads between Jesus and this woman. It separates their worlds, yet Jesus reaches out to her. Samaritan and Jew; sinner and sinless. Her world is one of unstable relationships in the night. This Man presents her with an encounter at high noon.

      He chooses His words carefully, each one calculated to spark hope where there is none. Apart from His genuine thirst, He knows that to ask for water is to say, “I’ve come to talk about your future.” How else could He interest a woman like her?

      “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, which would never run dry. He would give you water that overflows all boundaries and that cannot be channeled by any system of irrigation. He would give you a fountain of life, a spring of hope. My water brings life to the spirit and to the body. It cleanses inside and out.”

      It is not strange that when Jesus offers the Samaritan better water, she thinks in concrete terms. Can this Man offer her a house with a water storage tank? Can He offer her a tap, a sink, or perhaps even a bathroom of marble? No. He does not seem able to offer her any of these. And so the woman sidesteps involvement and continues to draw water.

      Time is precious for Jesus. In the distance He already sees His returning disciples. And so He dispenses with the small talk of new acquaintances and offers her, from the depths of His compassion, water much more valuable and refreshing. He speaks of living water. Jesus believes the Samaritan is capable of following the spiritual lesson.

      By talking with her of spiritual things, Jesus shows her the respect not often shown to women of that time, and thus places her above social barriers, religious taboos, sexist exclusion, and racial borders. He frees theology from its last straitjacket and puts it to work on behalf of this woman. Will He be understood?

      In order to clear up any misunderstanding, Jesus turns toward her once more. “Go, call your husband,” He suggests, “then come back.” He is really saying, “Show Me your true identity, your social status. Introduce Me to the one who gives you a name and legal standing.”

      She ducks her head. “I have no husband.”

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

      Jesus does not condemn her. He speaks neither of adultery nor of divorce. Neither is His simple statement meant to humor her. He simply reads her heart.

      Five husbands, five unclosed wounds. How many disappointments? How many times can a heart break?

      “It is not strange that in order to avoid more suffering you commit yourself less and less. You have buried five dreams. Five times you planted gardens where there was only desert. You cannot take more failure, but the ground is still parched. If you have given up on human love, could it be because you are actually looking for eternal acceptance?”

      The woman begins to understand. “Sir,” she says, suddenly seeing Him for the first time, “I can see that You are a prophet.”

      For a brief moment she drops her mask of frivolity, allowing Him to glimpse her broken heart. But she recovers quickly.

      “I am not a practicing believer, although I have always wanted to believe. But what should I believe in?” she asks. “You Jews say that you possess the truth. And your God can be worshipped only in your Temple. But the Samaritans say that one can find God only in Mount Gerizim.”

      This quick-witted, intelligent woman knows that religions tend to envelop themselves in the cocoon of their own beliefs. She knows that the religious too often argue among themselves out of fervor, fanaticism, and pride. She also knows that religious leaders are men. As a Samaritan, the woman understands men only too well. So she asks a question meant to draw Jesus from her own personal case to much less dangerous issues.

      But Jesus sees through her strategy. And since His bias is toward neither the Jews nor the Samaritans, He avoids both options. “God is higher than our ecclesiastical systems and larger than our theological debates. In order to find Him, you need not make a pilgrimage to a temple or climb a mountain. You need only to search the depths of your own heart.

       “Religion without love as its core is nothing more than an empty cistern. To try to worship God without the indwelling spirit of truth is neither realistic nor, indeed, possible. For this reason, we find only emptiness in so many sanctuaries. They are no more than ancient dwellings on the verge of collapse. Only when we hunger and thirst after righteousness will we be satisfied, our thirst quenched. Only when we drink of living water can we truly find eternal life.”

      The Samaritan woman sighs. “I know that Messiah [called Christ]

      is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us” (John 4:25, NIV).

      “The time has come,” Jesus tells her. “I who speak to you am He.”

      The great revelation is made. Not to a dyed-in-the-wool Jew, but to a foreigner. Not to a devout, pious woman, but to a lost soul. Jesus reveals Himself to the outcast. He offers the covenant to the scorned and thirsty one.

      The Samaritan woman no longer dips for water in the same old well. By its edge she leaves her empty pitcher and runs home to tell her neighbors about Jesus.

      Today healing water has begun to flow. There is enough to cleanse all