Jesus was tired. He was on a journey from Judea to Galilee. Jesus was poor and traveling the way a poor man living 2,000 years ago traveled: by foot.
Jesus had to go through Samaria to get back to Galilee. He came upon a well in a Samaritan village, Jacob's well. Tired and worn out, Jesus sat in the dirt by the well.
Before long, a woman came to draw water from the well.
"Will you give me a drink?" Jesus asked.
The woman was shocked. She had several strikes against her. She was a woman, and the implication is hers was a carnal heart. She was living with a man she was not married to, and had five husbands before him. She was also a Samaritan. Jews didn't associate with Samaritans. They thought they were better than Samaritans, whom they considered to be a low-class group of people.
And yet, here was Jesus acknowledging the woman's presence by asking her for some water.
"You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep," the woman said to Jesus. Her water jar would have been considered impure.
That didn't matter to Jesus.
"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again," Jesus counseled the woman, "but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst."
The woman was seeking water from the well. Jesus was offering the living water of eternal life.
The woman was thirsty. She said, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
Read the words of Jesus, "The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks." (John 4) Not just truth; Jesus said spirit and truth.
Rich in Jesus' love, the woman abandoned her water jar, ran back to her village and invited others to experience Jesus' love. Because of the woman's testimony, many Samaritans came to believe in Christ.
Jesus emphasized spirit and truth again when he said, "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
To drink of the living water requires worshiping in spirit as well as truth.
The spiritual heart is the dwelling place of holiness.
Chris Karcher is the author of "Relationships of Grace" and "Amazing Things I Know About You." She can be reached at www.relationshipsofgrace.com.
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