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John tells us that Jesus, “tired from the journey,” sits down by a well at noon. That detail matters. This is not the Christ of lofty abstraction or untouchable holiness. This is a thirsty, weary body resting on the edge of a shared human need. Revelation begins not in triumph but in fatigue The well is an ordinary place that is common and utilitarian. And yet Scripture often locates transformation in such spaces. Wells are where people come because they must. You can delay many things, but not thirst. And it is there, in that place of necessity, that Jesus meets a woman who has learned to live with both physical and social scarcity.
Jesus breaks the silence with a request: “Give me a drink.” He does not begin with instruction or correction. He begins with vulnerability. He places himself in her debt. This is already a reversal of power. Jesus is a Jew speaking to a Samaritan, man to woman, rabbi to the socially suspect. He does not cross these boundaries to make a point; he crosses them because love goes where it is not supposed to go.
The woman is startled, rightly so. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me?” Her question is the sound of history speaking. It carries centuries of exclusion, hostility, and inherited distrust. Jesus does not dismiss her concern. Instead, he opens a deeper conversation, one not about who belongs where, but about what truly satisfies.
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,” he says, “but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.”
This is not a promise of escape from need, nor a denial of the body’s limits. It is an invitation to a different source. Living water, in John’s Gospel, is not doctrine or moral achievement. It is about a relationship with the world. It is a life rooted in the inexhaustible generosity of God, a well that opens within a person, even one who has been told again and again that she is empty.
The conversation deepens, and Jesus names her story, not to expose her, but to see her. “You are right,” he says, affirming her honesty. This is one of the most astonishing moments in the Gospels: a woman who has been misread by society is read truthfully by God. There is no condemnation here, only clarity. And clarity, when offered in love, becomes freedom.
She responds not with shame but with theology. “I see that you are a prophet.” And then she asks the question that has divided communities for generations: Where is the right place to worship? Which mountain? Which tradition? Which people get it right?
Jesus refuses to be conscripted into that false choice. Worship, he says, is not about geography or pedigree, but about truth and spirit. God is not contained by our boundaries. God is already present, already active, already nearer than we imagine.
Then comes the turning point. The woman speaks of the Messiah, the one who will come and explain everything. And Jesus says to her, plainly and without disguise, “I am he.” This is the first unambiguous self-revelation of Jesus as Messiah in the Gospel of John. And it is given not to a religious leader or a disciple, but to a Samaritan woman at a well, in the heat of the day
This also speaks to what Pastor Emllie referred ao as her altar care repetitions(or as she put it the "just in cases". We don't need to be thirsty anymore when we believe in Jesus as the Messiah.
She leaves her water jar behind. That detail matters too. The object she came for is no longer what she needs. She runs, not away, but toward her community. The woman who came alone returns as a witness. The one who avoided the crowd becomes the bearer of good news. “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done,” she says, not as an accusation, but as wonder. Her testimony is imperfect, provisional, deeply human. And it is enough.
Many Samaritans believe because of her word.
Jesus still sits by wells. He still asks for water. He still waits for those who come at noon, convinced they must remain unseen. And he still offers a life that does not deny our wounds but transforms them into springs of living water. He sits for us, and for the world.
Gary, you're such a beautiful writer! I am just loving what you write. Thank you! In a time so many of us feel extremely fatigued from the journey and I'd say...PARCHED(!), I'm so grateful to have turned to faith. Jesus knows what we've done, everything that's going on and what will come. There's solace in that. He walks with us no matter what we carry or how hard the road. That's what I'm leaning into lately. I love the detail you emphasize about how the Samaritan woman abandons her water jar and runs to her community, those who have shunned her. This is a prayer I have for our country right now...that we all abandon our baggage (so to speak) and dive into communication, relationships and community in places we have avoided because of political strife and disagreements. I love imagining the Samaritan announcing the good news of the Messiah to those she has been avoiding. In times like we are experiencing now, I think every day about how children are developing and seeing the world. There is good news for them and I hope we can focus on that; truly what else is worth focusing on? Overcoming suffering brings peace (at least for awhile!). We might transform our anger into new agreements living as followers of Christ. That we may see opportunities instead of obstacles and paths forward instead of despair. The Samaritan may have lived in a prison of her own making before encountering Jesus. We are also living in confinements of our own making. I hope we can ask Jesus to shine lights on our dark places we are unable or unwilling to see and walk with us out of the darkness. We may feel frozen now in patterns of avoidance like the Samaritan going to the well at noon. But at least for myself, I hope I can grow my own humility and ingenuity to be open to new and hard things that will bear fruit.
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