John 4:1-11 (ESV)

¹ Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ²(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), ³ he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴ And he had to pass through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. ⁷ A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered 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.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

The third chapter of John began with an exciting conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, a Pharisee or a ruler of the Jewish people. Now John records a conversation between Jesus and a woman who was not only a despised Samaritan, but an adulterer. Nicodemus sought Jesus, but Jesus approached the Samaritan woman. Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman were polar opposites, and yet Jesus met with, spent time with, taught, and invested in both souls. Although they were incredibly different, they were equally important to him. It was noon (the sixth hour), the hottest time of the day. Jesus was tired, hungry, and thirsty. The disciples went to town to buy food, and Jesus waited for them by the well that Jacob gave Joseph about two thousand years earlier. While there, a woman came to draw her day’s supply of water. Women usually came to draw water either early in the morning or late in the afternoon, and they also came in groups. So why did this particular woman come to the well in the heat of the day all by herself to get water? She was a social outcast, and no one wanted to be seen with her, no one except Jesus, that is. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” The woman was surprised and caught off guard. She asked Jesus, “Why would you, a Jewish man, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” No Jewish rabbi would have asked her for a drink, no matter how thirsty he was.

The phrase used in verse nine, “For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans,” probably referred to the fact that the Jews did not use dishes that Samaritans had used. A first century rabbinic law said that all Samaritan women were unclean. Though Jesus was parched and thirsty, his desire wasn’t to get water as much as it was to meet her spiritual need. He told her that he could give her living water. Like this woman, have you ever felt like an outcast? If so, be encouraged by this account. Jesus sought her out. He asked her for a drink. He offered her living water. If you are a follower of Jesus, he has done the same for you. He bore your disgrace on the cross and set you free to live boldly for his glory. Pursue Christ without any shame or reservation today.