John 4:12-26 (ESV)

¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

The dialogue continued between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Jesus told her that if she knew who he was, she would have asked him for living water. What was he talking about? Typically, when people traveled from city to city, they would take some type of canteen with them to draw their own water. He didn’t have a bucket or any receptacle. How would he give her this “living water”? Then she asked Jesus, “Are you greater than our father Jacob?” Jesus answered her, “Whoever drinks of the water I give will never thirst. It will well up to eternal life.” She replied, “Give me this water!” Jesus was physically thirsty, but he knew this woman was spiritually thirsty. And only he could provide what she needed. So he asked her to get her husband and come back. She told Jesus she didn’t have a husband, which he already knew. In fact, he told her she had tried to satisfy her spiritual thirst with five husbands, and she wasn’t even married to the man with whom she was currently living. She was empty and lonely, trying to get whatever she could to satisfy her soul. She was broken and an outcast in her community. She was so far down in the dumps that she didn’t see any way out. When Jesus told her what he knew about her, she was shocked! She said, “Um. I think you are a prophet.” Then she changed the subject and began to talk about the proper place to worship.

No matter what we do or how hard we try, none of us can make ourselves whole before God. We all need Jesus. Our souls long for meaning and purpose. We can numb ourselves to those inner desires by telling ourselves that we are the center of the universe, yet something gnaws at our inner man and declares that’s just not true. The woman told Jesus that she knew the Messiah, or someone like Moses, would come and explain all things. Jesus revealed to her that he was the Messiah. What compassion Jesus had upon this broken woman! Though God graces us with his goodness through creation, nothing will ever satisfy like Jesus. The world will bombard us with messages that tell us we need other things or people to satisfy us and that we are missing out. Anything we look to for satisfaction outside of Jesus will leave us dry and needing more. May we determine never to turn from the living water back to empty wells.