“Will you give me a drink?”
With that simple question, Jesus turned societal and cultural expectations upside down.
Culturally, Jewish men did not talk to women they weren’t related to. It wasn’t proper or right. Nor did Jewish men ask Samaritan women for water from wells. They didn’t ask them for anything—Jews and Samaritans hated and avoided each other like the plague. Jews would even go out of their way to go around Samaria to get to Judea from Galilee and vice versa.
But John chapter 4 records that Jesus had to go through Samaria on his way from Judea to Galilee.
Why? Because Jesus came to seek and save the lost, regardless of culture, nationality, and gender. Because he needed to have a conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well, a woman who was spiritually dehydrated and living in sin and didn’t know it. Jesus wanted to give her what she really needed—what we all really need:
Spiritual water. Living water, welling up to eternal life.
Read through John chapter 4.
See how quickly Jesus turns the conversation from talking about physical water to spiritual water. See how lovingly Jesus exposes the Samaritan woman’s need for a Savior from her sin. See how he declares that he is the very same Savior. “I, the one speaking to you—I am he” (John 4:26).
Dear Christian, there’s so much we think we need in this life.
There’s so much we think will be the answer, the solution, the source that solves our troubles, fixes our problems, and drives away the fears, worries, and anxieties that plague us. We run after such things, and all that does is leave us spiritually thirsty, parched, and dehydrated.
The same Savior who sat with a woman at a well, offering her spiritual water, would later stretch his hands out on a cross to suffer and die for her sins—and yours and mine as well. He would say, “I thirst,” with a parched voice through cracked lips, to fulfill all the words of Scripture, so we would never thirst again.
“I, the one speaking to you—I am he” (John 4:26).
With that simple declaration, Jesus made known to the woman at the well that he was her Savior from sin, death, and the devil. What was her joyful response?
“Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?’ They came out of the town and made their way toward him” (John 4:28-30).
The Samaritan woman went and told the people in her town about the man she met. She knew she couldn’t keep such an amazing discovery to herself.
Many of her fellow Samaritans believed because of her testimony, and when they went out to listen to Jesus himself, many more believed and said, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).
Our loving God gives spiritual water to us through his Word. He gives it to us freely, regardless of our culture, nationality, gender, background, and sinful pasts. He quenches our parched souls with words of forgiveness and unbreakable promises of life everlasting. He satisfies our every need as no one and nothing else can do.
What’s our joyful response?
“Come and see . . . this is the Savior of the world. See what he did for you, for me. Come and see.”
Dive into Jesus’ comforting words and promises with These Words Are Written. These brief devotions cover the entire book of John and point you to the peace that is yours in your Savior Jesus.
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Alex Brown is the marketing and content copywriter at Northwestern Publishing House. He has his Master of Divinity degree from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary and enjoys reading, writing, and spending time in God’s creation.
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