A Woman at a Well, Part 1                                                                                                          A-1

This story is a perfect example of a woman with a certain past which renders her unable to now move forward in life, yet after having met Jesus, we can hear her say “BUT NOW!”  Her life changed and she could now react to situations differently, since she met Jesus!  Her future life would never as it had been before!

She moved from abuse, believing in some core lies about herself, acting in a way that would reflect those twisted beliefs, to meeting Jesus, and opening herself to a new vision of herself as she understood Jesus explaining her past, and His description of what she could have in the future.

This is Part One.  The story continues later in Part Two ….                                                                                                                                                             

… So He (Jesus) came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.  It was about noon.

“When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink”? 

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan.  How can you ask me for a drink?”  (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

 

1) When Jesus said the words “knew” and the phrase “who it is” …. Why did Jesus say this? 

2) What conditions did Jesus establish for her to obtain this "living water"?

3) Do you think she thought she could have a personal, one-on-one relationship with the Messiah?  Conversely, did she think the Messiah wanted such a relationship with her?

4) In her mind, was there any rational reason why God Himself would want to be with, and talk with, an emotional wreck, an outcast, like her?

 

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep.  Where can you get this living water?  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

Notice that this woman seemed to be more comfortable asking theological questions.

5) Do you notice some negativity here ("you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep”), perhaps even some sarcasm?  

6) Why did she want to shift the conversation to theological fine points and away from what was so deeply ingrained and gnawing away in her?

7) How many times do we “out-reason” God, and explain to Him why some things just cannot happen?

8) Did she have any clue about what God could do for her, or even wanted to do?  

 

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”   “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.  What you have just said is quite true.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.   …yet a time is coming when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” 

The woman said, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming.  When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am He”.

 John 4:4-26, 28-30, 39-41 (NIV)

Jesus was tired, hot and thirsty from His long walk from Jerusalen northward to his work in Galilee.  He was also in a foreign territory as well.  And in those days Jews and Samaritans didn’t like each other and rarely spoke to each other. 

This woman came around Noon, in the heat of the day, alone.  All the other women came early in the morning for water and perhaps some village gossip.

9) What does this fact mean?  Might she have felt alone, perhaps like an outcast, perhaps living on the fringe of society?

10) How much do you think she valued herself?  Do you think that below her surface, she felt like a complete failure?

11) How much emotional, personal, harmful baggage was she carrying around?  

12) What might her past life have been like?  Might there have been trauma and/or abuse in her past?  

13) Jesus and the disciples needed to rest a while and get some food.  Do you think that Jesus planned to stop at that particular village, or was it simply lunchtime and the village was on their way?

14) Why might Father God have planned exactly this timing for Jesus to meet with this woman?  

15_How did Jesus know that this particular person needed ample comfort?

16) If you were there instead of the woman, imagine the conversation!