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| Water ATM |
It was 102 degrees C fahrenheit outside and it sure felt like it. Clumsily, I inadvertently brushed the side of my arm on the metal part of the door that covers the hole on the wall, and I got burned. It was that hot.
It was so bad, nobody was around me the whole time I was there. My body was under this glaring heat for there was no shade and not even a breeze.
And so as I was impatiently waiting for my bottle to fill up, I suddenly realized how the Samaritan Woman in the bible might have felt. I mean, in the heat of the sun, like me, she went to her watering hole to fetch her water.
Nobody, like nobody would have been there with her at that time of the day -- no one in their right mind at least.
If you don't know her story or if you forgot, let us follow it from the bible, as John wrote it on chapter four.
Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John -- although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he 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?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. 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.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw 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 livestock?”
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 ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the 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, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
I AM HE
Jesus told the Samaritan woman that he is the Messiah -- the Holy One, the Savior
Before that the woman said that Jesus was a prophet. Jesus did know very intimate and personal things about her which probably no other person on earth besides her would know. And she does seem to know a thing or two about faith matters and spirituality.
What we may be failing to remember here is that she was out there all alone drawing water out of a well during the hottest time of the day. Nobody besides her should have been there, but Jesus was there. She probably have a legitimate reason to be there, with all these secret sins in her life, that was probably the only time she could get out in peace or not be ashamed to be out in public. Nobody besides this man who is telling her all her inner most secrets but who isn't trying to shame or condemn her for it.
Let's follow the story.
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
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.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
The Samaritan woman left her water jar with Jesus, the very reason she was at the well enduring the heat, in the first place. And what did she do? She left without it and told her people about this unique "man" that she had just met. And she does know many men.
Let's see what happened next.
Many Samaritans Believe
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, “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.”
Wow, with the story of one sinner, many came to see Jesus. And when they did, they too believe.
What about us today? What if we read about this man called Jesus today, would He be able to tell us or show us something that will also blow us away? And will that be a big enough reason for us to go and tell other people about him?
You know what, just like that woman at the well, I just did.
And you may be in need of something from the Lord right now, seek Him. You will find Him in your private prayer time, between the pages of the bible and where people who believe in Him gather and talk about Him.He is there, just waiting.
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
For the Scriptures declare that rivers of living water shall flow from the inmost being of anyone who believes in me.”
All Scriptures quoted were taken from the Living Bible and New International Version Bible
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