Living water

By Noralyn O. Dudt

It was almost in the middle of the day. Jesus and the twelve (his disciples)  were plodding  through the noonday heat not too far away from Jerusalem, in a place called Samaria. They were all hungry and thirsty.  They were Jews in a place they were not fond of, and to be precise, a place and a people they loathe. Why were they even there? Why didn't they bypass  this "despicable" place like all the other Jews in that period  would do? Why didn't they cross the Jordan River rather than travel through Samaria?

Samaria, located on a hill northwest of Nablus in the West Bank territory came  under the Israeli administration in 1967. It is bounded by Galilee on the north and by Judea on the south; on the west is the Mediterranean Sea and on the east, the River Jordan. It was at  the crossroads and served as the  political center of the region.

Excavations in 1908-1910; 1931-33; 1935 revealed that the site had been occupied occasionally during the late 4^th millennium BCE.

Genetic studies in 2004 suggest that the Samaritans' lineages trace back to a common ancestor with the Jews in the paternally-inherited Jewish high priesthood (Cohanim) temporally proximate to the period of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel, and are probably descendants of the historical Israelite population. The Samaritans' primary sacred text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, is a version of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The Samaritan tradition presents that these people descended from Northern Israelite tribes that were not deported from Israel when the Assyrians conquered the region.

It is important to note however, that  the Jews and the Samaritans  had a long history of mutual animosity. The Samaritans built their own temple which the Jews considered pagan. The feud grew, and by the time of Christ, the Jews hated the Samaritans so much, they crossed the Jordan River rather than travel through Samaria. The Samaritans of course returned this animosity. In fact, there was an incident when  the disciples were in Samaria  preparing  for Jesus' travel to Jerusalem,  were not welcomed and  couldn't find anyone to sell them food and other provisions. James and John were so furious that they asked Jesus, 'Lord, do you want us to call  fire down from heaven to destroy them?" (Luke 9:54)

In John 4:4-8, we read "…Jesus left Judea and set out once more for Galilee. He had to pass through Samaria, and on his way came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph and the spring called Jacob's well. It was about noon, and Jesus,  tired after his journey, sat down by the well. The disciples had gone away to the town to buy food. Meanwhile,  a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." The Samaritan woman said, "What! you a Jew ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?"

The woman was obviously surprised to see a Jew in her town where no respectable Jew would even go through, let alone stay around and ask for water, and from a woman? (For Jews did  not associate with Samaritans)

"Give me a drink," a natural enough request in the heat of the midday sun. In the East, no one refuses water even to his worst enemy. But this simple request was destined to launch a lengthy conversation.

"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,' she said, 'you have no bucket and this well is deep. How can you give me living water? Are you a greater man than Jacob, our ancestor who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, he and his sons and his cattle too?" Jesus said, "everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I shall give him will never suffer thirst anymore. The water that I shall give him will be an inner spring always welling up for eternal life.' 'Sir,' said the woman, 'give me that water, and then I shall not be thirsty, nor not have to come all this way to draw.''

It was turning out to be an interesting dialogue. The woman had some pointed remarks about the Jews. Jesus recognized  her open and sincere attitude. We see Jesus' fine sense of psychology in drawing out the woman's curiosity, lifting her thoughts from a place (the well), and cultural/racial issues (Jewish/Samaritans relations) to a living loving Father.

Jesus went on, drawing her mind away from earthly things, elevating the conversation to the most sublime revelation,  ''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."  Tit for tat,  the  dialogue went on, "I know that the Messiah is coming," (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I AM HE, the one who is speaking to you." (John 4:25-26)

What a shocking revelation that must have been!  Imagine THE Christ speaking to you,  where you are?  looking into your eyes...into your soul...reading into your needs, your dreams, and most of all your  desire for freedom?  Freedom from guilt, freedom from feeling inadequate, freedom from fear of  things we cannot control? How awesome it must  have been to have this conversation with the One who set the sun, the moon, and the stars in place !

The woman ran back to the village excitedly, saying, "I have met The Christ!" And the whole village followed her back to the well.

Numerous theologians as well as clergy of both the Catholic and Protestant faith have expounded on this theme: the living water is the Spirit that gives life. Just as physical water refreshes and revitalizes a thirsty person, the Spirit gives life to the believer, enabling God to produce fruit in the believer's life.

A Jew in Samaria;  in today's parlance, Jesus got out of his "bubble," his "comfort zone." Stepping into "hostile" territory, he was setting a fine example  to his disciples. This message of "living water" was intended to go "global" as the whole world needed to hear, to know. The disciples dutifully and faithfully followed the example that they saw at the well in Samaria and turned the world upside down.

 

Noralyn Onto Dudt is grateful to the "Mighty One, God, the Lord who speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets." (Psalms 50:1)