An encounter with Jesus

The Woman at the Well

A Samaritan woman with a broken past, met at noon

Read the chapter: John 4

“There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.”

What they wanted

She comes to the well at noon, in the heat, alone, likely to avoid the other women and their whispers. She has had five husbands and is living with a man who is not her husband. She wants water, and to be left alone.

What Jesus did

Jesus, a Jewish man who should not have spoken to her at all, asks her for a drink, and then offers her living water. He names her past without cruelty, and instead of recoiling He reveals to her, of all people, that He is the Messiah. He crosses every line, of gender, ethnicity, and reputation, to reach her.

What changed

She leaves her water jar and runs to the very town she had been avoiding, telling everyone, Come, see a man who told me all things that ever I did. The woman who came alone in shame becomes the first evangelist in John's Gospel, and many believe because of her.