Devotion:
Read John 4:5-15.
Jesus' request for a drink of water from this woman at the well was unusual and even shocking in the Jewish culture. First, men didn’t usually initiate a conversation with women they didn’t know. Second, Jews considered Samaritans to be unclean. The Samaritans received only the five books of Moses and rejected the writings of the prophets and all the Jewish traditions. So to use a Samaritan's vessel for water would have been considered by strict Jews to make them unclean. Third, we know that this woman is living with a sixth man and was considered immoral. She had perhaps married at a young age, maybe had lost husbands to death, desertion, hard times, maybe divorce, who knows? Most of the time women got water from the well in the evening, not in the heat of the day. But about noon is the time the woman in our story appears, perhaps so she wouldn't have to be subject to the constant abuse from the women in the town who despise her as perhaps a home-breaker, a loose woman, a woman who can’t keep a man, a woman who has been desperate, a woman who lives a different life from them, a woman who doesn’t have life figured out the way they do.
Nevertheless, Jesus asks her for a drink, and, though she doesn't refuse, she wonders aloud why he would go against the social norms to ask her for a drink. Jesus ignores her lack of understanding, but continues to explain the gift he is talking about. He compares literal water with spiritual water.
This thirsty Samaritan woman is beginning to understand her deep need for salvation and wholeness, and Jesus is her answer. Jesus models for us the need to share him with the outsiders in our world.
Personal Worship Option:
Pray today for those in your neighborhood, workplace, or sphere of influence who go against the grain of our culture’s values and morals. Consider how you might offer them the living water of Jesus.
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