Jesus and his disciples were passing through Sychar, a town in Samaria when they reach Jacob’s well (named after Jacob). Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down by the well.  Jesus sees a Samaritan woman drawing water from the well and asks her if He can get a drink of water. The Samaritan woman says to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”

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? 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.” (John 4:7-15)

In John 4:16-26, the story proceeds as we see Jesus reply by asking her something that probably caught the woman off guard. 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.” The woman immediately realizes that He is a prophet. “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.”  The woman said, “I know that a Messiah is coming.” When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

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. It goes on to say that Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

If you read this story carefully you will find that when Jesus reached the well he sits there knowing that the Samaritan woman was going to be there. He does not drink water until the Samaritan woman draws the water. Samaritans are already considered as people of lowly status and Jews do not even associate with them. The last person she would have expected to run into would have been the Jewish messiah himself. After all, why would the so-called king of jews even associate with such a lowly woman? who would talk to this woman of low stature with a questionable past?

Jesus surprises everyone including his disciples and the woman herself when he talks to her like a real person and offered her salvation. He did not care about her status in society or her past. He was only concerned about her salvation and wanted to save her from her sins. He addresses her sin and offers a way out. She came to get a drink of water to quench her thirst but she ended up finding the living water(Jesus Christ himself) that will satisfy the thirst of her soul and save her from her sins.

We are all in the Samaritan woman’s shoes. When we meet Christ for the first time we are living in sin. If one thing is clear from this story is that the only way to salvation is through repentance of sins. Whether we like it or not when we sin, sooner or later we are going to run into Jesus. Jesus would rather save us from our sins than judge us for our sins. He gave his own life on the cross so that we can be saved. Our sketchy past and our social status do not matter to him. Jesus only cares about saving us from our sins so that we can have eternal life. As John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”