“It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before Him in their worship. God is sheer being itself – Spirit. Those who worship Him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.” – Jesus
I love the Samaritan woman (see B below for Scripture). Consider, firstly, that we never know her name. It would be like Facebook exploding about the Santa Fe woman. Though, she wouldn’t be at a well.
I have never had a boyfriend, never opted to move in with a guy and live with him outside of wedlock, never been married or divorced, but still, I love the Samaritan woman.
The damage that occurs in a relationship that is shattered, no matter the level of intimacy, is deep and continuous. In fact, when we are damaged, it is hard to open up again. What do we know of the Samaritan woman at the well, the very woman that Christ waited for? Not a lot. I think that’s for a reason.
If God wanted us to know her name, He’d have told us. If He wanted us to know more details about her brokenness, He’d have told us. Consider how easily we excuse ourselves, beit in a good way or a bad way, when we know more details than we should. Consider the Pharisee seeing the tax collector praying. “At least I am not like this tax collector,” he grumbled, as the man he condemned was face down, crying out to God with an abandon that most of us lack. (see A at the end for Scripture)
So, God leaves out the details of the Samaritan woman so that we can’t say that we’re better than she. Would we want to be better than a woman that is an outcast and Jesus chooses to wait for, to meet with, to have a divine encounter with, a woman who changes the course of her village with her testimony, putting aside her fears of being hated and judged, as she surely was, just so others could meet Jesus? I dare say that many of us would like to be better, to be more, than this woman, mainly because we focus on the sinful past of her, rather than the redeemed future.
How so like our churches today!
Or, maybe not. Maybe our churches today focus more on the excusing of sin than the judging of it. And why not? Surely we are all under grace, yes? Surely, none of us are perfect, all of us are meager humans who can only do so much. God understands. He understands our weakness to sin.
Surely He does, but then why does the Word of God say, “[God is] holy; you be holy.” (ref. 1 Peter 1:16)? There must be a reason. Of course, we cannot be perfect, but neither can we be reprobates. Yet, that is exactly what we attempt to be.
A reprobate is defined as one “incapable of properly performing its function of moral discrimination, [having] no linguistic warrant” and “Christians who ostensibly were in the true faith, but either hypothetically or actually are represented as having failed to meet the test”. Those “who by their life have disappointed the expectation of good works”. The word always “retains the meaning of rejection because of failure in trial”. (See i. for quote ref. and also see Jeremiah 6:30; Romans 1:28; 2 Corinthians 13:5-7; 2 Timothy 3:8; Titus 1:16; Isaiah 1:22; Proverbs 25:4; 1 Corinthians 9:27; Hebrews 6:8)
The pure bride of Christ is in danger of becoming anything but, in the guise of being politically correct and not offensive. I must say that the Bible has offended me on many occasions. It’s what you do with the offense that matters. The Bible confronts, is considered a two-edged sword. Hebrews 4:12-13 in the Message Translation states, “God means what He says. What He says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God’s Word. We can’t get away from it – no matter what.”
Yet, how many churches today are actually full doctrine, full gospel believing and following churches? How many, under a guise of love, have accepted sin into their doors and made it okay? I daresay it’s many.
Yet, I digress. This isn’t about the church, nor my opinions of it, but rather about a single woman, a Samaritan woman, at a well, late in the day, alone save one Man, the greatest Man to ever live, who sat weary and hot beside the well, waiting, waiting, waiting for her.
Consider her past for a bit. There are many possible scenarios. I consider two, primarily. One, she married for love and was broken by the divorce, the loss of this love. Two, it was an arranged marriage, yet she was still broken by the divorce, the loss, of the union. One thing to know is that the man is the one that divorced the woman, as she had no rights in that time. He put her out, pushed her aside, for whatever reason it may have been. Was he unfaithful? Was she? Was there abuse? Was she barren? Why would he set her out? We’ll never know this side of heaven and that must mean it matters little in the grand story. She was married and she was divorced. That we know for truth.
Consider how in many churches today, divorced persons are considered second class citizens in the family of God, outcasts in a land of outcasts, the lepers of the church. Divorce isn’t contagious, yet we treat it like it is. So it is that they are ignored, their pain swept into a corner and the topic taboo. Unless, of course, you’re an overzealous hypocrite and you shout your condemnation from the rooftops, misquoting and misusing the Scripture regarding divorce and adultery in order to shame divorced people into eternal singleness, unless they want to remarry their unsaved spouse, return to abuse, return to immorality, well, then they can remarry with the Lord’s blessings.
False heresy in the church, allowing immoral joining out of wedlock, allowing same-sex couples to lead ministries and remain in inappropriate relationships, relationships God Himself condemned from the beginning, allowing abortion, abuse and controlling behaviors, while beating the divorced person over the head with heavy Bibles.
Knowing what I know in today’s society, where divorce is more prevalent than even imagined back in Jesus’ day, I can understand the woman’s fear and loss. Yet, let’s look at her life even closer. She found another spouse. She not only found another spouse, she found four more, marrying and divorcing five times in all. Did Jesus call her an adulteress? Nope. Did He tell her what a horrible woman she was, how none could love one such as she? Nope. It is apparent that Christ loved her. Wow. Even in the midst of the harsh judging faces of others, Christ sat at a well and waited for this broken, damaged, used and abused woman to come to Him, to come to draw water alone, so He could bring her the healing she craved.
So, what right do we have in the church to condemn those who have divorced, for whatever reason, and found love again? What right do we have to condemn those who’ve divorced and never found love again? If Jesus Himself could see the value in a woman married and divorced five times and living in sin at the moment of their meeting, why can’t we?
Consider that Christ does not encourage her sinful choice of cohabitation, either. This is not to say that we blindly ignore the sinful immorality of ourselves. Yet, we don’t even see the end result. Does she make the relationship right with the man she is living with? Do they marry and does this one truly last? Does she return to her father’s house (my theory) and live out the rest of her life as a single woman? Does she follow Christ to the Cross and watch the Man that truly loved her inside and out die? Does she know of His resurrection? Is she one of the ones He visited with after rising from the dead?
Most times, I read the Bible for what it is and move on, but the Samaritan woman intrigues me. We have nothing in common, save a divine appointment with Christ, nothing to join us through the centuries, nothing to link us as we are linked. Why should I even care? It’s one passage of Scripture in the book of John. Why should it even matter?
We see in John 4 that Christ cares for women, sees them as valuable and worthy of His time and interaction. He doesn’t crush women under His heel, doesn’t ignore them or reproof them. We see countless proofs of this, not just the Samaritan woman. We see the woman with the issue of blood, Mary and the alabaster box, Mary at the tomb…why did Christ wait for her there? She would have known He rose again when she saw Him later. But, no, He waits for her so she can run and tell the disciples, “He is risen! He is alive!”
Yet, with the Samaritan woman, I wonder. I wonder why she would marry and divorce five times, why she would then cohabitate with a man, a very shameful thing to do. I wonder if she had a family home to return to, if she remarried or left that village or if she was accepted as a single woman there and made a living with the making of cloth or something that women could do in those days to live. Did she ever have children? Did she become a full disciple of Christ? Do we meet her later, with her name given at last, and no reference to her past as the Samaritan woman at the well? Is she one of the women of the new church talked about by Paul or one of the other disciples?
So, why does it even matter? This is why: Many of the Samaritans from that village committed themselves to Him because of the woman’s witness. (ref. John 4.39)
She led the way for her village to come and meet Him, to invite Him to stay, which He did for two days, and from her initial witness, they were intrigued and from the interactions with Jesus that followed, they were saved.
A woman, outcast among outcasts, hated and alone, broken and damaged and bruised where only she and Christ could see, overcame her pain and fear and rejection and spoke boldly to the very people that despised her. “Come,” she called to them, “Come and meet the Man that knew everything about me, knew my heart and soul, all the things I’ve done in my entire life! Is it possible…could it be…that He is the Messiah?”
The fact that they follow her back out to the well is amazing in and of itself. She, who tread to that lonely place every single day, all alone, came that day with her village at her side. Did she ever have to make that trek alone again? Did she ever have to draw water without the chatter of other women around her again?
We know the reality of people. We know that there were some that didn’t accept Christ, just as there are some today who reject Him. We know that there were those that wouldn’t let her leave her past behind, would still whisper behind hands, still throw her failings in her face. That happens today, too. We know that there was spitting and whispering that happened as she called them to meet Jesus at the well. Some stayed in the village. Some rejected Him merely because she was the one telling them of Him. Maybe those had an encounter with Him while He stayed in their village and accepted Him. Maybe not. Sometimes, in the hateful hearts of man, a message is rejected because of its messenger. Yet, Christ still comes, still speaks, and still reaches out.
“Come to Me and find rest. Come to Me and never thirst again. Come to Me and have peace.”
The Samaritan woman at the well strikes at my very heart. The only other two women encounters that burrow deeply into my soul is the alabaster box and the encounter of Jesus and Mary by the tomb after His resurrection. The outpouring of worship in abandon and the simple way that Christ says the name of one He loves. Those speak to me (see C and D for Scriptures).
Jesus shows us that He truly cares about the tenderness of a woman’s heart, that He can send women to proclaim the truth of who He is, that women can change the lives of those around them by following Christ and answering His call. This is one of the reasons the Samaritan woman at the well speaks to me. I don’t wonder at the life of Mary at His feet before and after, or at the tomb before and after. I don’t wonder what drove Mary to a life of prostitution or what she did later, after the death and resurrection of the Man that saw through the broken heart and fallen state to the beauty within. I just take for granted that she was saved and redeemed and her past matters not and that she loved Him enough to follow Him, even after His resurrection, and that she probably married and moved on through life and is in Heaven now.
Yet, with the Samaritan woman at the well, there is a pull, a wondering, a deliberate searching of the ‘what if’s’ that surround her. What if she remained in the village and married? What if she returned home and never married? What if she had children? What if she remained in the village and lived alone as a weaver? What if she followed Christ all the way to the Cross and beyond? What if she helped build the church with the other followers of the Messiah?
So many unanswered things in her life and yet we know that if God wanted us to know, He’d have told us. The information we receive in this passage of Scripture shows us that we are not to be afraid to tell of Him, that we are not defined by our past, that Christ will come to meet us, even when others avoid us, that we are loved, loved, loved beyond any measure and that Jesus will even send away the judging eyes of believers in order to meet with us alone, in the place of our isolation and pain, in order to bring us to a place of peace, healing and redemption.
Because the individual matters to Him. And that will never, ever change.
A. [Jesus] told His next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’ Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’” Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.” – Luke 18:9-14, The Message
B. To get [back to Galilee], He had to pass through Samaria. He came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon. A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.) The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come You, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.) Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking Me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.” The woman said, “Sir, You don’t even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are You going to get this ‘living water’? Are You a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?” Jesus said, Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst – not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.” The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!” He said, “Go call your husband and then come back.” “I have no husband,” she said. “That’s nicely put: ‘I have no husband.’ You’ve had five husbands, and the man you’re living with now isn’t even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough.” “Oh, so You’re a prophet! Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?” “Believe Me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem. You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God’s way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the time is coming – it has, in fact, come – when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter. It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before Him in their worship. God is sheer being itself – Spirit. Those who worship Him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.” The woman said, “I don’t know about that. I do know that the Messiah is coming. When He arrives, we’ll get the whole story.” I am He,” said Jesus. “You don’t have to wait any longer or look any further.” Just then His disciples came back. They were shocked. They couldn’t believe He was talking with that kind of woman. No one said what they were all thinking, but their faces showed it. The woman took the hint and left. In her confusion she left her water pot. Back in the village she told people, “Come see a Man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?” And they went out to see for themselves.
Many of the Samaritans from that village committed themselves to Him because of the woman’s witness: “He knew all about the things I did. He knows me inside and out!” They asked Him to stay on, so Jesus stayed two days. A lot more people entrusted their lives to Him when they heard what He had to say. They said to the woman, “We’re no longer taking this on you say-so. We’ve heard it for ourselves and know it for sure. He’s the Savior of the world!” – John 4:4-30, 39-42, The Message
C. Six days before Passover, Jesus entered Bethany where Lazarus, so recently raised from the dead, was living. Lazarus and his sisters invited Jesus to dinner at their home. Martha served. Lazarus was one of those sitting at the table with them. Mary came in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anointed and massaged Jesus’ feet, and then wiped them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils filled the house. Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, even then getting ready to betray Him, said, “Why wasn’t this oil sold and the money given to the poor? It would have easily brought three hundred silver pieces.” He said this not because he cared two cents about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of their common funds, but also embezzled them. Jesus said, “Let her alone. She’s anticipating and honoring the day of My burial. You always have the poor with you. You don’t always have Me.” – John 12:1-8, The Message
When Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper, a woman came up to Him as He was eating dinner and anointed Him with a bottle of very expensive perfume. When the disciples saw what was happening, they were furious. “That’s criminal! This could have been sold for a lot and the money handed out to the poor.” When Jesus realized what was going on, He intervened. “Why are you giving this woman a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for Me. You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives, but not Me. When she poured this perfume on My body, what she really did was anoint Me for burial. You can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she has just done is going to be remembered and admired.” – Matthew 26:6-13, The Message
See also Mark 14:3-9 and Luke 7:36-50
D. But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the food of where Jesus’ body had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?” “They took my Master,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put Him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn’t recognize Him. Jesus spoke to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?” She, thinking He was a gardener, said, “Mister, if you took Him, tell me where you put Him so I can care for Him.” Jesus said, “Mary.” Turning to face Him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning, “Teacher!” Jesus said, “Don’t cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: “I saw the Master!” and she told them everything He said to her. – John 20:11-18, The Message
i. http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/reprobate/
Hephzibah 