It has been some time, now, since I took the time to revisit one of the players in this unfolding Gospel, and as this woman has now played out her part I think she deserves some retrospective attention. It must be granted that we are not given a great deal of concrete information about her in this narrative. What we do know is that she has been married several times. What became of those marriages is not told us, however we are told that at the time of these events she was with another man without benefit of marriage.

All else that we know of her must be inferred from the things John has seen fit to include in covering this event. The key for understanding her situation more fully lies in John’s emphasizing the time at which this encounter took place. It was noontime, he tells us (Jn 4:6), when this woman came to draw water. Along with this comes her comment to Jesus, noting that He who had suggested He might give her water had no means of drawing from this well upon which He sat (Jn 4:11). While she is telling us about Jesus, that comment also reveals something about the well. It was clearly not the main watering hole for the city, for it was not equipped for drawing any longer. For most in the area, then, it was already an historical site, and nothing much more. Yes, Jacob had watered his flocks from its waters, but nobody did so any longer.

The little we see of her personal life, plus that which we can discern about her choice of this particular time and place to draw her daily water combine to tell us her situation. Note well her reaction when Jesus explains that He can give her such water as will become a well of her own. She sees great benefit indeed in this offer, for it means she will no longer have to ‘come all the way here’ for her water. She was greatly inconveniencing herself by coming to this particular well, and she was increasing the laboriousness of the task by coming in the heat of the day. This tells us something, I suspect, of why she had five ex-husbands, and it was not that she was five times widowed. This is a woman seeking to avoid any and all contact with her neighbors. This is a woman that knows full well that proper society, however it may have been defined, was defined in a fashion that excluded one such as herself.

It seems that there can be little doubt that those husbands in her past had divorced her each in his turn, and her present situation might give us a suspicion as to why. I can imagine that there were any number of reasons for divorce that would not necessarily have marked her out as one to be despised by other women. There were any number of reasons that, in spite of the regularity of the event, would not have necessitated her avoiding of the typical convention of women at the well during the cooler hours. There is one, though, that would make her a women unwelcome to all the others: that of adultery, particularly if her involvements had been with the husbands of others.

By her choices, then, it would seem she had made herself such a one as other townswomen would berate and despise whenever she was seen. By those same choices, she had transformed any association she might have had with the men of the city for the worse. Many would avoid her lest their wives lay into them for associating with such a woman. Those who didn’t avoid her would have one thought in mind as they shared her company, and even she must tire of that thought when it was made the sole topic of her life.

She has been hiding from all who would not automatically avoid her. Coming upon this stranger at the well, her great need for conversation sees an opportunity not likely to be repeated: the opportunity to talk with somebody who doesn’t know her, with somebody who might just be as disreputable amongst his own as she is amongst hers. After all, she has stumbled on what must be the only Jew alive who would stoop so low in his own opinions as to ask a Samaritan woman for a drink. Never mind what sort of woman she was, he couldn’t know that. That he was asking a despised Samaritan for a drink could only mean that he was an outcast like herself. Yes, she could talk comfortably with this stranger, for he knew not her past or her present, and so she enjoyed this chance to speak to someone who was not simply trying to bed her.

Here’s the wonderful thing about this whole scene. It stands as yet another proof of God’s goodness. Here was a woman who had made nothing but bad choices throughout her life. She had sinned greatly, and was even then in the process of sinning further. Yet, God purposed it not for evil, but for good. The very reputation that she had destroyed amongst her people, and the habits she had developed because of it would make her testimony all the more powerful as she went back to the city and for once did not avoid the men who would be gathered in its gates. No! She went straight to them and began a conversation with them, one that clearly evidenced her excitement not only in her voice as she spoke, but by the very fact that she was there, talking to them, rather than trying to slide by without any more notice than was absolutely necessary.

It would be marvelous had God seen fit to provide us with a bit more of her life, after this meeting at the well, but He is silent on the matter. However, I think it entirely probable that she was one fully transformed. I think it entirely probable that this first harvest we are shown as the men of the city come out to see this Jesus for themselves is just that: a first harvest. I think it likely that there were many more who would have their curiosity aroused about this Jesus who had made such change in this well known woman. I suspect it was more than just the men who were impacted by her change of life. For, as the men of the city moved from curiosity to faith, their testimonies must have added to her own. I wonder how long it was before she found herself receiving a warm welcome at the city well, as the one who had started the transformation of the city.

It is intriguing to consider this woman’s thoughts as the conversation unfolds. Attempting to hear her responses to Jesus with the understanding that she had no reason to expect that it was God she was talking to, one can sense her curiosity growing as things continue. She moves from the shear surprise of hearing this Jewish man ask her for a drink, to amusement when He suggests He might have given her water instead, to what may well have been almost a challenge. “Well, go ahead then, give me this water so I can stop coming out here.” What proves interesting to me is that even as she recognizes Jesus as a prophet, there is still a bit of challenge in her response. Perhaps it is the hurt of discovering that He knows her past after all, but there seems to be something a bit wounded and defensive in her next words to Him. “OK, so You’re a prophet. Well, explain to me, then, why it is that we have can’t even agree where to worship God.”

She has indeed become more and more curious about just who this Jesus is as things proceed, but there has remained a wall blocking her from seeing the whole of Him. It is a wall of spiritual pride. That wall shows up in so many of her responses. “What? Are you better than Jacob then?” Why did she respond so? Was it not because she had just heard Him saying that she clearly didn’t know God that well? “If you only knew God’s gift… If you only knew Who I AM…” His words were words of mercy, but her spiritual pride could hear in them only a belittling attack on her faith.

Had her ears been fully open, she might have understood that His offer of living water had nothing to do with spring-fed streams. Had her ears been fully open, she might have heard His revealing of her life not as a seeking acknowledgement for Himself, but as a call to repentance for her. But, spiritual pride keeps getting in the way. She has that religion that she was raised with, passed down from their ancestors. The Samaritans can remain proud of their heritage, tracing back to Jacob, at whose well she now sits. Why should the Samaritan tradition be considered inferior to that of Judea? What real claim do they have to the moral high ground? This is the thing that keeps getting in her way, because in spite of the odd course of this conversation, she still sees that she is talking with a Jew.

She knows how to expect hurt, and the fact that he knows her past has brought back the reality of her life in full force. She is on the defensive, now. If He knows her past, she may be thinking, then she can foresee her future. He is not unlike the others. He will either heap abuse on her for her wanton lifestyle, or He will seek to share her favors. She is steeled by long years of such treatment at the hands of men, and I suspect that she delivers that last question about proper worship with an air of challenge. Expecting to be verbally assaulted herself, she chooses to defend by attacking first. But, His response to her challenge is so utterly shocking to her that those defenses that has so quickly risen up in her come crashing back down.

All is undone by His answer to her challenge. He does not declare the Jews to have the right of it. Neither does He hand that honor to the Samaritans. He simply tells her that real worshippers worship in reality, and where they do so is beside the point. With this answer, she is brought to the realization that the attack she had been expecting won’t be coming. With this answer, she must rethink all that has been said up to this point, and having rethought that conversation, she is brought to the realization that she stands before the Salvation of all Israel.

She stands before Salvation, and as all who do so must, she stands fully exposed. It is as Hosea had said. When God seeks to bring healing, the sins of His people are revealed (Hos 7:1). They must be, for He cannot heal what remains hidden away. He cannot forgive what has not been confessed. He cannot save what insists on drowning. Like this woman, we must come to Him with nothing hidden. All our defenses must come down in His presence. If we would face our Savior, we must also face ourselves, recognize ourselves as we truly are. Only then can we really reach out to Him and accept that drink of Life that He holds out to us.

This woman worked hard to hide her shame. She worked to hide it from herself, and she worked to avoid exposing herself to others. She had been careful to reveal nothing of that shameful life to this stranger, yet the Light had exposed her darkness. What a wonderful bit of news, though, that the darkness in her was forced to flee away when once the Light had shone! This is the promise of God to us all. If we will but stand in the Light of His love, if we will but open up the windows of our soul to Him, that darkness that has clouded our days and nights does not simply recede for the moment, waiting to return. Darkness flees the Light! It must. It cannot abide. And, the most wonderful part of this all is that the very Light that has come in and dispelled the darkness of our sinful life has promised this: that He will abide: never leaving us, never forsaking us. That Light that has cleared out our dark corners now fills those corners for eternity. The darkness cannot return, for the Light is on!

That she was still sensitive about what had been her present but was now clearly her past is clear. All it took was the look in the eyes of the returning disciples to trigger all her defenses, yet something was already changed within her. I have considered the waterpot that she left behind from a few perspectives, but as I was collecting thoughts for this last look at the woman another possibility crossed my mind. Primarily, it struck me as being an indication of that returning defensiveness, but isn’t it just possible that her leaving behind this bucket was more like a promise to return? I know people in my own life who joke about the things they forget in departing as being no more than good reasons to return for a later visit.

Now, thinking upon that a bit more, I am struck by wondering whose promise that bucket represented. The woman, whether out of defensiveness or out of wonder, leaves in a rather distracted state – distracted, but with a purpose that is settled within her soul by the time she returns to the gates. What is impossible to know is whether that purpose was what had driven her rather hasty departure, or whether purpose overtook her as she fled. If it were an immediate response, then the bucket might be her promise to return. If, as seems more likely, purpose had to chase her down, then isn’t that bucket God’s promise? It all comes back to the absence of coincidence in this life. It all comes back to the fact that in God’s world, nothing happens by accident. The bucket remained, whether by her intention or by her distraction, and because the bucket remained she must return, for without it, as she herself had pointed out, there was no way to pull water from this well.

Or, is that abandoned bucket a sign of faith and healing? Why, after all, had she come all this way to such an inconvenient and unmaintained well? She was hiding away! If her past has truly become her past, if she has indeed tasted of that water of life that Jesus has handed her and faith has risen up to fill the springs of her soul, then she must sense that hiding will no longer be necessary. She can indeed leave the bucket for, though it will leave her with nothing by which to have water from this well, she will no longer need to have water from this well. Past is past, and the present is so utterly new and wonderful. Although there may be hurts and issues to be faced, she can face them in this newness of life.

That newness of shows in her sudden willingness to talk to the men in the gates. That same newness of life will carry her to the normal well at the normal time. Indeed, consider the testimony to this woman that was to come from the few days of Jesus’ visit. How many in that city would suddenly find themselves owing this woman a debt of gratitude for bringing Messiah to their notice! Indeed, her life was transformed, and even as she had voiced in her desire for that water Jesus had, she would no longer be coming ‘all the way here to draw.’ What a wonderful Savior!

Now, see in this how marvelously God’s theory of sowing and reaping is on display. As Jesus draws His disciples’ attention from the fields around them to the people coming out from the city to meet Him, He is accenting this particular aspect of God’s economy. The woman had sown immediately from the seed of faith Jesus had implanted. As Jesus points out to His disciples, there will be no long growing season before those seeds have borne fruit fit for harvest. Already they are coming down the hill to greet the reapers.

Let me say this. This is the real point behind the parable in which Jesus speaks of the seed bearing fruit one hundredfold. It is not a question of prosperity and financial gain. How can we think ministry and righteousness is ever about financial gain? No! Righteousness and right ministry are all about spiritual gain, all about a rich harvest for the kingdom of God, as we are all laboring as servants of the Most High. Oh, we are family right enough, yet servants to His Holiness nonetheless.

That said, let it be noted that the sower has not gone without reward here, and that reward is even more than the spiritual rebirth that she has just experienced. As I have been discussing, her present life has been transformed of a sudden, as well. In the course of a few days, she has gone from being the talk of the town because she is a tramp to being the talk of the town because she has been the willing agent of transformation. Women need no longer fear that she will steal their men away, for she has, by bringing them to Messiah, given them their men anew!

Indeed, the sower has her cause for rejoicing. She has newness of present life to reflect the newness of eternal life that is hers. She has the manifold blessing of seeing many others whom Messiah has saved because of her simple faith. Jesus declared that the sower and the reaper would rejoice together in this rich harvest. I can well imagine that there was a reunion between this woman and Jesus at some point in His brief stay. I can imagine Him returning her bucket to her. I can imagine her smile as she thanks Him, but comments that she will no longer be needing it. I can imagine the two of them rejoicing as the men of the city, one by one, come to faith in Christ Jesus, for indeed, the Lord of the Harvest rejoices to see His workers sowing their kingdom seed. Is it not written for us that the angels in heaven rejoice at the salvation of any man? How, then, could it be otherwise than that the King of heaven should likewise rejoice?

God, I sense that this woman heard Your, ‘well done,’ before these few days of Your visitation were done, and I feel a hunger in myself to know that same experience of Your pleasure. I have had the honors of man often enough, and I have found them to be hollow honors indeed, and fickle. Let it be, Lord, that I shall cease from chasing the honor that man can give, and pursue instead the honor of faithful service to Your throne. Attune my ears to Your command, and quicken me body and soul to pursue that command as I ought, without hesitation. Only then can I know satisfaction. Only then can I know that You have said, ‘well done’ to me as well. Oh, Lord! May I find that You indeed look upon me with such satisfaction. Keep me mindful, Holy Sweet Jesus, that You do indeed find pleasure in me. Let this be my assurance and my boldness, knowing that Your love for me is so very great, so very deep, that nothing at all can separate me from You! Thank You, my Lord and my God for that greatest promise!