A few weeks ago, I went into a store and bought a case of water. As I was carrying it out to my car, water began to trickle down my side, my clothes, the ground… everywhere. I just so happened to grab a case that contained a leaking bottle. So throughout the store, into the parking lot, and almost into my car- water was leaking out of one of the bottles. Before I was going to put that leaky case in my car, I had to find the culprit. Sure enough, there was one bottle that was less than half full at that point as it had been leaking with every step I took. So I removed the leaky bottle, dried myself off, and proceeded to put the case into my car. A slight inconvenience in my day, but one that has further implications I’ve pondered since then. I mean after all, I went to the store seeking water, but when it was leaking out in a way other than how it was intended to be used, it was a hindrance rather than a help…
Most of us are familiar with the woman at the well from John Chapter 4. I too felt like I knew this story pretty well, but the most recent experience I had with this story has stuck with me in a way that previously I had not experienced. So let’s dive in! Jesus was leaving Judea going to Galilee. Going through Samaria was the shortest route to take to do that, but many Jews often took a longer route so as to avoid any possible interactions with and defilement by the Samaritan people. This was because the Samaritans were looked down on by Jews due to being a racially diverse group of people who were part Jew and part Gentile and therefore considered “unclean” and inappropriate to have contact with. John 4:4 in NKJV says, “But He (Jesus) needed to go through Samaria.” Jesus didn’t need to go through Samaria because it was the quickest route to the next place He needed to be. He knew that even though it was noon- not the typical time of day that people went to draw water due to the heat- He knew this woman would be there then. He needed to go through Samaria because before the woman at the well saw Jesus, He saw her. So He comes to Samaria and He sits by the well, and this woman arrives to draw water. Jesus sees her and requests that she give Him a drink. Despite all the cultural and traditional reasons that He shouldn’t be there, with her, at that time, Jesus saw her and spoke to her first.
Jesus always, always breaks through religion to save His people.
She said, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” Jesus said, “If you knew the gift of God, and Who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” See, her question was based on her belief that she was unworthy as a Samaritan to be spoken to by a Jew. Her question was rooted in the shame she had carried, likely for much of her life, based on what she had done and how she saw herself. Jesus doesn’t address that initially. He points her to Himself first. He said, “If you knew the gift of God and Who it is that says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” Jesus’ first encounter with any of us is never one that brings shame, condemnation, or guilt. He never calls out our sin before He calls us to Himself. Because it is in Him that we are able to see ourselves accurately. He doesn’t answer her question because He knows if she only knew… if she only knew Who was asking. If she only knew Whose presence she was in. If she only knew Who strategically set out to meet her there. If she only knew… her question would be different. But she didn’t know, because her waterpot was full.
She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Her vision is still skewed. She can only see in the physical. She sees that He doesn’t have a waterpot, and so she cannot understand how He could possibly draw living water from a well this deep. It’s not that she doesn’t want the living water, she just doesn’t see a way to obtain it. This well was given by Jacob as she said, but here is something I had never known until recently. This town where this well is in Samaria is called Sychar. Sychar comes from the Hebrew word “shekar,” meaning “intoxicating drink”….
Do you see it? Jesus purposefully met this woman at a well in a town whose name literally means “intoxicating drink.” Why? Because He knew how many times- how day after day after day she would come back to this well to draw water- a normal activity in this day- but that more, so much more than she needed this physical water to satisfy her physical thirst- that she needed to be set free from the “intoxicating drink” in her life. Was she a drunkard? No. The meaning of intoxicating has a Latin root that literally means “to poison.” Was the water in this well poisonous? Of course not. But what was poisonous to this woman was all the things she was trying to fill her waterpot with that were not Jesus. What she believed about herself was poisonous. The lifestyle she was living was poisonous. The relationships she had were poisonous. The false sense of identity she had was poisonous. Jesus’ response… Y’all. He said, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” Jesus knew! He knew that what He offered would satisfy her deepest longings. He knew that she needed so much more than another temporary filling from a temporary well only to have to come back all over again the next day and the next and continue leaving the same way. He knew that He was meeting her at a place whose name means “intoxicating drink” so that He could offer her the absolute, only thing that will quench her thirst. She came to this well thirsty. Yes for water, but for way more than that. For freedom. For salvation. For hope. And it is in the Living Water that she would find those things, as do we.
It is impossible for us to have an encounter with Jesus and remain the same. Impossible.
Now her eyes are beginning to open. She’s beginning to be interested in what He’s offering. So she says, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” She said, I’m tired. I’m hot. I’m thirsty. I keep doing this. I keep coming back. I keep repeating the same steps. I keep saying the same things. I keep ending up back where I started and I don’t want to anymore! I want this water so that my thirst will finally be quenched! I can only imagine that Jesus is seeing this interest and excitement on her face and in her voice, knowing that the difficulty of the conversation is not yet over. He replies, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” Huh? What does her husband have to do with this? I picture her face falling. The glimmer of hope that was in her eye begins to fade. Just when she thinks she’s on the brink of breakthrough, now there’s another step. She says to Jesus, “I have no husband.” Maybe she thought if she just said she didn’t have a husband, she could get to the good stuff. Now she could get the living water. But Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had 5 husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” Here comes the shame again. Here comes what she was trying so hard to avoid. Why did He have to go there? Why couldn’t He just give her the water? Why did He have to bring up her past? What was the point?
Could Jesus have given her His living water without having this conversation about her past and relationships? Perhaps. But that would not have been the best way to love her. See, Jesus had to address what was in her waterpot. Jesus knew this woman’s waterpot was worthless if He didn’t call out what was in it so that she could fill it with Him. He approached her in love. He approached her with grace. But He also approached her with Truth. Love is not love if we leave Truth out of it. Jesus loves us far too much to just add Himself to our overflowing waterpots of sin, shame, guilt, regret, brokenness, etc. He wants us to empty our waterpots and come to Him for filling and refreshing and satisfaction. You and I are no different than this woman. We’ve stuffed all sorts of things into our waterpots, attempting to satisfy a seemingly unquenchable thirst that each of us have inside of us. To be loved. To be accepted. To have purpose. To feel worthy. But if we won’t relinquish our waterpots, there’s no room for living water to come in.
Jeremiah 2:13 says, “For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns- broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Our cisterns won’t hold the water we’re so desperately thirsty for. We try to fill them up and take them with us, and our water just leaks all over everything around us. When we forsake Jesus, we forsake the well that doesn’t run dry. See, a cistern stores water. A well provides water. A cistern collects water from a surface, but a well extracts water from a source. Jesus is that source. This woman didn’t know that her waterpot would never hold what would satisfy her. The most loving thing Jesus could do for this woman, and for us, is to show us that our cisterns are broken. That our waterpots won’t hold. That we’ve forsaken the source of this living water, so at best we’re carrying around old, stagnant water… and at worst, our cisterns are leaking out with every step that we take. It is never unkind of Jesus to expose the empty, unsatisfactory wells in our lives. He knows that only His well and only His living water will satisfy, and in His great love for us He refuses to allow us to return to dead places in hope of finding life that only He can give.
At the end of this story, John 4:28 says, “So the woman left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did…”
She left her waterpot. Why? She didn’t need it anymore. She didn’t have to have a container to collect old stagnant water anymore now that she knew the Well of living water. I believe she left so much more than just her waterpot that day. She left shame. She left hiding. She left all the things she thought made her unworthy. She left her sin. She left bondage. She left brokenness. If Jesus hadn’t confronted her broken cisterns- her inadequate waterpot- she wouldn’t have understood that He alone would satisfy her. And if we don’t alow Him to address our broken cisterns and inadequate waterpots- we also won’t understand that He alone satisfies… and that surrender of our cisterns is necessary in order to drink from His well.
Whatever you’re seeking fulfillment in that isn’t Jesus, it cannot supply your need. Any good thing elevated to the place of God in our lives instantly becomes an idol. Our God is a jealous God who will not tolerate us having any other gods before Him, no matter how good they seem. Anything you hope in. Anything you seek after. Anything you desire more than Him… that’s what is filling up your waterpot. That is your broken cistern. That is what’s been keeping you from drawing from the well of living water. That’s your “intoxicating drink.” That’s why your thirst hasn’t been quenched and your soul hasn’t been satisfied- because nothing else will do. Our spiritual void can never be filled in the physical realm.
So come, friend! Bring your broken cistern. Bring your waterpot. Surrender it. Leave it. Jesus will take whatever is in your waterpot, no questions asked. He sees you at whatever well you find yourself at today, and He beckons you to come to Him, the fountain of living water, and thirst no more. He is gentle. He is patient. He is kind. And He alone satisfies.
Relinquish your waterpot today. He’s waiting to meet you at His well. ❤️
-Melissa
Comentarios