Surprise!

Who is Jesus? part 46 – John 4:4-15

I was surprised while studying for this post. There was no straightforward answer to my question, “What is living water?” Many answers discussed its spiritual meaning, but I wanted a simple explanation. I was curious about what a Samaritan woman 2000 years ago would have understood by living water, yet I couldn’t find any commentary on John’s Gospel that addressed this.

They all failed.

I did not include a historical image above. The portrayal of Jesus in full-length robes seems incorrect; knee-length clothing would be more accurate on long journeys than the stained glass images we’re familiar with. Therefore, I asked the AI to represent the pair at the well in modern, summer clothing, aiming for a very ordinary scene.

⁴And he had to pass through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink. ⁸(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. ¹¹The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. ¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

John 4:4-15

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There is a structure to chapters 2 to 4. They are one big chiasmus. Chiasm, meaning crossing over, is a poetic form used in nearly all Psalms and is a repetition of similar ideas in the reverse sequence. Where there is a central section, here marked X, that is usually the focus of the poem.

A. John 2:1-11 Miracle at Cana – Water into wine.
B. 2:12-22 Temple cleansed – new Temple of his body.
C. 2:23-3:13 We must be born from above.
X. 3:14-21 God so loved the world that He gave His Son.
C’. 3:22-4:3 Christ comes from above.
B’. 4:4-46 Temple to be replaced by a new place of worship.
A’. 4:46-54 Miracle at Cana – healing of a nobleman’s son.

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What does living water really mean?

There were three ways to get to Galilee from Judea
1. The coast road.
2. Through Samaria (Pious Jews would avoid this route).
3. Across the Jordan and through Perea.

Someone is stirring up rivalry between Jesus’ disciples and those of John the Baptist. For Jews to take the route through Samaria would not have been rare; it was the direct route, but rivalry between the Jews and Samarians, as well as a lack of water sources, would have made this route less common.

Jesus is tired; his words are being misunderstood. He’s under stress and has a long journey back to Galilee. About halfway there, he sits down by a well and sends the disciples to get food and hopefully a bucket. John’s Gospel asks, “Who is Jesus?” Here, the answer is that Jesus experienced thirst, fatigue, and stress. It’s comforting to know that when I’m weary, tired, and stressed, Jesus understands what I’m going through.

Jesus told Nicodemus that the Gospel is for everyone, stating that “Whoever believes in [God’s Son] should not perish but have eternal life.” He will now show this by speaking to someone considered unqualified for three reasons: she is a woman, she has questionable morals, and she is a Samaritan.

The Samaritans were excluded from the Jerusalem temple by Ezra due to racial reasons. The Jews who returned from Babylon maintained their racial purity, while some who stayed may have intermarried. Ezra prohibited anyone unable to prove they hadn’t intermarried from being part of the kingdom. This issue was about racial purity, not belief in God, and even 400 years later, the two groups still did not accept each other.

The woman coming to the well would have been surprised to see Jesus there. Jesus would have been surprised, too. He wasn’t expecting anyone. Why would he have sent out the disciples for provision if he knew someone was coming to the well at the hottest part of the day?

I have deliberately put Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman in the same paragraph because it brings together a pious moral man and an immoral woman. Jesus spoke to them both.

Jesus intentionally goes through Samaria, breaking down the racial and religious divide between Jews and Samaritans to interact with and minister to the marginalised. 

So what is living water? It is simply water that is in motion, such as from a stream, river, or spring. Beautiful, tasty aerated water as opposed to dirty, stagnant well water. Jesus starts with something that was understood at the time, and sees where the conversation goes from there. There was no reason for this woman to think Jesus was talking about a source of running water. She didn’t, and her answers are consistent with that, but she knows that Jesus is offering her something better than muddy well water.

Jeremiah 2:13:

¹³for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.

There is a history of God being the spring or fountain of living water. When he speaks of a spring of living water which he can give, he’s talking about the Holy Spirit, a spring that wells up to eternal life.

The woman would not have understood that yet, but what Jesus said next made all the difference. That however is for the next post.

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