Living Water: The Well of Life

Bloggers’ Bible Study.

The Book of John.  Chapter Four.

This past weekend, I took a much-needed respite from the madness my life has become lately.  And for all of two hours I kept travelling between day classes at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the night life of Las Vegas, Nevada–vicariously, of course, since I was watching the movie 21.  When the film begins, a college student is applying for a scholarship to Harvard Medical School, but the professor conducting the interview tells him, “I want to know about your life experience.  Dazzle me.”

Well, the kid had worked so hard to get into MIT and Harvard Med that he doesn’t have any life experience.  So begins his journey into the dangerous world of trying to beat the odds in Vegas.  And, at the end of the film, the kid sits in the same professor’s office, wrapping up the whole story.  Needless to say, the professor is speechless; he has been so dazzled that he simply sits motionless in his chair.

At the risk of giving away too much of the film, the kids quickly learns that he can be anyone he wants to be in Vegas.  And, for a time, he does just that.  But soon, he must face his sins and shortcomings.  The film creatively retells the classic story of a hero who falls because of a disconnect in his soul and finally finds redemption in his despair; after that, the kid becomes the man he was meant to be.

Sometimes, it only after we lose ourselves that we find ourselves.

It is for this very reason that God does not discount our mistakes.  Our sins are forgiven, not dismissed.  We must remember that we, too, are a work in progress.  And our memories form the foundation of our reason, the passions and the emotions inevitably tied to our experiences drive our motivations–even if we are only driven to laziness.

When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, He reveals what He knows about her personal experiences and suddenly she is motivated to tell everyone about Him.  And yet, in most of the interpretations I have heard regarding this encounter, the focus is almost always on this woman’s experience:  She has been married and divorced fives times.  Finally, she just gave up on the whole idea of marriage and simply lives with a man.  

Previous interpretations have claimed that the woman did not understand Jesus’s message of Living Water, that she only wanted the water so that she would never have to go to the well again.  But the public scorn and the personal shame that this woman has faced because of her sins and shortcomings is so great that she goes to the well in the middle of the day–when it is hottest and the journey is the most difficult–instead of going in the morning or in the evening when it is cooler.

When Jesus tells the woman about Living Water, I think He is very much aware of this woman’s personal shame and public scorn.  And He wants to give her the Living Water for this very reason.  Though many have claimed that the woman simply wanted this “living water” so that her life could be easier, Jesus knows that she makes the journey to the well at the hottest and most difficult time of day out of shame, guilt, and to avoid public scorn.

By the time Jesus meets this woman at the well, He had gathered His disciples and spoke with a religious leader, but, according to John, this woman is the very first commoner to hear The Gospel.  She is a complete outcast:  a member of a hated mixed race of Samaritans, a woman who had failed at every relationship she had ever had, so much so that she gave up on marriage all together and risked the social scorn of living with a man, and her shame had been so great that she endured her public penance by going to the well for water in the middle of the day.  Physically and spiritually, she was certainly thirsty!

So Jesus tells the woman about God’s Living Water, and the woman’s immediately accepts that He is The Messiah once He reveals that, too.  Then “the woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did!  Could He possibly be The Messiah?’” (vv. 28-29).  The woman had fallen into a disconnect from God, but in her desperation she had found redemption.  Notice that she had left her water jar at the well at the hottest time of day!

Her story had become a testimony!  Told without shame and without fear!  She had drank The Living Water from The Well of Life!

Do you have a story or a testimony?

(Special thanks to Tam and Cindy for sharing their testimonies.  You have both been an extraordinairy example of The Grace of God.)

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