Daily Scripture:
John 4:16 He said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 She answered, “I don’t have a husband.” Yeshua said to her, “You’re right, you don’t have a husband! 18 You’ve had five husbands in the past, and you’re not married to the man you’re living with now! You’ve spoken the truth!”
19 “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet,” the woman replied. 20 “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you people say that the place where one has to worship is in Yerushalayim.” 21 Yeshua said, “Lady, believe me, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Yerushalayim. 22 You people don’t know what you are worshipping; we worship what we do know, because salvation comes from the Jews. 23 But the time is coming — indeed, it’s here now — when the true worshippers will worship the Father spiritually and truly, for these are the kind of people the Father wants worshipping him. 24 God is spirit; and worshippers must worship him spiritually and truly.” (Complete Jewish Bible).
Reflection Questions:
Shame probably led the woman to come to the well alone. Jesus frankly stated the facts of her life, though we sometimes forget her context. Healthcare was limited then—some of her husbands may have died. And women could not initiate divorce, so men, not she, would have ended her marriages. She at first tried to shift the subject by raising a Jewish/Samaritan religious debate (verses 19-20). Jesus refused the bait. He said the key to worshipping God was not finding the “right” place, but worshiping “in spirit and truth.”
- In verse 21, Jesus told the woman “The time is coming” when you will not worship either in Samaria or Jerusalem. He repeated the phrase in verse 23, and then, as though catching himself, said, “—and is here!” One paradox in Christian faith is that “in God’s eternity, the battle has been won, the battle is raging still, and the battle will be won.”* How do you understand and value Jesus' words: “the time… is here”? What feelings does it trigger in you to need to keep waiting in faith for the full arrival of God’s Kingdom in all its glory?
- Jesus said God is Spirit (a word that also meant “breath” or “atmosphere”). In other words, God is with us always and already knows all about us. What’s more, knowing each of us fully (even better than we know ourselves), God loves each of us deeply! We can come to God in total honesty with worship and praise for his love, mercy, and grace. What's on your heart today? What do you need to bring to the Lord in full honesty, knowing that God loves you as his child?
* Virginia Stem Owens, “Introduction to Revelation” in The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible. HarperSanFrancisco, 2005, p. 2268.
Janelle Gregory serves on the Resurrection staff as a Human Resources Specialist. Janelle finds that her heart is constantly wrestling with the truth that she needs a Savior, and the times when she's at her very best are when she's just too tired to put up a fight.
Had I been the woman at the well encountering Jesus 2,000 years ago, I’m afraid the story would have had a much different ending. I don’t know that I would have made it past “The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.” At this point, I probably would have excused myself after suddenly and conveniently remembering that I had to go to “wash my hair.” I wouldn’t have had the appetite to stand there and listen to a stranger tell me how my life has fallen apart. “Thanks for pointing all the ways my life has gone wrong, mister. As it turns out, I don’t need water after all.”
Yet the woman in our story didn’t leave. She didn’t turn away in shame. She stayed. That couldn’t have been easy to hear those words. I’m sure she hoped that there was at least some place where she could remain anonymous, where nobody whispered as she walked by. On that day, the well was no such place.
It makes me wonder if there were others who experienced an encounter with Jesus like this. Did Jesus expose the dark sides of anyone else’s life? Maybe there were stories about a “woman by the lake” or a “woman at the temple” or a “man in the market” whose stories were never retold because they chose to leave when the shadows of their past were uncovered by Jesus. But the woman at the well? She stayed. And thank goodness she did. Because she stayed and confronted her past, she heard the rest of what Jesus had to say, unveiling a future of hope: “But the time is coming – and is here! – when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth.” Had she not stayed, her life would have remained the same. She would have been back for water the next day with the same hopes of remaining anonymous.
There may be times we’re tempted to avoid God because of things we’ve done or because we don’t feel worthy. It would be so much easier to leave than stay and face our faults. Yet the story of the woman begs us to not leave, to not be afraid of our past. Can’t you hear the woman now? “It’s tempting to leave, but don’t! Stay and listen to Jesus. I did, and you can, too. He’ll reassure you that your past isn’t so dark that it can't be shattered by the glorious light of his mercy and hope.”
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.
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