Better than a Drink

As we read into the words of the story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well, we immediately run across several different layers of separation.  First, this woman and Jesus are strangers.  There is no reason for them to have a conversation.  Secondly, she is a woman and Jesus is a man.  Their culture created divisions among folks for the simple reason of sexual difference.  A third and not so obvious reason for separation is found within the fact that she is the unrighteous and He is the righteous.  And, finally, the most talked about reason has to do with her being a Samaritan and Jesus being a Jew.   There was a long history of separation between the two of them.

 

Some of these reasons for separation obviously mattered to the woman who came to the well, but it is also obvious they mattered not to Jesus.  There is nothing about the encounter or the conversation which indicates that Jesus would have chosen to avoid her.  His first word to her was a request for water.  She had the means of drawing and collecting the water and He had neither.  What He needed was dependent on her willingness to provide it and help Him.  "Give me a drink," He said to her.  (John 4:7)

 

With the request for help the door was opened and the differences imposed by culture and religion were broken and cast aside.  She was slow to do so, but Jesus showed a quick willingness to lay them aside.  The things which divide us from one another are often not so obvious as the separating things at Jacob's Well, but then again sometimes they are those very things.  We put too much stock in the things which declare our differences and not enough in the fact that differences are just differences, but not things to separate and keep us out of a meaningful relationship with another.  When the barriers are broken, there is opportunity for giving life to another which is exactly what Jesus gave to the woman who simply came to the well for a drink of water.