Christ was born to lift the lowliest of us to heights unknown. Consider the woman of Samaria whom Christ encountered at Jacob’s well (John 4:1-42). An encounter not by chance…..When all of Jewry chose to travel an indirect and longer route from Judea to Galilee rather than go through Samaria because they hated the Samaritans due to their mixed blood, Jesus chose to travel the direct route and sat himself down at Jacob's well at noon having sent his disciples to procure provisions. For a Jewish man to speak to a Samaritan woman in public would have been unheard of.
The Saviour knew well the woman who came to draw water from the well. He knew that she had had five husbands and was now living with a man who was not her husband. This was a fallen woman who chose to come to the well in the heat of the day rather than the cool of the morning when it was the custom for women to gather and enjoy social interaction. The timing of her visit to the well emphasized her despised and outcast position. In general Jewish men didn't speak to women much in public, especially not to ones of ill repute.
The Saviour came to heal the sick and bind the broken hearted (Isaiah 61:1; D&C 138:42). He did not minister to those who were well and rejected Him in the pride of their hearts. This is why He mixed with the publicans and the sinners. How better could He have demonstrated the power He had to lift us to eternal life? When I think of the Samaritan woman and consider His important message, I also see through my 21st century view the Saviour sending a message to the women of our day, a message of healing and hope. A great number of women today feel fragmented and damaged having been divorced, widowed, abandoned or simply ignored by the opposite sex. Among the damaged are women who have been embroiled in sin, abused and enslaved in oppression. Perhaps they are all depicted in this Samaritan woman. She is the symbol of the downtrodden and the lowliest of us who can qualify for eternal life if we are but willing to accept the God in the babe of Bethlehem.
In this modern world where so much suffering abounds, some of us are barely keeping our heads above the water and some of us are scraping up sludge of dry wells. In all our suffering and stumbling in the dark we tend to turn to the ways of the world to fill us up. Sometimes we get so blinded by the glare of this world that we dive headlong into Jacob's well eager to assuage our thirst with that which does not satisfy, benefit or fulfill us. We seek for the corruptible things of this earth that have no lasting power to fill our cracks, heal our sorrows and make up for our lack.
Drawing water from a well was a thankless and miserable daily burden designated to women. The water the Samaritan woman drew out of the well was dead heavy water of this earth, much like the burdens and cares of this world. The Saviour offered her that this water does not in the long term satisfy and that in Him was the fountain of living water that springs into eternal life. If we would but drink from this fountain of living water we could be filled with hope believing Him who has said, "....eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9). He can give all this to us. This Christmas, be filled and thirst no more.
You paved the way to glories untold
With drops of blood and hallowed tears,
Gifting me life beyond these mortal years;
The bread of life and the living water,
Flowing into my heart from yours,
With parched lips I approach
So I will thirst never more.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art by Liz Lemon Swindle)
