Mary’s Lent Diary (Day 9)
You won’t believe what I have just heard on the grapevine….apparently, Jesus has been in Samaria! Why he went there I can’t imagine. Jews do not go near Samaritans…but maybe Jesus just thought it was a bit silly to walk the long way round, just to avoid passing through Samaria.
Anyway, that’s not the biggest surprise – it seems that he stopped for a drink by a well in Samaria and had a long conversation with a woman. A Samaritan woman. Here’s me worrying about Jesus, and he seems to be deliberately opening himself up to trouble.
The story goes that the whole conversation started by Jesus asking the woman to give him some water to drink. She was pretty surprised that he would even speak to her, let alone ask for something, and could not help asking him how he could ask her for a drink.
If she found that confusing, she was even more confused by his response; basically he said that, if she knew who he was, she would have asked him for Living Water – and received it.
What? The well was deep, he had no bucket and he had just asked her to draw him some water. Where was he going to get this living water? Jacob built this well years ago, was this man saying that he was greater than Jacob?
To be fair, the woman seemed to have sensible questions….
Jesus told her that, unlike this well, which did not stop thirst for ever, hence daily trips to draw water, the water that Jesus was offering was different. Anyone who drank it would never be thirsty again. The water would be like a spring inside the person, welling up to eternal life.
Hang on a minute, there is that eternal life thing again…Nicodemus mentioned it and now it has cropped up again. Interesting…
Anyway, back to the well:
Understandably, the woman wanted the living water straight away – she really would not mind never having to draw water from the well again!
And Jesus told her to go and get her husband.
Yes, you did read that correctly and I did double check that I’d heard it right! How on earth did the jump from water to husbands happen?
The woman said she didn’t have a husband anyway…
And Jesus said, “I know. You actually have five husbands and are now living with a man you are not married to.”
Jesus knew all this and yet he still stopped to speak to her? I was amazed and I bet the woman was, too.
I’ve got to go , will carry on with this later…
Water droplet and ripples
Jews could not stand Samaritans, and the Samaritan woman was surprised that Jesus would speak to her.
What about us?
Are you surprised that Jesus would speak to you?
Not only speak to you but, as he did with the woman, speak kindly?
But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
Titus 3:4
Maybe, like the woman, we think He can’t possibly be bothering with us.
And certainly not speaking to us kindly.
Perhaps we’re not used to kindness, from others or from ourselves.
The woman probably knew unkindness.
Usually in those days, women would draw water in the morning, together.
It was a social occasion.
Yet the woman is there alone, at the hottest part of the day.
Shunned. By her husbands, by her peers.
She has become used to unkindness.
Have you?
In Jesus, the woman recognises Someone different.
Her negative past experiences and expectations, her difficult current situation; none of those prevented her from receiving kindness.
Constant exposure to unkindness, from others or from ourselves, can create a hard shell. We become unable to see beyond it.
The Samaritan woman shows us that Jesus is bigger than that.
His kindness breaks through, and she allows it to.
Do you?
Jesus tells the woman (John 4:10) that, if she’d known who He was, she’d have asked and received.
Do you know who Jesus is?
Who is He to you?
Is there anything you’d like to ask Him?
Lord Jesus,
Thank You for speaking to me kindly.
Please help me receive it.
Will You help me speak to myself with kindness?
Thank You for showing me a better way.
May I know You more and more.
Amen
Mary’s Memo Receive God’s Kindness