“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?’” John 4:29.
She was an unnamed Samaritan woman, harshly judged, an outcast, making her way to Jacob’s Well alone. Jesus was there, tired and thirsty from his travels, without a cup to draw water.
Jesus asked her for a drink, breaking social barriers. Jews didn’t associate with Samaritans, and men didn’t speak to women in public. Jesus reveals that He knows her story, and she’s astonished. He then tells her about the living water, a spiritual kind that gives eternal life. When Jesus says He’s the Messiah, she believes Him. She then leaves her water jug and runs to the village to tell everyone about Him, and they believe too.
The woman came to the well searching for ordinary water, hiding herself, filled with guilt and shame. She meets Jesus and leaves her jug, meant for ordinary water, and exchanges it for living water. She came to fill a jar; she left bold and full of hope.
Was the jar a symbol of her past? By leaving it, she stepped out of that old story and into a new identity. She once hid from her neighbors and now runs joyfully to tell them about Jesus.
She leaves her jar to become a vessel herself, filled and overflowing.
Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:13-14.
~ Kim Snyder
Christ Fellowship