Grace at the Well

Are there people that you just don’t get along with? That no matter how hard you try, you always end up getting in a fight or arguing? I know there have been people like that in my life. What do you usually do with those people? You usually avoid them, right?

If you see them in the lunch room, you go to a different table. If they sit in front of you on the bus, you switch seats. If you are playing on the playground and they’re coming your way, you run away, right? That’s usually how we treat people that are hard to be around.

Well, in Jesus’s day, these people had a name. They were called Samaritans. Jesus was a Jew and the Jews hated the Samaritans. They thought that the Samaritans were no better than animals. They thought that they were scum and vermin, and they never got along with Samaritans. And so Jews always tried their best to avoid them at all costs!

One day, Jesus was traveling to a place called Galilee from Judea. Look at this map… Whenever people would travel from Judea to Galilee like Jesus was, they wanted to avoid the Samaritans SO BAD that they used to go all the way around Samaria. Adding a lot of time to their journey. But this is the path that Jesus took. Does he go the long way around?

NO! He walks straight through! Where as when we have that person that we don’t get along with, that we don’t like and we avoid them like the plague. We sit on the other side of the lunchroom, switch seats on the bus. And where the Jews would go way out of the way to avoid the people they didn’t like, Jesus headed straight towards the people that others didn’t like. He went straight for them! Wow. Do you smell that? It smells like grace.

Let’s look what happens next.

Jesus is alone because his disciples went off to get food and he sits down by a well because he gets tired. Suddenly, a woman from Samaria comes to the well to get water. Remember, Jesus and this woman should be enemies! They shouldn’t even be talking!

But look what happens: Jesus asks the woman, “Will you give me a drink?”

That’s a big no no. She’s a Samaritan. So by Jewish law, Jesus wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything that she gave him. Yet, here he is asking for a drink!

And she tells him that. She says:

“You are a Jew. I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”

And Jesus replied:

New International Reader’s Version Chapter 4

“You do not know what God’s gift is. And you do not know who is asking you for a drink. If you did, you would have asked him. He would have given you living water.”

And she said:

New International Reader’s Version Chapter 4

“Sir, give me this water. Then I will never be thirsty. And I won’t have to keep coming here to get water.”

Jesus says to the lady, you have no idea who I am do you? You have no idea that I’m the Son of God. If you did, you would ask me for more than just water, you would ask me for living water.

What’s living water?

When Jesus is talking about living water, he is talking about eternal life, he is talking about his Holy Spirit…and he’s talking about grace!

And the lady at the well says, “Give me that water. I want that!”

Did you know, there are people all around you who are thirsty for water. Not the water bottles that we carry around or water from the watering fountain, but just like the woman at the well, there are people around you who are thirsty for living water! They are thirsty for Jesus and for grace!

And yet, all too often, like Jews and Samaria, we avoid the people that need Jesus. They are weird, or mean, or hard to be around. They are messy!

But what if…you and I looked at Jesus in this story of the Samaritan woman at the well, and said I want to be more like that!

Rather than going around these woman, avoiding them, and staying away from them. What if we went straight to them and showed them them the grace of God. What if we showed them, that even though they are messy and difficult to be around, because of what Jesus has done for you and me, we can show them grace and love them! What if we showed them the well of living water where they can drink all they want! Jesus!

The truth is, when we look at the Samaritans in our lives, the ones who we would much rather avoid, we forget that we are messy ourselves. We forget that God showed us grace despite our messiness. There was a day when it was you and me standing at the well in our messyness and Jesus came and gave us living water and showed us grace.

So the next time that you are tempted to avoid that person. If you see them in the lunch room, and you are tempted to go a different table. If they sit in front of you on the bus, and you’re tempted to switch seats. If you are playing on the playground and they’re coming your way, and you’re tempted to run away. Remember Jesus and the Samaritan, and think about showing them grace instead, pointing them to Jesus the living water that can quench their thirst so they’re never thirsty again.