Our Mr. Wrenn. It’s a work by Sinclair Lewis about a respected New York clerk who yearns for something more. After inheriting a large sum, Wrenn escapes from the ordinary by traveling overseas. He falls in love with an artist who gives him the adventure he wanted, but the emptiness of life remains. At one point she says to him, “On the surface we seem quite different; but deep down we are fundamentally the same. We are both desperately unhappy about something—and we don’t know what it is.”
All of us understand something of this angst, but few ever find relief. Who doesn’t want to feel alive? Who doesn’t want excitement? It’s a desire that runs deep, a desire so strong that many will forfeit their entire life’s work, their reputation, even their family just to have it. Seeking adventure, joy, something real… and how does the pursuit end? Always with greater emptiness and despair than where you started. Why? Because only God can fill the void within us.
“Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee” — Augustine.
We’re about to read of a Samaritan woman that Jesus met. She was desperately unhappy until the day Jesus brought her quest to an end.
As I read John’s account of this meeting, I ask myself what kind of Savior would trouble Himself with a woman who was an outcast? The kind who loves to pursue outcasts. The kind who is able to save and satisfy the soul. The kind who delights to do it.
Jews and Samaritans
The Pharisees had become suspicious of Jesus. John the Baptist’s followers had become jealous of Jesus’ success (John 3:26, 4:1-3). This is why the Lord left Judea to minister in Galilee for a time.
What lies between Judea and Galilee? Samaria. Jews often bypassed Samaria though it added an extra day of travel. They viewed the people there as half-breed Jews, unclean pariahs who had caved to compromise. No respectable Jew would have anything to do with these God-forsaken people. What led to such prejudices?
In 722 B.C., Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel (also known as Samaria). They deported and enslaved its inhabitants while resettling the land with foreigners. When these exiles slowly returned home, they discovered Samaria to be a region overrun with Gentile races. They intermarried, and their half-Jewish descendants became known as Samaritans.
The Jews of the southern kingdom of Judah experienced deportation by the Babylonians a couple centuries later. However, they didn’t intermarry… and they were proud of it. The southerners refused to worship with their brothers in the north. They wouldn’t even allow a Samaritan to help rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 4:1-3).
As the divide deepened, Samaritans developed their own form of Judaism. They built their own temple and worshipped God at Mt. Gerizim. Both sides cursed the other as apostate. The hatred boiled over when Jews destroyed the Samaritan temple in 128 B.C.
John sums up 500 years of hostility by saying: “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (John 4:9).
Living Water Offered
Jesus made a point of passing through Samaria. While the disciples ventured into town for food, He rested at a well when a woman approached to draw water. The Lord asked a question, and the disregard for tradition surprised her (John 4:4, 6-9). His disciples were no less surprised by the scene when they returned (John 4:27).
She was shocked and confused when this Jewish stranger without a bucket claimed to be the one with water—“living water” (John 4:7-10). Our Lord knew this woman, and He could see the parchedness of her soul. The real issue wasn’t that she needed a drink but that her soul was dying of thirst. Jesus knew. He knew this woman needed something real that could quench the pain within.
This woman was an outcast. She came in the heat of the day to draw water when all others came in the evening (John 4:6). She walked a half-mile to Jacob’s well though other wells were closer. Rather than face the hostility and scorn of her peers, she would rather toil a long walk in the heat. Jews despised Samaritans; Samaritans despised her.
Jesus pursued the Samaritan. She didn’t understand His words about living water. A hidden stream… closer to town? (John 4:15). This is why she said not even her forefather Jacob knew anything of this. And we can understand why she doubted Jesus at first—He spoke of water, and yet walked all this way without a bucket (John 4:11-12).
What’s going on? Well, if the Samaritan had any spiritual insight, Jesus’ words would’ve been clearer (Psa 39:6, 42:1; Isa 12:3, 44:3; Jer 17:13). He was offering spiritual fulfillment, an unending supply of water for the soul. He was freely giving salvation and eternal life. Knowing she had spent her life drinking dirty water from broken cisterns, Jesus offered her pure water from the living God (Jer 2:13). Will she receive it?
Spiritual Thirst Exposed
Let’s look at the Samaritan’s biography. We know she had been divorced five times and was living with her current boyfriend (John 4:16-18). The Rabbis regarded three marriages the maximum for a woman, and the entire village knew her scandal. Did they give her any hope or comfort? None. She was the town adulteress, one who walked to the well alone not wanting to be engaged.
No one goes through so many failed relationships without sensing a great void in life. This woman has a cavernous void, one she doesn’t understand and can’t fill. Either she can’t find what she wants in a man and finds another, or they can’t find what they want in her and leave. One after another after another, her yearning for something real and fulfilling deepens. The pain grows, and her search goes on.
And here we see Jesus rip open the scars of a jaded life. Why bring the pain to the surface? Because Christ wanted to heal her. The Son of God knew everything about this one. He knew every detail about every relationship and knew the hurt she concealed. Others judged her a hopeless profligate and heaped condemnation; Jesus showed compassion and offered life (John 3:17).
Things were becoming too personal, and the Samaritan changed the subject. Notice that Jesus never came back to it. He brought the past to light to expose an unquenchable thirst. This woman’s life choices proved there was a void she would do anything to fill. Desperately unhappy, she had no idea what was wrong or how to fix it.
Revelation 22:17—Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
The Samaritan wasn’t quite ready for Jesus. Being dead on the inside, all she understood was superficial and external. She only knew she hurt and couldn’t understood Jesus’ words. Believing Him to be a prophet, she asked about geography—Mt. Moriah or Mt. Gerizim? It was a less personal subject: Who’s right—you Jews or us Samaritans (John 4:20)?
Christ refused to deal at this level, because worship has nothing to do with geography. True worshippers are spiritually alive and love the truth (John 4:21-24). He had invited the woman to drink of living water (she didn’t quite follow). And now He invites her to become a worshipper.
Baffled and confused all the more, the woman at the well concludes someday it’ll all be sorted out. Someday Messiah will come. Someday we’ll know who’s right. Someday He will make it all clear. In no mistakable terms, Jesus says that “someday” has come.
The man who sat resting at the well without a bucket is Messiah (Ex 3:14; John 4:25-26). The outcast searching for more realized God had come searching for her. He went out of His way to offer this one outcast living water. When she finally understood, her thirst was forever quenched.
New Life Received
Nicodemus, the respected teacher, remained secretive after talking to Jesus. This rejected woman dropped her water jar and ran to tell everyone (John 4:28). She and her village of Samaritans received Jesus and joyfully believed (John 4:39-42).
John’s Gospel wants us to ask “What kind of a Savior is this?” John wants us to see that Jesus is the Savior who offers Himself to people throughout the world. He cares not about race, gender, position, or past. And what does He offer you today? Life, abundant and eternal (John 10:10).
Are you moving from one thing to the next, like this woman, trying to find fulfillment but only finding misery? There is a void in the heart of man that remains painfully barren without Christ. If you haven’t, turn from the sin that is only drilling your void deeper and turn to Christ for the joy of salvation.