In this iconic story, the Samaritan woman greets Jesus rather snidely, but she continues onward to have a change of heart and to believe in Him, inviting Him into her village so that others might believe. This is just seemingly another of the amazing stories where people who meet the Christ have a complete shift in their attitudes.
John 4:9 says:
The Samaritan woman said to him, "How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)
To say that she was rude is a bit of an understatement. Jews and Samaritans got along horribly, and still do to this day with less than 700 Samaritans left in the world. They disagreed on which mountain was the holy mountain, which temple was correct, and when divine revelation ended. They were anathema to one another, and no good Jew nor Samaritan would be caught dead socializing with one another, let alone to have a rabbi asking a Samaritan woman for a drink as if she was a human being. Her reaction here is typical of what one would expect of her people given the enmity, that of "You? A Jew!"
Yet things do not end here as He speaks with her of the living water. Then in verses eleven and fifteen she calls Him sir, intrigued by His words, and putting the enmity of their peoples behind as He tells her that He indeed is offering greater water than that of Jacob, father to their peoples. That's when things get spooky for the woman.
John 4:16-19 says:
Jesus said to her, "Go call your husband and come back."
The woman answered and said to him, "I do not have a husband."
Jesus answered her, "You are right in saying, 'I do not have a husband.'
For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true."
The woman said to him, "Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.
Going from sir now to prophet, she begins to acknowledge that He is indeed a holy figure, something He has proven by providing the details of her personal sins and shames to her. Something He does for us as well, and will do at our last hour. He then proceeds to lecture her on true worship, and how their petty differences mean nothing as Jew and Samaritan when the truth is soon to be revealed. Then he drops His bombshell in John 4:25-30.
The woman said to him, "I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything."
Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking with you."
At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, "What are you looking for?" or "Why are you talking with her?"
The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, "Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?"
They went out of the town and came to him.
For the first time He says who He is directly, and this woman who had greeted Him with sneers is the one to whom this revelation is poured out. Then, His disciples return and in typical fashion for the relationship between Jews and Samaritans, freak out at the fact their rabbi is talking with one of 'those people'. She leaves, but soon returns with others, having spread the word of how He had regaled her with her sins.
John 4:39-42 concludes this unlikely set of events by stating:
Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me everything I have done."
When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, "We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world."
Christ used this one woman and her sins to bring forth more believers in Him, and from a source much of society would shun. He took the outcasts, those who hated the Jews and were hated in return, and from among them He gathered some of His first followers. They came to believe that a Jew of all people was the long foretold Messiah, and what's more, they came to believe of their own accord, just as children must come to believe of their own accord rather than that of their parents. These people all made the choice, the choice to follow Him. A choice that no one saw coming, least of all the Samaritans who came to believe.
In this belief they reconciled with at least one Jew, the Son of God, if not with others; however it does not mean that they were granted reconciliation by the Jewish people in return. Indeed, Christians were hardly the most welcome sort in the coming decades, but this gives us a model to follow, to reconcile ourselves with those who have hurt us, and if they refuse to do so, then we should be sorrowful that it was not possible, but that we should not regret for we must carry on with the will of the One who matters most.
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