The Water Bearer

[John 4: 1-26]

I saw Him coming from a distance, the dust kicking up from his feet. He walked fast, and yet unhurriedly. I noticed his gait. It was confident, but unassuming. It was getting late, I told myself, and this was no time to be watching strangers. I made a careful knot around the bucket handle and watched as the little wooden pail plunged into darkness. I felt the weight of the water in the bucket as the rope pressed into my palms, and became engrossed in fishing the water out. I didn't notice Him sit down. Didn't want to notice Him sit down.

"Will you give me a drink?" His voice was deep, but with a hint of a twinkle and I couldn't help but turn. He wasn't very tall, nor was he possessed of looks beyond an average man's. His hands were gnarly and calloused, but something attracted me to this man with a magnet so far beyond comprehension I could not ask for an explanation even if I wanted to. I wouldn't have known how. I swallowed my thoughts and answered with my mouth full.

"You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" It was all I could do to keep my thoughts from spluttering. I looked away. He looked at me. There was no awkward silence. "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." It was as if he was musing aloud. He contemplated this for a while, a slight smile bordering his cracked lips. Yet, the cryptic reply was meant for me. I twisted the gnarly rope in my hands, thinking how like his hands the rope was.

There was no one else in sight. After all, no one come's to Jacob's well at this time. I squinted once more to make sure no one else was walking around, then cautiously addressed Him. I wanted to know- Had to know so badly. Funny- 5 minutes ago I didn't want to acknowledge His existence. "Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

He smiled at my conned-by-rote recitation of the well known story, passed on for generations. It was as if my obedience in learning the old lore pleased Him. Or perhaps, my ignorance amused Him. On hindsight, however, I doubt that. It was not in Him to find pleasure in foolishness.

By this time, I had retrieved my deep-sea-diver-friend and managed to make a presentable offering of the humble drink to this curious stranger. He received it with the gratitude of a thirsty man and I watched Him relish the refreshment. He shifted His weight and smoothed out His crumpled prayer shawl. "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Pretty words, I thought. Pretty words I did not understand. What I did understand, though, was "never thirst." And this man knew what He was talking about. No bucket, no rope, just a spring that brought life. I was curious. "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming back here to draw water." I had no idea what I had just said. I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have chewed on a thought. Anything, anything at all to blot out that enourmously horrendous feeling that came with the words, "Go, call your husband and come back." Every fibre of my being cried out in guilt as iniquity swirled within me. A hundred answers came to me and a hundred I discarded. I took a step back and whispered, " I have no husband."

I felt Him looking at me, but I dared not lift my head. His tone lightened. "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." Once again, a sense of musing, as if he marveled how words could play with connotation but couldn't fool Him. We were playing a game with rules I did not understand. First the water, and now this. Yet, the condemnation I had braced myself for never came. He just looked at me with love in His eyes. It was as if He had known for a long time. A very long time.

I was uneasy. "Sir, I can see that you are a prophet." Stating the obvious was a sign of nervousness. "Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." This last shot at small talk, an attempt at a diversion from the divulsion of my secret. Or secrets. My sin welled up within me and I wanted to choke. He saw this, and gave me enough grace to counter my contention with another of His cryptic replies. "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet the time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth."

No prizes for guessing I did not understand a single word. Worship in spirit? What strangeness. I went back to what I knew. Dug up a hope in my heart I almost dared not hope for. Threw my dreams at this man's feet. Produced the essence of my living with a nonchalence not to be expected of me in such a situation. "I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." That should settle it, I thought. Drink your water and move it. No more cryptic replies, no more crummy-in-the-tummy feelings.

I wound up my rope and put it in the bucket. Jack and Jill went up the hill- no, they never made it. His voice with great emotion, and great power pulled me back. The pail and adjoining toy snake fell to the dust, unnoticed. I fell before Him as He spoke, wetting the sands with tears I had not cried for years. I clung to Him- a woman to a strange man, a mortal to the divine, a moment to a lifetime. And it was there as He lifted my face with his well worn hands that I felt myself cry out for a redemption I did not understand. I shuddered to think what I had said to this man before me, awed to believe who He was. I felt him pull me up next to Him, and as He cradled me in His arms I suddenly knew a love 6 mortal men could not teach me. For He said to me, "I who speak to you am He."