‘One on one with Jesus’ series: Jesus and the woman with an empty well.
Today as our ‘One on one with Jesus’ series continues, John takes us to a location near the Samaritan town of Sychar (widely considered to be the same place as the ancient city of Shechem) nestled between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. This is a deeply significant place in Biblical history, with many things taking place here. One of those is that Jacob bought a parcel of land at this site after reconciling with his brother Esau. Jacob had lived much of his life as a fugitive, fleeing from those who he had deceived. But God renewed Jacob’s heart, and after he wrestled with God, Jacob erected an altar in this place to El-Elohe-Israel or “Mighty is the God of Israel”, signifying a personal dedication to God in gratitude for protecting him and changing his life (Genesis 33:20).
It is to this place that Jesus arrives in today’s gospel reading. The noonday sun is hot, and Jesus is tired and thirsty from his journey, so he rests at Jacob’s well. A woman from Samaria came to the well to draw water, and Jesus asks her for a drink. It’s a request that unfolds a deeply spiritual, theological conversation in which Jesus gives the woman an insight into who he is.
The traditional understanding of this passage is that the woman is one of the most morally corrupt characters possible, beyond hope—she is a Samaritan to begin with, which in Jewish eyes meant any morally upstanding Jew shouldn’t have a thing to do with her—especially Jesus. The Samaritans were seen as an unholy people, a mix of ‘Northern-Kingdomers’ populated with Gentile immigrants after the Assyrian invasion. The Temple at Mount Gerizim in Samaria was seen by the Jews as a rival to the holy Temple at Jerusalem. The Samaritans appointed their own priests not authorised by God, and worship became blended with foreign practices. So, by virtue of her ethnicity, this woman’s image is tarnished to begin with. A common reading is that she’s an adulteress, changing husbands like her underwear, and now she’s shacked up with a sixth bloke. She comes to the well at noon because she is too ashamed to come with others in the cool of the morning, hearing their whispers, gossip and condemnation. She takes a dig at Jesus with her questions, trying to deflect the issue of her unfaithfulness.
But if this woman is so immoral, I struggle to reconcile the fact that she seems somewhat devout. As a Samaritan, she knows the Torah—Genesis to Deuteronomy. She clearly knows the account of Jacob and identifies as one of his people. She is waiting for the Messiah. She worships. The origins of Samaritan spirituality are not the fault of this particular woman, and perhaps she’s trying to worship the one true God the best way she knows how, in the religious framework she has grown up with.
As to why she was married five times, we aren’t told. Maybe she hasn’t slept around. Perhaps one or some of her husbands died. Perhaps she has been divorced by one or more of her husbands—
and in the culture of the day, the power in matters of divorce rested almost exclusively with the husband. Even the so-called righteous religious leaders exploited the rite of divorce provided for marital unfaithfulness in an attempt to legitimise their own sexual promiscuity. So rather than this woman destroying five marriages, its quite possible it could actually be the other way around—death and/or divorce causing great emotional suffering and pain in her life, leaving her vulnerable. We don’t know the circumstances behind the sixth relationship either, because we aren’t told. It’s easy to assume, and perhaps the folk at Sychar assumed too, and she did live under the clouds of steady rumour, gossip, slander and condemnation. Just think how easy it would be to come to certain conclusions about Mary and Joseph too!
We simply don’t know. The townsfolk might not really know. Only the woman knows. And one other person: Jesus. And that’s the whole point.
Whether she is an immoral adulteress, or whether life has been consistently cruel to her, this woman knows great brokenness in her life. She is thirsting to be loved, to belong to someone, somewhere, but she has reached the bottom of the well. She can come to Jacob’s well and drink, but as significant as this well might be, she will only drink to be thirsty again. That’s symbolic of life itself. The things in life cannot satisfy our deepest needs, and bring wholeness and peace.
That’s why the geographical setting of today’s Gospel reading is so significant. The location for this encounter with the Samaritan woman was deliberately chosen by Jesus at the very place where the ancient Israelites renewed their covenant in response to God’s words. With Mt Gerizim and Mt Ebal as the backdrop, where blessings and curses were pronounced atop these mountains by the tribes of Israel as they entered the promised land, it is Jesus who is the obedient one and shows loyalty to God’s covenant, and through faith in him God pours out abundant blessings on his people. The location of God’s presence would not be at Mount Zion in Jerusalem, or Mount Gerizim in Samaria, but God’s favourable presence is in Jesus. In this place, Jacob honoured with the altar to “God, the mighty God of Israel”—and now, in the Person of Jesus, the Mighty God of Israel was there speaking at the well with the woman. Jesus is greater than Jacob, who gave this well and drank out of it himself, and also his sons and his sheep and goats.
Where could this woman go to be in the presence of a loving, merciful and compassionate God to receive the Holy Spirit and the gift of fullness of life the Spirit gives? Mount Gerizim in Samaria, or Jerusalem in Judea? Neither. But right there, the new Temple with divine favour and blessing was before her, in the flesh and bones of Jesus. Jesus has come as the Holy One, to cleanse and bless and forgive and save. “The time is coming and has now come” Jesus says, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as those worshipping him.
Spirit-inspired faith is not to know Jesus as a prophet—a great teacher who gives information—but it is to know Jesus, relationally, as the head of his church, as the One who makes new, as the One who changes hearts and lives, as the One who has given a completely new future and reality, rescuing us from the kingdom of darkness and bringing us into the kingdom of light, children of the Father who have access to his grace, who can stand as free people with dignity and honour and joy. It is to see that by Jesus’ ministry the Father in Heaven is seeking out a people for himself, from Jerusalem and Samaria, and beyond—some of those who we might least expect God to choose in the kingdom. Many say they worship God, but Jesus says that the true worshippers—the true people of God—will not just worship with their lips but their hearts, having been made new by the Holy Spirit. With the arrival of Jesus, the New Covenant between God and his people, his people are to renew their commitment to him in response to Jesus’ words.
From the conversation that unfolds between Jesus and the woman, Jesus leads her, and the townsfolk, to see in him the source of fulfilment for humanity’s deepest spiritual need—life with God. Jesus said: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water which I give to them will never be thirsty again. The water I give to them will become in them a fountain of water springing up to eternal life” (vv13-14).
Through the prophet Jeremiah God had said:
“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer 2:13).
God’s own people had turned away from him and dug their own cisterns. But in the Gospels it is increasingly those who are not the religious elite, those who do not think they are morally superior but who are cast out, who turn to Jesus and receive his saving help and have their spiritual thirst quenched. It is not those who pretend to be righteous but those who know and admit their brokenness and failings who are blessed.
In these ‘one on one’ encounters with Jesus in John’s Gospel, we see God’s heart to save all people: the man born blind, the woman caught in adultery about to be stoned, the Samaritan woman at the well, whose own heart and life were so, so empty. The Father’s focus—and Jesus’ focus—is on each person. Each person is different, and the circumstances of each are different, but all are created in the image of God, and all are deeply loved by him as people he has made to be unique. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 on the hillside, and takes time to initiate a relationship with each of his people. All need something that the things of this life, and that empty religion and vain worship cannot give. Jesus takes time to visit each person, and care enough about them to reveal himself to them. As he gradually gives insight to who he is, he frees them from the empty ways of life, and the harsh life circumstances they are trapped by.
The woman at Jacob’s well was so absorbed and captivated by what Jesus said to her that she hurried off to tell those in the town “Come, see a man who told to me all I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” She left her water jar behind. Is there any significance in this? Could this be symbolic of the woman leaving her empty way of life behind; her futile attempts at trying to quench her deepest thirst?
What is it you are thirsty for? What wells do you go, to quench that thirst? People can thirst for many things—for hope, comfort, a new start, for honesty and truth to prevail, for peace to replace fear and conflict, for calm in mind and soul when all seems out of control. We can be thirsty for help. We can be thirsty to belong somewhere; to find approval from others; somebody; anybody—so desperate to be loved, and loved just as we are without the need to measure up to other people’s expectations. We can be thirsty from working hard to free ourselves from the crushing burden of guilt, and working to cover our shame so that no-one might find out our past. We can be thirsty to forget our pain and hurt, and for justice to right that which has been made wrong in our life. What is it you are thirsty for? What well do you go to, to quench this thirst?
Jacob’s well still exists today. These days, it enclosed under a Greek Orthodox Church that was built over the site. Wouldn’t it be amazing to sit by that well, and imagine being with Jesus, hearing him speak to us, being refreshed by him? Wouldn’t it be great to receive from him the living water of which he speaks: “…whoever drinks of the water which I give to them will definitely not be thirsty again, but the water I will give to them will become in them a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.”
Eternal life has already begun when Jesus baptised you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is salvation—not only that we go to heaven when we die, but that we have true life now. The Apostle Peter said: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” (1 Peter 1:18-19).
This is why Jesus laid down his own life, for you: it would be upon Jesus that the curses of disobedience would fall—not on Mount Ebal, but Mount Golgotha, where God would pour out his wrath for unfaithfulness on his own Son. This is the work Jesus said he must finish, and even there at Sychar the hour is approaching when he who was thirsty at Jacob’s well would cry out “I thirst” as he hung from a Cross. By his shed blood on the Cross Jesus poured out forgiveness, life and salvation for all people.
We don’t have to travel to Sychar. We don’t have to go to Jacob’s well to get the living water that Jesus gives. The well of living water has come to us. It’s not just the woman at the well Jesus speaks to. He says to you today: “I, the one speaking to you, am he”. Jesus proclaims to you that he, the Saviour of the world, is your Christ too. He proclaims that he is your source of forgiveness, grace, mercy, peace, spiritual refreshment and fullness of life from God. Now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation. Now Jesus is here for you with living water. He promises that his Father will pour out the Holy Spirit to all who ask him (Luke 11:13). Come, Holy Spirit, and reign in our hearts, so that we leave our water jars and come to Jesus, to be filled with only the life he can give. Amen.
Pastor Tim Ebbs
St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Glenelg
Fourth Sunday in Lent, 2026
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
“The woman at Jacob’s well was so absorbed and captivated by what Jesus said to her that she hurried off to tell those in the town “Come, see a man who told to me all I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
- What picture do you have of the woman at the well? Is it a fair?
- What is it that you are deeply thirsty for right now?
- What ‘wells’ to you go to quench that thirst?
- Have these ‘wells’ satisfied your thirst?
- What is the problem with a ‘broken cistern’? Why might the image of ‘broken cisterns’ be an appropriate one for people in relation to God?
- Why does the woman rush back to the town after Jesus speaks with her?
- Do you find it easy or difficult to be excited by Jesus in your life? Why?
- What do you think Jesus means by worshipping in Spirit and in truth? How might this challenge our attitude to worship at present?
- How would your story of Jesus at work in your life sound? What would you say? Who can you tell it to?
- What is your water jar that you carry? What would it mean for you, to leave it behind?
