Discourse with the Samaritan woman.

(Matt. 4:12; Mark 1:14; John 4:1-42).

All four Evangelists speak of the departure of the Lord to Galilee. Saints Matthew and Mark note that this happened after John had been incarcerated, while Saint John adds, that the reason for this was because of a report that Jesus was receiving and baptising more followers than John, although the Evangelist explains that Christ Himself was not baptising them, but His Disciples. After John’s confinement, all the Pharisee hatred focused on Jesus, Who to them appeared more dangerous than the Baptist. As His time for suffering had not arrived, Jesus leaves Judea and goes to Galilee, in order to avert persecution by His envious enemies. Only Evangelist John narrates Christ’s conversation with the Samaritan woman that occurred on the way to Galilee.

The Lord’s route lay through Samaria — a district located north of Judea and formerly belonging to three tribes of Israel: Dan, Ephraim and Manasseh. There was a town in this district called Samaria — Israel’s former capital. The Assyrian king Salmanassar conquered the Israelites and led them away to bondage, replacing the population with heathens from Babylon and other places. The mixture of these settlers with the remaining Jews created the Samaritans. They accepted the Five Books of Moses, worshipped Jehovah — as well as their own gods. When the Jews returned from their Babylonian bondage and started to erect the temple of Jerusalem, the Samaritans also wanted to join them in their endeavours. However, the Jews refused them, so they erected their own temple on Mt. Gerizim. While accepting the Books of Moses, the Samaritans rejected the writings of the Prophets and all the traditions. Because of this, the Jews’ attitude toward them was worse than to heathens, avoiding contact with them in every way possible, loathing and despising them.

Passing through Samaria, the Lord with His Disciples paused to rest near a well, which according to tradition, was dug by Jacob in a township named Sychema — referred to by Saint John as Sychera. Possibly, the Evangelist was making fun at the name, restructuring it from the word “shikar” — “ply with wine,” or “sheker,” — “lie.” St. John points out that it was “about sixth hour” (noon — our time), time of extreme heat, which most probably was the reason for the stop. “A woman of Samaria came to draw water.” While the Disciples left for town to purchase some food, Christ turned to the Samaritan woman with a request: “Give Me a drink.” Recognising the Requestor (possibly by His clothing or manner of speech) as a Jew, the woman expressed her surprise in that He, being a Jew, is asking a Samaritan for water — bearing in mind the hatred and contempt that the Jews fostered toward the Samaritans. But Jesus, having come to earth to save everyone and not only Jews, explains to the woman that she would not be posing such questions if she knew Who she was talking to (“Gift of God”), and what great fortune God had sent her through this meeting. If she knew Who was asking her for a drink, then she herself would be asking Him to quench her spiritual thirst and reveal the mystery, which everybody is seeking to know: and He would have given her “living water,” which is meant to be understood as the grace of the Holy Spirit (see John 7:38).

The Samaritan woman misunderstood the Lord: she thought living water meant water found at the bottom of the well. That’s why she asked Jesus, where can she get living water if He hasn’t got anything to scoop it up with, whereas the well was deep. “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” (John 4:12). She then recollects patriarch Jacob with pride and love, as the one who left the use of the well to his offspring. The Lord then elevates her mind to the highest understanding of His words: “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13-14). In a spiritual life, the blessed water has a different effect than that of earthly water in physical living. He who is satiated with the grace of the Holy Spirit, will never feel the spiritual thirst, because all his spiritual needs have been satisfied; meanwhile, he who drinks physical water, as well as satisfying some other type of physical need, quenches his thirst for a time, and soon after “will thirst again.”

On top of that, the blessed water will dwell in the person, establishing a spring within him, gushing (literal translation from Greek) into eternal life, ie. making that person a communicant of eternal life. Still not understanding the Lord and thinking that He is speaking about ordinary water - only some special type which quenched thirst forever — she asks the Lord for some of this water, so as to be rid of the need to come to the well for water. Finally, in order to make her realise that she was speaking with no ordinary man, the Lord initially directs her to call her husband. Whereupon, He directly accuses her that while she had 5 husbands, she was now living in an adulterous union.

Realising that standing before her was a Prophet Who knows all that is concealed, the woman turns to Him for the resolution of a problem, which greatly tormented the Samaritans in their relationship with the Jews: who is correct in the argument as to where God is to be worshipped? Was it the Samaritans who, in following their forefathers that built a temple at Gerizim, worshipped Him on this mountain, or, was it the Jews that maintained that you could only worship God in Jerusalem? Basing themselves on Moses’s directive to deliver a blessing on this mountain, the Samaritans chose Mt.Gerizim for their worship. Although their temple that was erected there, was destroyed by John Hyrcanus in the year 130 BC, they continued to bring their sacrificial offerings to the location of the ruined temple. In responding to the woman’s question, the Lord explains that it is wrong to think that you can only worship God in one specific place — and the argumentative question between the Samaritans and the Jews will by itself, lose its meaning, because both types of church service — the Jewish as well as the Samaritans — will cease in the near future. This prophecy was realised when the Samaritans, decimated by wars, became disillusioned with the importance of their mountain, while Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans and the temple razed in the year 70 AD.

Nonetheless, the Lord gives His preference to the Jewish worship, having in mind of course, the fact that the Samaritans have accepted only the Pentateuch, rejecting the Prophets’ writings, which contained detailed description of the Personage and the Kingdom of the Messiah. But “salvation is of (will come from) the Jews,” inasmuch as the Redeemer comes from the Jewish people. Further, the Lord, in elaborating on His initial statement, points to that the “hour is coming, and now is” (after all the Messiah had already appeared) new times, the highest worship of God — which will not be constrained by some location, but will be everywhere, inasmuch as it be in spirit and truth. Only this type of worship is genuine, because it corresponds to the nature of God Himself, Who is Spirit. To worship God in spirit and truth means to endeavour to please God, not only in outward form but through a sincere and openhearted striving with all the strength of your spiritual being, toward God as a Spirit. Not through sacrificial offerings (which both the Jews and Samaritans were doing, as though this was the only way to honour God), but to know and love God - not falsely and hypocritically - wishing to gratify Him by fulfilling His commandments. Worshipping God in “Spirit and truth,” by no means excludes the outward, ritual side of honouring God, like some false teachers and sectarians attempt to affirm. But the main power is not contained in this outward side of God worship. The actual ceremony of worshiping God should not be seen as prejudicial: it is both essential and unavoidable, inasmuch as a human consists not only of spirit, but of flesh. Jesus Christ Himself physically worshipped God the Father, genuflecting and prostrating Himself on the ground, and not rejecting similar prostrations from people to Himself from people, during His life on earth (see examples: Matt. 2:11, 14:33, 15:25; John 11:32, 12:3; and many other examples in the Bible).

The Samaritan woman, somehow, begins to understand the meaning of Christ’s words and in her deliberations says: “I know that Messiah is coming (Who is called Christ). When He comes, He will tell us all things.” The Samaritans were also awaiting the Messiah, calling Him — GASHAGEB — basing their expectancy on the words in Genesis 49:10, and especially on Moses’s words in Deuteronomy 18:18). The Samaritans’ understanding of the Messiah was not as distorted as the Jews, because they saw in Him a Prophet and not a political figure. That’s why Jesus, in not calling Himself the Messiah before the Jews for a long time, directly says to this simple Samaritan woman that He is the Messiah-Christ promised by Moses: “I Who speak to you am Me.” Elated with joy from seeing the Messiah, the woman drops her water-pot near the well and hurries into town to announce to everybody the arrival of the Messiah, He to Whom all hearts are open and Who revealed to her all her past actions. Just then, His Disciples arrived and were surprised to find their Teacher conferring with a woman, inasmuch as this was condemned by the rules of the Jewish rabbis, who directed: “Do not speak for long with a woman” and “nobody should talk to a woman on the road, even with a lawful woman” and also: “It is better to burn the words of the law, than to teach them to a woman.” However, being reverent to their Teacher, the Disciples did not in any way voice their amazement and just asked Him to taste the food that they brought.

Although Jesus-Man’s natural feelings of hunger were stifling His happiness over the Samaritan people’s conversion to Him, He was joyous that the seeds sown by Him had begun to produce a crop. That’s why He refused to satisfy His hunger and replied to His Disciples that the real food for Him was carrying out the task of saving humanity, a task conferred upon Him by God the Father. The Samaritan inhabitants that came to Him, are visualised by Christ as a cornfield, ripe for harvest — whereas in the fields, the harvest is ready only after four months. Ordinarily, he who sows the seeds collects the harvest: with the sowing of seeds in the soul, the spiritual harvest, more often than not, goes to others. Here however, the sower rejoices with the harvester, because he did not sow for himself but for others. That is why Christ states that He is sending His Apostles to collect the harvest in the spiritual field, which initially was not prepared and sown by them, but others — Old Testament Prophets and by He Himself. During this explanatory conversation, the Samaritans approached the Lord. While many believed in Him “because of the word of the woman,” many more of them believed “because of His own word,” when by their invitation, He stayed with them in the city for two days. In listening to the Lord’s teachings — by their own admission — the were convinced that “this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”