Restoration
When you read the account in John four of the woman at the well you have to understand the Jewish people had customs different from today. Men did not carry a deep conversation with women, just cordial conversation. The Jewish people did not like the Samaritan and would not socialize with them.
In those days a woman or men we shunned from a community if they would leave their spouse and take another. The Bible calls the adultery and is against the guideline God gave Him people. If a person did this the communities would not talk to them and ignore them the community would not trust or believe a person with a type of lifestyle.
Jesus encounter this woman at well just outside of the town of Samaria called Sychar. This woman was coming to the well alone in the middle of the day to get some water. Her life choices either out of desperation or by desire have caused to shunned and had a poor reputation by the town people. So Jesus was going against all the social norms to reach this hurting person.
Jesus began by requesting a drink and explained to her about living water that “who drinks will never thirst again”. Jesus asks for her to go and get her husband.
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
John 4:16-18 ESV
She acknowledges that he was a prophet and as any of us she wanted to change the subject so she asked Him about worship. After he explained about God is a spirit and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth. Then Jesus did something he had not done before, He proclaimed himself the Christ.
So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
John 4:28-29 ESV
She came for water and left without natural water but the living water. I can not believe how hard she had to tell the people that won’t listen to her or believe her. She did not let the rejection of the past stop her, she must have been persistent. A can imagine slow one then another had their spirit come alive until they started to come out to see for themselves. Now the was speaking to her as a person.
And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.
John 4:41-42 ESV
Jesus did not just restore the woman spirit, he also restored her reputation.
We all think at times of ourselves as being lower or of poor reputation. Jesus uses a person like this to be his first evangelist, a woman with a degree, pour reputation to spread the goodness of God.
APPLICATION
- Know that Jesus wants to give you this same living water not just for you but to spread to others.
- No matter your status Jesus desirer to use you.