Lent@Landmark: Day 14

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri’s Christ and the Woman of Samaria at the Well

It’s a pretty quick change of subject!

Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back."

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 have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!"

The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem."

Jesus called out her situation, and there’s no way this stranger would have wandered along and known that! He must be a prophet of some kind—however, he’s just touched on some very personal, embarrassing business! So she asks him a logistical question about where people should worship.

Have you done that? Realized that you’ve been headed in the wrong direction? We’re you called on the carpet for it, but found a way to try and duck out of the conversation or hijack it and turn it in another direction?

We might occasionally find ways to save face, but Jesus gift to us is to save us from sin. And his gift is way better! —MH

PS. On this International Women’s Day, I invite you to consider a story closely related to that of the Woman at the Well. It is the interesting story from early Christian history of St. Photini, told by our brothers and sisters in the Greek Orthodox Church. Click here to meet St. Photini.