Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

Oh, the love and grace with which God reaches out to us!

I am deeply touched as I meditate on the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4. Here is a woman who is a gentile and an immoral woman. She is a sinner like all of us. The Lord Jesus knows who she is and everything that she had done. He also knows that Jews do not associate with such people.

Here she is coming at noon to fetch water. Most probably other women are distancing themselves from her and she is coming all alone. To her surprise the Lord Jesus does not treat her with contempt like other people do. Instead He asks her for water. This surprises her so much that she asks Him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”

Jesus answers her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
John 4:10

From the Lord Jesus’ response, we see that, more than just not distancing himself from her, He is reaching out to her, to give her living water and eternal life.

Dear friends, this shows us the love and grace of God to each one of us. We are all just like this Samaritan woman. We were all born in sin and hence were defiled from birth. That already is enough reason for God to distance Himself from us. But on top of that, just like this woman, we are sinners who have purposefully sinned time and time again. We deserve being treated with contempt by God. Yet God does not distance Himself from us. He reaches out to us with love, mercy and compassion. He came down to this earth and associated with sinful people just like us. He died for our sins so that by believing in Him, we can have eternal life (John 3:16).

Dear friend, even now God is reaching out to you, just like He reached out to this Samaritan woman, offering you living water. No matter how defiled you might be or feel. No matter how unworthy you feel. God loves you. God wants to accept you as His son or daughter. Please accepting the gift of God’s salvation by putting your faith in Christ Jesus.

Paul puts it so nicely, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15).

In John 7:37-38, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'”