Jesus's Diary

The Woman at the Well

I left Judea and I went straight back to Galilee. To get to Galilee, I had to go through Samaria. I had learned that the Pharisees had heard that I was gaining and baptizing more disciples than my cousin John, but I wasn't the one who baptized, but it was my disciples. As I was in Samaria, I came across a town called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and I approached it, tired from the long journey I had ventured. I remembered it was around noon, the sun scorching hot, I felt the sweat running down the side of my face as I sat down under the shade that the well provided. I was left alone because my disciples went to get food from the town.
Not long before I had been sitting there, a samaritan woman came to draw water. Before she could draw water, I spoke to her, "Will you give me a drink?"
She looked at me dumbfounded. "Aren't you a Jew and I'm a Samaritan woman? How can you ask me for a drink?"
My gaze softened. "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
She cocked her head to the side, confused. "Sir," she started, "You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?"
I pondered her questions for a moment. I stared intently into her eyes. "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again," I said as I gestured to the well, "but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
Her eyes slightly widened at my response. She looked around to see if anyone was there, as if anyone else had heard what I said. "What? If this is true, then please give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
"Go call your husband and come back," I told her.
"I'm sorry sir, but I have no husband."
I scoffed, knowing the truth. "You are right when you say you don't have a husband. The truth of the matter is that you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
Her mouth dropped open. Her eyes were wide. I didn't say anything. I just gently smiled at her. "I-" she stammered, "But sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is Jerusalem."
I chuckled softly. Not in a mocking way, but in a way where I found this Samaritan woman amusing. "Woman, believe me, there is going to be a time coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet there is going to be a time, a time coming, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."
The woman huffed in disbelief. She shook her head. "I know that the Messiah is coming, and when he comes, he will explain everything to us."
I stared at her intently. My voice became serious, yet it was laced with gentleness,"I, the one speaking to you-I am he."