The passage
      v1-6. The Pharisees note that Jesus' disciples are baptizing more people than John and so Jesus moves out of the danger zone of Judea, northward through Samaria to Galilee. Going via Samaria was the best way to avoid danger. The Samaritans were Jews who interbred with imported foreigners after the fall of Samaria to the Assyrians in 722BC and so were despised by pure-blood Jews.
      v7-15. Resting by a well, Jesus asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. She is taken back by the request, given that Jews would not normally drink from the same utensil as a Samaritan. Jesus points out that she is the one who should be asking for a drink, not water as such, but "living water." The Samaritan woman assumes Jesus means running water. Does Jesus think he is greater than Jacob who gave the village this well? There is no fresh running creek nearby, or a subterranean stream attached to the well. Jesus points out that with his "living water" a person will never thirst again, for it is the water of life eternal. The woman still fails to understand, thinking that Jesus is promising some magical water that will overcome thirst. She would be happy to have some of this water and so never have to slave at this well ever again.
      v16-26. Jesus tries a different tack by asking to see her husband. She admits she has none and Jesus confirms the truth of her answer, given that she has lived with five men and that her present partner is not really her husband. The woman assumes that Jesus must be a prophet and so seeks to have him sort out a long-standing quarrel between the Jews and the Samaritans over the authenticity of the temple of the Jews at Jerusalem and the temple of the Samaritans at Mount Gerizim. Jesus points out that the Jews have it right, but the time is coming when a new and radical means of approach to God renders any human sanctuary irrelevant. God is Spirit, and those enlivened with the Spirit (sustained by living water, washed with the Spirit, born anew) can approach God through the indwelling Spirit of Christ, in the truth of Christ. The woman recognizes that the coming messiah will reveal such truth. Jesus discloses, "I who speak to you am he."
      v27-38. The Samaritan woman accepts Jesus' self disclosure. For her, Jesus is the messiah, the source of the life-giving Spirit of God. Having found the source of life eternal she runs off to tell the other villagers. Meanwhile, the disciples return from the village and try to get Jesus to eat something, but he is overcome by the response of a woman outside the covenant family of Israel. Jesus came to fulfill the Father's plan to gather a people to himself. In real life there is an interval between sowing and harvest, yet here Jesus has sowed the seed of the gospel and a Samaritan woman has immediately responded in faith.
      v39-42. The confession "Saviour of the world" appears only here and in 1John 4:14. Jesus is not just saviour of Israel, but of Samaritans and Gentiles. In this passage, we see Jesus as saviour of the world, a foretaste of the Samaritan and later the Gentile mission of the early church. The prophets have done their work and so has Jesus, and soon his disciples will reap the harvest.

Living Water
      The image of life-giving water found in our passage for study comes from Ezekiel 47:1-12. The prophet Ezekiel sees a river flowing from the new temple, starting as a trickle from the sanctuary, running out of the temple and becoming a great river, and "where the river flows everything will live."
      Life is lived at the material level. We love, enjoy, experience.... yet this is more existing than living. Existence is a bitter/sweet proposition, certainly more sweet than bitter for those living in Western Society. Living, on the other hand, is ultimately found on another level, a level where we experience true life, real life, a life lived with God, a life infused with the divine presence, filled with the Spirit of God. Yet, where will we find this "living water" such that we will never thirst again? John reminds us that Christ is the source of this authentic life.