Give me a Drink

The roads were dusty, and Jesus was thirsty as he walked to Galilee. He sat down near Jacob’s well, and did an unthinkable thing for a Jewish man – He spoke to a despised pagan Samaritan, and a woman, at that!

Jesus began His conversation with a bold request: "Give me a drink." And almost immediately He goes to a spiritual topic: "living water." This woman had two strikes against her: First, she was born into a Samaritan family; and second, she fails at one marriage after another.

I’m sure that Jesus knew this when He spoke to her, but He didn’t focus on her failures or her sins. He recognized her as a person, a person with a bucket to draw water from Jacob's well.

Jesus didn’t ignore her because of her ethnicity or her sinful life. Jesus didn’t condemn her because of her adultery. Instead, He affirms her by saying, "... and he whom you have is not your husband." As they talk, her life unfolds, and finally she exclaims that Jesus must be a prophet.

After this brief encounter with Jesus, she rushed back into Sychar, shouting, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" She didn’t flee from one who knew all her sins.

I need your help to share God’s love here on Skid Row, for He alone, is “living water.”

Blessings,

Willie Jordan