Most Jews would never have spoken to her, but Jesus did. He knew about her situation and her sin, but he offered her grace and the possibility of repentance. What does Jesus offer each of us today?

FIVE THINGS ABOUT JESUS
Stephen Hawking has unraveled some of the most puzzling secrets of the universe. When he was recently asked him what puzzled him the most, this was his answer: “Women: they are a complete mystery.” A lot of men would say “Amen” to that.

Albert Einstein admitted to never being able to fathom his own wife's inner thoughts. Now another giant-brained physicist has said the same thing. Stephen Hawking – the man who’s plumbed many of the mysteries of the universe said in an interview on his 70th birthday that the workings of the female mind were beyond his comprehension.
Men very often just don’t get it when it comes to women. But Jesus is in a class by himself. He understands our inner workings, he knows exactly how we think, what we feel, and more than that he knows how to reach our inner most being and heal us. Men and women.
Jesus was remarkable in the way he related to women as freely as he related to men. Janet and I are reading through the Gospel of Mark together. In chapter 3 Jesus is sitting with a group of followers when he gets word that his mother and brothers want to speak to him. He looks at the circle around him and says, “Here are my mother and brother. Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” Janet noticed what I didn’t notice – that Jesus added the word “sister”. Women were there with him in that circle. Mary sat at his feet and learned – something other rabbis wouldn’t have allowed. He commissioned Mary Magdalene as the first evangelist to bring the news of his resurrection.
There are many examples of Jesus relating freely to women in a way that was startling in his culture but perhaps none so startling as the story of the woman at the well. Albert Einstein and Stephen Harking might consider women the greatest mystery of the universe but not Jesus. He understands us all better than we understand ourselves. He can plumb the depths of our hearts and heal us at the point of our deepest pain.
John 4.4 Now he (Jesus) had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “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.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “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 flocks and herds?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is 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 a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
There are five beautiful things we need to notice about Jesus from this story.

1. The first thing to notice is the humanness of Jesus.
As Christians we know Jesus is fully God and we worship him as God. John starts out his Gospel making this point. John 1.1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
But this Word that was God, this One who existed from all eternity, who MADE us – he has become one of us. Jesus is fully human. He’s bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. He feels what we feel. He’s tired. He’s thirsty. The One who created water and gathered it into the clouds above and the sea below is thirsty like you and like me.
I don’t know how to fully express the sweetness of this – Jesus is our Lord, our God, all we need – life itself – it all comes to us from him. And yet he’s also one of us, a human being like us – our brother.
Over and over again in the Scriptures the Lord says, “I will be with you.” But then in Isaiah 7:14 there’s a strange promise – “The woman will be with child and give birth and his name will be “God with us” “Immanuel.” No one could have imagined what that actually meant until it actually happened. God was born as one of us. He’s entered into a kinship with us that’s so complete he can look around at us and say, “Here is my mother, my sister, my brother.”
2. The second thing to notice is that Jesus recognizes no barriers.
From the standpoint of that culture the fact that he’s talking to a Samaritan is astounding. Both Jewish and Samaritan religious leaders taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group. Neither was supposed to enter each other's territories or even speak to each another. But Jesus just walks into this Samaritan territory, sits down at the well -- alone – because his disciples are off getting some food -- and engages a Samaritan woman in conversation. She’s shocked by it. “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”
There are just no barriers for Jesus.
He doesn’t recognize barriers. He goes wherever he wants to go – and he wants to go everywhere. Later in this story he tells his disciples that he’s gathering a great harvest for his Father and he tells them to look and see that “The fields are ripe for harvest.” The shocking thing is that he’s telling them to look at this Samaritan. She is the harvest – the harvest that’s making his Father rejoice – that’s making all of heaven rejoice.
But Jesus isn’t just seeking out a Samaritan – he’s seeking out a Samaritan woman. There are lots of cultures around the world where we would feel the shock of this more than we do in the West -- many cultures where women are non-entities – where education is just for men. Women aren’t expected to use their minds – they aren’t included in the conversations when it comes to matters of learning. But Jesus clearly doesn’t subscribe to this practice. We learn some for the deepest theological truths in the Scripture from listening in on his conversation with this woman.
And what we learn is that God has removed the barriers. There had been a barrier between Jews and Gentiles – a legitimate God-established barrier. There had been a barrier between God and man. But now God is removing the barriers.
There were all kinds of barriers in the temple. Gentiles kept at a distance. Women kept at a distance. Eunuchs and lepers, kept at a distance. Even Jewish men who could go in a little further met a barrier. Jesus is bringing a word of profound good news to this woman – Things have changed! From now on the Father is seeking worshippers who will worship him in Spirit and in truth. There’re volumes of theology packed into his words but the most mind-blowing one is that God has come to us – in Jesus – past all the barriers. He’s broken through them and he’s come seeking us – in Jesus. He wants us to be his true worshippers and we can worship in his very presence without fear – because of Jesus. He’s given us his Spirit and his truth – through Jesus.
3. The third thing to notice about Jesus from this story is that he knows us.
This woman was probably out at the well alone at midday because she’d been ostracized from her community because of her immoral lifestyle. She’d had lots of husbands and now she is living with a guy she isn’t even married to. If Jesus hadn’t brought this up she would have gone home thinking, “If he really knew me he wouldn’t have been talking to me.” But Jesus knows us. He knows the hidden, shameful things and he knows they’re like a tell-tale heart – always creating fear and shame and alienation. He goes deep to those places – and he brings everything out into the open so can heal it with his love and cleanse it with his forgiveness. Only Jesus can do this.
4. The fourth thing to notice is that Jesus is making the most beautiful offer the world has ever heard.
Simply, directly, personally – he offers her what he has to give – which is nothing less than life itself. He tells her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
A dusty hot afternoon, everybody else off doing something else and the Son of God tells this woman the news the world has been waiting to hear since the fall at the dawn of time. I have the water. I have the water that will satisfy your deep spiritual thirst. I have the water that will make you live. And I will give it to you.
Later on John tells us the water Jesus is talking about is the Holy Spirit -- the thirst-quenching, life-giving Holy Spirit. What we’re really thirsting for is the living God. We’ve been thirsting for him since we lost him and started drinking at other wells. That’s what the woman had been doing. Without him life is dry and dusty and no matter how often we drink we get thirsty again. But Jesus came to give us living water so we’ll never be thirsty again. He’s here to make us an offer of something so wonderful we can’t possibly refuse it – and yet we do. “Lord, give me this water.” The woman knew the right response to Jesus’ offer and we need to follow her lead. “Lord, give me this water.”
The fifth thing and final thing I think we should notice from this story is that Jesus is the bridegroom and he’s come for his bride.
This woman is a picture of all of us who belong to Jesus and God’s Word tells us that we are his bride. All through the bible men find their brides at wells. Jesus was sitting at Jacob’s well and Jacob met the love of his life – Rachel – at a well. Isaac met Rebecca at a well. Moses met his wife at a well. And here is Jesus, at a well, seeking his bride – his church – and that includes all of us – men and women. We’re his bride.
John starts out his gospel with the story of a wedding feast. The wedding party was sitting at the table celebrating when the wine ran out. This was a serious matter of shame in that culture. Jesus and his disciples were there as guests along with his mother Mary and she tells the host of the party to tell Jesus about the problem. Jesus solves it by turning huge jars of water into wine – the best wine – and the party goes on.
But before he does this miracle he tells Mary that “his time has not come.” The time is coming when Jesus himself will take a bride. A few verses later we learn that John the Baptist understands this. He says, John 3.29, “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.”
Jesus came seeking his bride and he’s still seeking her. And someday he’ll have his own wedding feast. The John who wrote this Gospel wrote the last book of the bible – Revelation. There’s a beautiful description of what’s ahead of us as his people in Revelation 19.7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.”

The most beautiful thing we need to notice and remember about Jesus is the deep passion of his love for his bride. He is called the Lamb because he shed his blood so we could drink wine at the wedding party. He gave his body so we could feast at the wedding party. He gave himself because he wants us to be united to him forever in an unbreakable bond of love.