In the Spring, I started a journey with the woman at the well that sparked so much inside of me. I kept going back to the scripture of her story and I kept mulling it over in my head. Something wasn't sitting right with me. All the times I had heard her story being taught, it seemed legit that she was scandalous and we like scandalous women. But I don't think this woman was scandalous at all. She was broken. Broken beyond the ability to see what was the point in love...what was the point in trusting men. As I sat with that woman at the well, I met myself and a new vision of her.
Her story is in John. John 4:7-30 to be exact. You are welcome to go read it but I'm going to paraphrase. Jesus is hanging out at a well in the middle of the day...like the hottest part of the day. And there was no Southern sweet tea and fans to pass the time. It was hot and dusty and yucky. And Jesus is hanging out by the well, which Jacob had dug, and I find that to be somewhat poetic since Jesus is in the lineage of Jacob. This Samaritan woman comes along, and Jesus, being a Jew, definitely wouldn't have had anything to do with her because there was a social system in order that said Samaritans were lesser than Jews. But Jesus was always tearing down social norms and giving the structures men like to put in place a good ol' heave ho right out the window and this situation was no different, asked the woman for a drink. Stunned, the woman bantered with Jesus about the water and being thirsty. Jesus promised her that she could never be thirsty again and she indeed wanted that type of fulfillment. Then Jesus asked her to go get her husband. She replied that she has no husband. Scandalous. Then Jesus says,"you're right. You have had 5 husbands and the man you're living with isn't your husband." Scandalous. Or is she??
Sitting with this woman, I learned so much about her heart. See a woman back then who had 5 husbands and was living with a man most likely had suffered losses you and I can only imagine. Divorce wasn't rampant then like it is today, it wasn't socially acceptable or common. But mortality in those days was high and so I think that the woman probably lost 4 of those husbands to death. 4x a widow....4 times of investing your heart and it being ripped away in such final merciless ways. Then the 5th husband...well, she only most likely tried again because of shear survival. Women had no rights and no way of taking care of themselves well in those times. A man wants to own his woman and what woman who has faced widowhood over and over has anything left to give emotionally? So it would make sense for a 5th husband to kick her to the curb and divorce her. She wasn't scandalous, she was broken.
She went at noon day instead of early morning with the other women. Scandalous. I have always heard it was because of her shame. Shame. Ha!! Maybe she was just siiiiiiiiick and tiiiiiiiiired of alllllllll the other married chicks hen pecking about their prefect little lives and their happy marriages and how their husbands were this and that. Maybe she just didn't want to listen to the banter of women, who walked around cluelessly at how much the heart can break. Maybe she just needed the quiet. Maybe she just needed the chance to meet the Savior. She wasn't scandalous, she was broken.
And I notice that Jesus never once says anything about sinning. He never told her to go and sin no more like he did the adulterous woman. He never told her to turn from her ways or stop what she was doing. He only gave her HOPE. He only promised her a drink from a Well that would give her life and she would never need more. Life. What she needed was life and a refreshened hope that there was more to this dried up place. She wasn't scandalous. She was no longer broken. She had met the Christ and knew that there was hope.
