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Scripture

John 4:1-30

Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself didn’t baptize, but his disciples), he left Judea and departed into Galilee.He needed to pass through Samaria. So he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there.Jesus therefore, being tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.The Samaritan woman therefore said to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. So where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his children and his livestock?”Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I don’t get thirsty, neither come all the way here to draw.”Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”The woman answered, “I have no husband.”Jesus said to her, “You said well, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.”Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who speaks to you.”Just then, his disciples came. They marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, “What are you looking for?” or, “Why do you speak with her?”So the woman left her water pot, went away into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything that I have done. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the city, and were coming to him.

Scripture from the World English Bible (WEB), public domain.

Reflection

Have you ever been alone at the well—arriving at an hour when no one else will come.The sun is high.
The air is still.
You carry your jar.And your story.He is there—waiting.And then—He tells you everything.Not in accusation, not in shame, but in truth.He sees you.
Completely.All you have carried.
All you have hidden.
All that has been done,
and all you have done.Still—He speaks with you.
Still—He invites you.The weight you brought is no longer what matters most.You set down your jar.You leave it behind.Where in your life do you feel most known—and most afraid of being known?What are you still carrying that you were never meant to hold onto?And what might happen if you left it—and went to tell others about the One who knows you completely, and loves you still?