John 4:1–26
Introduction: Thirst in a Land of Lions
When Jesus sat down at Jacob’s well in the heat of the day, He was stepping into more than a chance encounter. He was stepping into centuries of history, a history that had left Samaria spiritually parched. It was here that He met the Samaritan woman; a woman with five husbands. To understand how important this moment is, we need to do two things; learn the history of the area and go back to the Old Testament to see the importance of how the Samaritan woman’s past aligns with the past of the area in which she lived.
We hear about this area of Isreal in 2 Kings 17:24-28, we read that after the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria, the king of Assyria transplanted five nations into the land: people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim. Each brought their own gods, their own altars, their own rituals. It was a religion of mixture. Yahweh was acknowledged, but not obeyed. They had the temple traditions of Israel mixed with pagan worship. The text says: 25 When they first settled there, they did not worship the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them that killed some of them.
This shocking judgment led the king to send back an exiled priest to teach them “how to worship the Lord” (2 Kings 17:27). But even then, their worship remained compromised: “They neither worshiped the Lord nor adhered to the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands the Lord gave… They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their idols” (2 Kings 17:33–34).
Let’s not look over the picture painted here. We have false gods of this world being brought into the holy land at Bethel, the same place that Jacob saw the Lord at the top of the ziggurat and what does God send in to drive out the false gods? Lions from Judah.
This was the soil from which the Samaritans emerged. A people with Jacob’s bloodline in their story, Jacob’s well in their land, but a faith that had long been entangled with idols. To the Jews of Jesus’ day, Samaritans were unclean, untrustworthy, and unwelcome. They were the product of compromise.
Remember that the land of Israel is a long strip running north to south. At the top was Galilee, where towns like Nazareth and Capernaum sat around the Sea of Galilee. At the bottom was Judea, home to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. And in between those two regions lay Samaria—a middle land, both geographically and culturally.
Its capital city was also called Samaria. Built by King Omri nearly 900 years before Christ, it rose on a hill overlooking the valleys. Later, Herod the Great rebuilt it in honor of Caesar Augustus and renamed it Sebaste. By Jesus’ time, the name “Samaria” referred not only to the city but to the whole region.
The heart of Samaria was a hill country, stretching from the Jezreel Valley in the north down toward Bethel in the south, and from the Jordan River in the east out toward the coastal plain in the west. It was fertile, rugged, and strategically located.
Here’s why this mattered: any Jew traveling from Galilee to Judea had a choice. The shortest route was straight through Samaria. But because of centuries of hostility, many Jews would avoid it altogether—crossing east over the Jordan River, traveling south, and then back west, just to steer clear of Samaritan soil.
Sadly that is the case even today. While in the first century they referred to this area of the country Samaria, today we call it the West Bank. You see, the area is still ostracized and separate from the rest of Israel even today. Contested ground that is set apart and avoided, the home of the “less-thans.”
That’s why John’s Gospel makes such a point when it says of Jesus, “He had to go through Samaria.” Geographically, He didn’t have to. Spiritually, He did. He chose the road most Jews avoided. He chose the land most Jews despised. And He chose to sit down at a Samaritan well, in a Samaritan town, with a Samaritan woman.
And into this tangled history, Jesus walks. He sits at Jacob’s well, weary and thirsty, and meets a Samaritan woman who embodies not only personal shame but also a people’s spiritual thirst. Her five marriages echo her people’s five nations; her brokenness mirrors their syncretism. She comes with her jar to draw water that will only satisfy for a moment. But Jesus has come to offer something else entirely—living water.
The history of Samaria reminds us: you can acknowledge God and still live thirsty. You can go through rituals but never be filled. You can draw from wells that never quench your soul. And Jesus comes not just to debate religion, but to offer Himself as the One who satisfies forever.
Point 1: Jesus demonstrates that He calls us to breaks barriers
John 4:4 says, “Now He had to go through Samaria.” The Greek word is δεῖ (dei), which means “it was necessary.” Geographically, it wasn’t. Jews usually avoided Samaria, traveling around rather than through it. But spiritually, it was. Jesus had a divine appointment with one woman who would become the doorway to a whole city and allow Him to be relatable to the entire world.
Consider the barriers Jesus crosses:
– Ethnic: Jews had no dealings with Samaritans.
– Gender: A Jewish rabbi speaking alone with a woman was scandalous.
– Moral: This woman had five husbands and now lived with a man not her husband.
Yet Jesus doesn’t avoid her. He engages her. He asks for a drink. This was no small thing—He was willing to drink from her jar, something unthinkable for a Jew. He is already showing her: “I will meet you where you are. Your brokenness doesn’t make Me withdraw.”
John Wesley commented: “Christ came into the world to save sinners, to seek and save that which was lost: and He begins with this poor, despised, sinful woman.”
And to understand just how broken this woman was in the eyes of her people we have to understand the impact of the five husbands. You see the bible never says that the five men who she was married to divorced her even though many people assume that is the case given the conversation that is recorded in this scripture. What is important is that the woman had five previous husbands who either died or divorced her, and as a result she would have exceeded the traditional limit of three husbands in Jewish law (according to the rabbinic text Babylonian Talmud). It’s because of this that many scholars have rendered the possibility that none of the five was a legal husband just as the current man is not her husband. It also shows why Jesus would have wanted to talk to her about her place before God.
How many times do we do the same however. We look at a person through the lens of our own perceptions and apply to them guilt or sins to which they do not belong. We do not know for sure that the woman was divorced five times and yet this becomes the narrative of this poor woman’s legacy.
Interestingly enough, the woman does the same thing. In verse 20 she makes the comment “you people say” where she in turn is assigning the talk track she has heard throughout time to Jesus; presenting it as fact when in reality Jesus had to gently redirect this misunderstanding to a picture of what was truly to come.
Jesus still meets us in places of shame. He still crosses barriers to reach us. No one is too far, too broken, or too forgotten for Him to come and say, “Give Me a drink.” You see, Jesus didn’t avoid Samaria. He went there because one thirsty soul needed Him and He wasn’t going to allow temporal norms to interrupt the holiday mission.
Point 2: The Gift of Living Water
It matters that this meeting takes place at Jacob’s well. This well stood as a reminder of God’s provision in the past, but also as a symbol of the limits of human solutions. A well can quench thirst for a moment, but it cannot stop you from being thirsty again.
That’s why Jeremiah’s words ring in the background of this scene: “My people have committed two evils: they have abandoned Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer. 2:13). The woman comes with her jar to Jacob’s well—a place of history, but not a place of lasting life. Her whole story is one of broken cisterns. Five men, none of whom have given her security. A heritage of faith mixed with idols. A thirst that will not go away.
And Jesus looks at her jar and offers something radically different: “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 will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13–14).
Do you see the exchange? Jeremiah’s cracked cisterns—leaky, fragile, leaving you empty—are being replaced with Christ’s living water: fresh, overflowing, eternal. She has spent her life returning to wells that cannot satisfy, but now the fountain Himself sits before her.
Jacob’s well was deep, reliable, and historically significant. It was more than a water source; it was a marker of identity. “Our father Jacob gave us this well,” the woman reminds Jesus (John 4:12). For her, the well was proof that Samaritans too had a claim to Israel’s heritage.
But even Jacob’s well could not quench thirst forever. Water drawn in the morning would be gone by night. The bucket lowered today would need lowering again tomorrow. Jacob’s well was good, but it was not ultimate.
Jeremiah had already named the problem centuries earlier. The people of Israel abandoned the fountain—the living God—and traded Him for cisterns of their own making. In Hebrew, the word for cistern is bôr (בּוֹר). It could mean a reservoir carved into stone, but also a pit, a prison, a grave. It carried both the promise of life and the threat of death. And Jeremiah says these cisterns were cracked. They leaked. They could not hold.
This woman’s jar is a cistern in miniature. She brings it every day. She lowers it down. She hauls it up. She fills it, she drinks, and then tomorrow she must do it all again. The cycle never ends, because cisterns never satisfy. They give just enough to keep you going, but never enough to set you free.
That is the backdrop to Jesus’ words. He is not dismissing Jacob. He is showing the fulfillment of Jacob. The God who once provided water in the wilderness now offers Himself as the fountain.
The Samaritan woman embodies Jeremiah’s warning. Her personal life mirrors her people’s national history.
Five husbands. One more man. Each relationship a cistern she hoped would hold. Each one cracked. Each one leaking. Each one leaving her emptier than before. The number itself is striking. After Assyria conquered the northern kingdom, they transplanted five nations into Samaria—Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim (2 Kings 17:24). Each brought its gods. Each planted its idols. Samaria became a land of five false husbands, spiritually speaking, compromised and cracked.
So this woman stands at the well as the face of her people: fractured, entangled, thirsty. Her shame is not only personal; it is generational. She is not just a woman with failed relationships; she is Samaria personified.
And here is the grace of Jesus. He meets her there. He does not wait for her to fix her past. He does not demand that she first patch her cistern. He sits at the well of her compromise and offers Himself as the fountain.
Listen again to His words: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst” (John 4:13–14).
He names the futility first. “This water”—the well water, the jar water, the cistern water—will always leave you thirsty. It is not evil; it is insufficient. No matter how deep the well, no matter how heavy the jar, it cannot last.
Then He names the promise. “The water I give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The Greek word for spring is pēgē (πηγή)—a source, a fountain, an origin. The word for “welling up” is hallomai (ἁλλομαι)—leaping, bubbling, bursting forth. This is not stagnant. This is alive. It is living water because it comes from the living God.
Point 3: From Living Water to True Worship
Notice how the conversation shifts. The woman appeals to Jacob: “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well?” (John 4:12). This is not just curiosity; it is a heritage question, an identity question. For Samaritans, Jacob’s well was proof that they belonged to God’s story.
But Jesus does not linger on Jacob. He surpasses him. Jacob gave a well. Jesus gives a spring. Jacob’s water sustained a people for a season. Jesus’ water creates a people for eternity.
This is the rhythm of John’s Gospel. Again and again, what was partial is made perfect, what was temporary is made eternal. Water jars at Cana are filled and transformed into wine. The temple in Jerusalem is replaced by the temple of Christ’s body. The bronze serpent lifted in the wilderness is fulfilled in the Son of Man lifted on the cross. The pattern is clear: the old points forward, the new fulfills.
And here at Jacob’s well, the pattern continues. The well gives way to the fountain. The jar to the spring. The cistern to the source of life itself.
“Sir, give me this water,” she replies, “so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw” (John 4:15).
Her words are hesitant, half-understanding and half-misunderstanding. She still imagines physical water, still thinks in terms of jars and wells. Yet she longs for what He offers, even if she does not yet grasp it.
And this is grace. Jesus does not wait for perfect comprehension before He gives Himself. He meets half-formed faith with perfect mercy. He takes even a flicker of desire and fans it into flame.
This is how He has always worked. Nicodemus did not fully understand what it meant to be born again. The lame man at Bethesda did not even know who it was who healed him. The blind man in John 9 could only say, “I was blind, but now I see.” Understanding grows with encounter. The Samaritan woman begins in confusion but will soon become a witness.
By the end of the story, something remarkable happens. She leaves her jar behind. The very reason she came to the well is forgotten. She runs into the town and cries out, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (John 4:29).
The jar left at the well is more than a detail. It is a symbol. She no longer clings to the vessel that defined her daily burden. She no longer depends on the cracked container that kept her returning again and again. She has found the source. What once dictated her trip to the well now sits abandoned, because she has met the One who is the living water.
Her thirst has turned into testimony. Her shame has become proclamation. The woman who avoided her neighbors now runs to them, because what overflowed within her could not be contained. The fountain had begun to leap inside her.
Jeremiah’s broken cisterns still stand as warnings to every generation. Religion without God leaks. Heritage without faith leaks. Effort without grace leaks. They hold for a season, then fail.
But Jesus’ living water stands as promise. It is not earned, not dug, not plastered, not patched. It is given. It flows. It satisfies. It leaps into eternal life.
Augustine captured it well: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Every cistern leaks because it is not Him. Every spring flows because it is Him.
This whole conversation at the well points toward worship. The woman shifts the topic in verse 20: “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” She is still thinking in terms of geography—worship contained, worship defined by location, worship dependent on the vessel rather than the source.
But Jesus points her beyond: “A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (vv. 21, 23).
The phrase ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ (en pneumati kai alētheia) means worship empowered by the Spirit and aligned with God’s truth. No longer tethered to Gerizim or Jerusalem, worship is anchored in Christ Himself.
Gail O’Day explains: “For John, the place of worship has shifted from sacred geography to the presence of Jesus himself. To worship in Spirit and truth is to worship in the reality made available in Jesus.”
In other words, the question is no longer “Where must I go to worship?” but “Whom do I know in worship?” The living water within becomes the worship without. The fountain inside overflows in adoration.
Then comes the climax. The woman speaks of the Messiah: “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” And Jesus declares: “I, the one speaking to you—I am he” (John 4:25–26).
The Greek phrase is ἐγώ εἰμι (egō eimi)—literally, “I Am.” It is the divine name revealed to Moses at the burning bush. The God who once said, “I Am who I Am” (Exod. 3:14), now sits at Jacob’s well and says, “I Am He.”
The living water is not just a gift. It is a Person. The fountain is not just an image. It is the Messiah Himself. Worship in Spirit and truth flows not from a mountain or a temple, but from the presence of the great I Am.
So what is true worship? It is not about external forms or sacred geography. It is not about wells, jars, mountains, or temples. True worship is knowing Jesus, being filled with His Spirit, and living in His truth.
When we gather as a church, our worship is not confined to the building. It flows because the Spirit lives in us. When we scatter into the world, our worship does not cease. It continues in how we live, love, and serve, because worship is not a place we go but a life we live in Christ.
The Samaritan woman teaches us that worship begins where living water overflows. Her jar left at the well is a picture of what we leave behind when we encounter Christ: the cracked vessels, the leaking cisterns, the endless cycles of thirst. We step into a new reality where our souls are satisfied, our lives are transformed, and our worship rises in Spirit and in truth.
“True worship isn’t about where you go. It’s about Who you know.”
Conclusion: Come, Drink, Worship
The Samaritan woman came with a jar and left with a spring. She came for water and left with life. She came in shame and left proclaiming, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (v. 29).
She drank of the living water, and immediately her life became worship—testimony, overflow, Spirit-filled witness.
Every one of us drinks from something. Some of us drink from the wells of success, relationships, or approval. Others drink from the wells of religion without relationship. But those wells will always run dry. Jesus alone offers living water.
So the question today is not whether you are thirsty—it is where you will go to drink. Will you keep going back to broken cisterns? Or will you let Jesus give you the water that becomes a spring within you, welling up to eternal life?
Because when you drink deeply of Him, you don’t just find satisfaction—you find worship. Worship that is not confined to a place, but rooted in spirit and truth. Worship that flows out of a life transformed by living water.
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