the samaritan woman 

In the liturgical calendar of our Church, we commemorate a striking encounter that our Lord Jesus Christ had with a Samaritan woman by the well of Jacob—a most moving dialogue where our Lord, weary and tired though He was, nonetheless succeeded in touching a wounded and broken soul, healing it and ultimately transform it to wholeness and integrity. Indeed, from a publicly despised, ostracised and sinful women that she was—whose lifestyle was marked by glaring variance to the Law of Moses—she became thereafter an ‘light-filled’ and saintly soul whose subsequent witness of Christ, enlightened countless others; and for this reason, she is known as St Photini in the tradition of our Orthodox Church. Fundamentally, the Gospel passage is a powerful reminder of Christ’s unlimited forgiveness and immeasurable love for each of us—a love whose ultimate concern is to unite us by grace with Himself, that is permanently and indeed for all eternity!

Before reflecting further, however, it is interesting to ask ourselves why the Church brings this particular Gospel passage to our attention during the festive and celebratory period that we now find ourselves in: namely the season between the Resurrection of Christ and Pentecost? At first glance, we could easily conclude that the Scripture reading is entirely unrelated to this Resurrection period. And yet, the Fathers of the Church, in all their wisdom, were able to discern that the ‘living water’ offered by Christ to the Samaritan woman in the Gospels reading is nothing other than the Holy Spirit, namely what will be offered to all the faithful on the day of Pentecost with the permanent descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church.

Indeed, one of the hymns of the Vespers Service make this point precisely: “we have come to the midpoint of the days which commenced with the saving Resurrection and will be sealed with holy Pentecost; connecting these two greatest feasts, drawing splendour from both, [today] is a splendid feast day.” With Pascha came the trampling of death by death and the victory of life; now, with Pentecost, will come the seal of the Holy Spirit and the grace of redemption to all within the Church. We see here that our Church is joy and for this reason generously shares this joy and this grace coming from above to all openly and indiscriminately.

Having connected the Gospel passage to this post-Resurrection period that we find ourselves in, we turn more closely to the encounter between Christ and the Samaritan woman. We are told that as Jesus sat by Jacob’s well in order to rest a little while before continuing his journey back to Galilee, a Samaritan woman came towards the well to draw some water. Approaching closer, she would have seen Jesus and—being well aware that Jews did not associate with Samaritans because of an age-old religious divide, not to mention the fact that it was forbidden for men and women to greet one another publicly in those times—she would have tried, in all probability, to avoid any conversation. And yet, to her surprise, Jesus initiated this dialogue; He took the first step to address her with a sincere and simple request: “Give me a drink.” Indeed, in asking for water, our Lord’s ultimate aim, as we shall see, was to elicit from her a desire for ‘living water’, that is, divine grace and the gift of eternal life.

And in this encounter, far from passing judgement for her sinful way of life—namely in the fact that the Samaritan woman had had five previous husbands and the one she now had was not her husband—Jesus simply is motivated by a desire to help her out of the burdening shackles of her current ways so as to free her to truly be all that God created her to be. Our Lord wants to help her understand not only the futility of seeking to live life simply by drawing water from Jacob’s well, namely from the means offered by the law of Moses, but also the misguided conviction that we can be saved simply by observing these laws. We only need to remember the Pharisees here who kept the Mosaic law—they fasted, tithed and kept all the exterior forms of the law—but they did not have love within their heart, and for this reason God was absent from their life. Our Lord wants her to desire something and Someone who is greater than the Law, namely Him about whom the Mosaic law spoke.

It is for this reason that Christ says: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty” (Jn 4:13-14). Whilst water is important for our biological existence it cannot satisfy our ultimate concerns for eternal meaning and subsistence. As the ‘Source of Life’, Christ wanted to bring the Samaritan woman to a point where she herself could engender a desire for such eternal verities. And this in fact what our Lord did by leading the Samaritan woman to ask: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” (Jn 4:15). In this remarkable exchange, her desire for truth gives rise to Christ’s self-revelation: “I am he, the one who is speaking to you” (Jn 4:26).

Upon a close reading of the text, it becomes clear that, when the Samaritan woman seeks the living water that has just been offered to her, Christ first wants to help her confront the reality of her life—it is for this reason that He says to her to call her husband. Here, we see that the Samaritan woman responds rather abstractly that she does not currently have a husband. And indeed, here she is telling the truth.  Fully aware of her situation however, Christ persists and whilst confirming the truth of her current situation, further reveals gently and with discretion the reality of her past life and her five husbands. Our Lord enters into the deepest recesses of her soul and her conscience, connecting and communicating with all those aspects of her life that were known only to her alone. In so doing, Christ brings her sinful way of life out into the open liberating her from all those secret aspects of a way a life to which she was so inseparably bound. In other words, Christ first leads her to ‘self-knowledge’ [αυτογνωσία] and only then to ‘knowledge of God’ [θεογνωσία]. It is for this reason that many within the ascetic tradition speak of no harder task than to know oneself.

In desiring to encounter Christ, we too need to confront the concrete reality of our life, and this is not an easy thing to do. Many times, we continue a certain way of life— which we innately recognise goes against what we know to be true and right—because we recognise that it is both immensely difficult to see ourselves as we truly are, and next to impossible to forego our shortcomings and sinful ways, even though we know that these leave us empty, joyless, depressed and downhearted. Christ, however, as we see in the case of the Samaritan woman, is able to take all that is empty within us and fill it with the living grace of the Holy Spirit, with his love, his peace, his joy and with his eternal presence in us.

Philip Kariatlis
Sub-Dean