Jesus, the Man without Prejudice
“There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give Me to drink…..Then saith the woman of Samaria unto Him, How is it that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria: For the Jews have no dealing with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.” John 4:7,9-10
Bible readers know this passage as the account of the “woman at the well”. She was a Samaritan. The Samaritans were Jews who, many years prior, had intermarried with people from Assyria who had moved into Samaria, the capitol of the northern kingdom of Israel after the king of Assyria had taken the Jews captive, but left some behind in Samaria (II Kings 17). This woman was a descendant from that era. The Samaritans and Jews did not associate with one another. It is somewhat like our racial divide that still plagues our world and will until every person repents of his/her sin and trusts Christ as Lord and Savior or until Jesus returns to rule the nations. I am no prophet, but the actual occurrence of the first solution is very doubtful while the second one is a sure thing.
Jesus had sat down on the edge of the well due to weariness. His disciples had gone to get lunch. Jesus asked the woman for a drink of water. She was there alone likely because she avoided being around other women due to her reputation of which Jesus was completely aware. She was quite astonished that a Jewish man would speak to her and even ask her for water. This just wasn’t done. Life was hard enough to be a woman, but a Samaritan woman had an even more difficult life. Jesus responded to her astonishment by letting her know that He was no ordinary Man. Other men had likely treated her very badly, but Jesus was different. If she only knew who He was, the Messiah, the Savior of mankind, she would have been awestruck, begging Him to accept her and wanting to know the way of eternal life. John McArthur said that “we don’t accept Christ–we ask Him to accept us”. When Jesus mentioned “living water”, the woman was only thinking of literal water, H2O, and since Jesus had nothing with which to draw water from the well, she was highly puzzled. She asked Him if He had more power and influence that the patriarch Jacob who dug the well. Jesus replied that whoever drinks of literal water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the living water that He provides will never thirst again.
That certainly sounded like a good plan to her. Imagine not having to return to the well day in and day out to carry water back to her home. (And we complain about having to unload the dishwasher!) She was looking for an easier life, not an eternal life. Jesus told her to call her husband, but she said that she did not have a husband. He then revealed that He knew that she had been married five times, and she was now living with a man to whom she was not married. She was blown away that He knew this about her, but had never met her before. She assumed that He was a prophet. The discussion then turned to worship. The Samaritans were not allowed to worship in Jerusalem where the Jews worshipped, but they did worship God in the mountains. Jesus told her that the place of worship is not what’s important, but the object of worship, the Lord, is what is necessary. He then revealed Himself as the Messiah who had been prophesied to come. The woman believed Jesus and ran back to the city, unashamedly, and told all with whom she came in contact, “Come, see a Man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” Many believed on Jesus because of her witness, but some had to go see for themselves, returned, and said, “Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”
Jesus doesn’t care about how someone looks, the color of one’s skin, the language in which one speaks, whether one is tall or short, skinny or not so skinny, old or young, male or female, or rich or poor. These are all conditions, among others, upon which prejudice is based. It is the sinful conditions of our hearts of which He is concerned. If Jesus is prejudiced, He is prejudiced against sin because of the harm it causes all people, and all people matter to Him.