5 husbands, I have had 5 husbands. It never works out. They always kick me out, call me a dirty sinner and shove me to the curb. I have now taken up residence with a man who is not my husband. I know that it is wrong that we sleep together, but what else can I do? I have no family and nowhere to go, and I feel chained down by all of the negative consequences of my sins, present and past. I know, a lot of the reasons that 5 marriages did not work out was me, I am the only common denominator after all. I considered taking my own life after the fourth one because I just felt so dirty and sinful over the 5 failed marriages, 5 tickets of divorce, each with my name on it, my name, I'm really starting to hate the sound of it.
I am now left getting water from a well for my most recent hus-er suitor. I am not even allowed to go into the temple anymore because I have been so marked with sin. And to my luck, there is a jew at the well, and a man. I should not be talking with him, but I know that i need that water. I walk over to the well cautiously and begin to fill my pale with the water. I was lost in my own thoughts over my sin that when He spoke I almost dropped my jug.
"Will you give me something to drink?" His voice is different than the voices that I am used to. It is gentle, yet firm, inviting. As inviting and calming as His voice was, I already knew my response.
"You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" He has probably heard of my reputation, as hard as I have tried to keep it secret.
"If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." Living water? That sounds like what I need. I do not fully understand the words that He speaks, but I still crave more of them.
"Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where will you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" This man is different, but that is a lot that He is boasting.
"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 him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Everything that this man says makes me crave something deeper than my sorrowful existence, makes me crave life.
"Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
"Go, call your husband and come back." Surely this must be a sarcastic comment. He must have heard something incorrect about my situation and reputation.
"I have no husband."
"You are right to say you have no husband.The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." He knows me. He knows who I am, and that means that surely He will condemn me like all of the others have, there's no other option; they all do it. He asks me about the Jews and I reply with what I know. He then asks me about the messiah.
"I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
"I who you speak to am He." As the last words leave His mouth, it clicks. This is the one that we have been waiting for. No wonder he knows me and shows me more compassion than all of the others. His coming has changed it all. They said that He was coming to free us, and now that I have met Him, I feel free of the chains that hold me down. He has released me, He has set me free.
I have to tell people; you have to tell people.
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