The Woman with the Empty Waterpot

John 4 is one of the most wonderful chapters in the Bible because in it we have the record of Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well. The account provides the key to understanding the nature of sin, as well as the nature of salvation.

The woman comes to the well with a waterpot (a symbol of her life). Our Lord comes to seek and save that which was lost. It is actually the Father and the Son who are seeking this woman (John 4:23, “The Father is seeking…”) Jesus does not wait for the woman to speak to Him. He initiates the conversation with her because He was seeking out this woman. This is the way the Lord works with all His people. He does not wait for us to seek Him, because He knows that we would go on in our sin if He did not pursue us with His grace. He diligently works to uncover our deepest need and to give us what only He can provide.

Jesus begins His work of uncovering this woman’s sinful heart by explaining that her great problem was that she did not know “the gift of God and who it is that says, ‘Give Me a drink…” He ends his act of uncovering her sinful heart by opening her eyes to see that He was indeed the Christ (v. 26). In the midst of His act of uncovering her need, Jesus finally goes to the heart of the matter by showing this woman that He knows she is a woman who has been sinfully seeking to satisfy herself with men. The woman had come to the well in the heart of the day because of the reproach she would have borne on account of her reputation among the other women of the city. She is a picture of all who “worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator.” The nature of sin is essentially idolatry. This woman worshiped herself and men. She needed something else, something that could replace our desires for sinful self-pleasure.

John intimates that the woman found the living waters by the fact that she “left her waterpot (v. 28).” The very thing that had symbolized her life of self-satisfaction–seeking to satisfy herself with men–was now left behind because she had found the living water that “would become…a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The woman immediately went into the city and “told the men, ‘Come see a Man who told me all things that I ever did.'” It is quite possible that this woman went to “the men” she had been married to previously in order to tell them that her soul had found satisfaction in Christ. It is interesting to note that this woman, who was seeking satisfaction in men, found satisfaction in a Man, even the God-Man! The Son of God took a human nature to Himself in order to deal with our great problem of idolatry. He would go to the cross and cry out “I thirst” so that we could drink the living waters that only He can give. Are you thirsty? Are you seeking to satisfy your soul with created things? If so, know that there is a well of living water in Jesus Christ that is free for all who “know the gift of God” and who ask for this water.