11.10 | Sit on the Well
John 4:1-26
‘Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.’
John 4:6
Literally translated, Jesus sat on the well.
Which, for a modern reader, seems a strange thing to do.
Straight up, it helps us to be aware that the wells of the Judea at the time had a specific design. Important wells had a large, ring-shaped capstone over the top, designed to keep dirt (or children) falling into the water beneath. The capstone of Jacob’s well is still there today — twenty inches thick and around five feet across. Those using the well could then balance their bucket, jar, or water skin on the capstone as they pulled up the water.
Jesus sat on the well.
But this gets a little stranger when we look at where He is.
They’re passing near Samaria. Samaria was hated by the Jews, and avoided by the rabbis. The Samaritans were viewed by the Jews as compromised and estranged from God’s work. They had the wrong lineage, the wrong worshiping styles, the wrong morality. Most rabbis would have gone right around Samaria. Jesus went straight through it.
He’s not done yet. A well is likely to be visited by local people. But a well at the sixth hour (midday: and hence the hottest — and therefore worst — time to carry water) is likely to mean that anyone who comes is actively trying to avoid everyone else. Anyone coming out at the sixth hour will be a person carrying great shame, and therefore likely have a life of significant mess. Any other Jewish rabbi would at least stand at a safe distance.
But Jesus doesn’t do this.
He sits on the well.
Jesus, in other words, positions Himself for encounter.
This unsettles me. Because I think, in honesty, so often I am drawn to position myself for avoiding encounter. When mess comes near, to get out of the way. When potential demands arise, to duck my head and hide. To cross the street and to look away. Because pain is complicated and messy. Pain makes me late. Pain messes with my plans. Pain makes me uncomfortable.
But we follow a Messiah who sits on the well.
And that changes everything.
It changes us, when we find ourselves skulking out of Sychar in the middle of the day, avoiding people and God alike in our feelings of shame. It changes us when we assume to find a critical Jesus, a withdrawn and sanctimonious rabbi eyeing us suspiciously from a distance. It changes us, because we find in Him a Lord who gets right in our way, sits on the well, and catches our gaze — with the express intention of interrupting our messy lives with waters more alive than we could ever have imagined and a Messiah more compelling than any could have dreamed.
And it changes us, because we find the invitation in the sitting Jesus to be a people who learn to get in the way. To sit on wells. To position ourselves for encounter. To learn in His ways that the heart of God for His Church is to become a people who do not withdraw, hide, criticise, and avoid, but to become a people who walk through the forgotten places, the despised regions, the messy cities, pick out the most likely spots to meet the pains and shame of our world, and get right in the way.
For we find our Messiah today.
And He is sitting on a well.
Reflect:
Who do I find myself as in this story? The woman in need of a restoring Messiah? Or a disciple in need of the inspiration of our rabbi?
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
Teach me,
To get in the way.
For while I cannot do it all,
Some things I can do.
Teach me to stop walking,
And to begin sitting,
That when I meet shame
It may meet grace.
Lord Jesus,
Teach me,
That you are the Messiah
Who gets in my way.
That when I would skulk and hide
In fear and shame and the grief of the forsaken,
I would find you
In unlikely places —
That my efforts to quench my thirsty soul
May be changed
By meeting the Lord of the
Living waters.
Lord Jesus,
In Your Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
2 Chronicles 29-30 | Proverbs 25:11-17