“Go fetch me some water woman, I need to bathe before I get home to my wife” she heard his croaky tone command as she slowly got up from next to him to get dress. No matter how many times she has done this, the shame of waking up next to another woman’s husband still agonized her. Yet what choice did she have? No one else wanted her, no one else would help her. Do not judge her, for you have no idea what she had been through.
As she walked through the village with the barrel on her head, she could hear the town people whisper “Here she goes again… the town whore…probably entertaining another man…she can’t keep a husband for nothing” She walked right pass them, as she started reflecting on her life.
Her father gave her away to her first husband, he was most likely an outlaw from Judea. Samaritans willingly received Jewish criminal which increased the hatred between the two nations. He was a mean drunk, who beat her senseless until she could not take it anymore and run away.
Then there was her second husband who was probably from Hamath. He introduced her to the worship of idols, yet something deep inside of her would not bow down. She knew the Torah, read the Mosaic laws and memorized the stories of her ancestors. So once again she was left alone a second time for her insubordination.
Damage good is what became of her, the next husband picked her up out of pity and made her the least of his many wives. She could not handle the mistreatment, her second husband may have been a pagan but she was accustomed to being treated with high regard, again she left.
Husband 4 and 5 were vague and short lived, whether they abandoned her or she left them, she did not know anymore.
She had settle with being a mistress, for she had seen the wrath of being a wife and she would not bear that title any longer. So being someone’s leftover would have to suffice, for there was no good left in her, nothing worthy of a bride .
She must have been deep in her thought because she did not hear the Jew sitting near the well asking her for a drink. “Was he insane, out of his mind?” she said to herself “sitting next to me a Samaritan and asking me for a drink?” Jesus answered her, “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.”
For a moment she forgot the laws, the customs she grew believing in, the norm of her society. All she heard was living water and God knows she has been dying of thirst. She pleaded to Jesus “If I could stop walking down the walk of shame in the village, if I could stop carrying this heavy barrel on my shoulder, if there was a way to heal the pain that I have carried for so long please Abba give it to me for I am weary. Jesus looked at her and told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
…and there it was, her heavy burden, her shame, her lies.
She quickly replied “I don’t have one.” So Jesus had to clarified things for her. You see, Jesus couldn’t have just told her she had five husbands, anyone could easily find that out, no, he had to go deeper. He had to tell her why God himself had to come down from his throne and meet her right there at the well. And it must have gone in something like this.
“I was the hand that wiped your tears when you wept and contemplated suicide when your first husband beat you. I was the voice that led you away from idolatry while your second husband tried to force you to spirit that could have destroyed you. I was the one who kept you sane while you were being mistreated by husband number 3. I was there when you were too proud, I was there when you were undignified. I have watched you go in the arms of one man to another, while I had what you needed all along. I love you my daughter, you are worthy and you are love so much so that I had to come down myself to tell you. I didn’t send a messenger, I didn’t send an angel. I came to bear it all, so that you can have that eternal living water.
I will call her who was unloved “my beloved”. Romans 9:25.
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