The story of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well is found within an account of a whole town coming to believe in Jesus through the testimony of a woman. The whole narrative can be read together with John 1:35-51 as the continuing story of how people come to know and believe in Jesus and begin to dwell in Him. In fact, people have seen in the account of John 4:4-42 a pattern showing how evangelization is done: from a human experience (thirst) one experiences the Lord (John 4:4-26) and from that experience is enabled to bring others to Him (John 4:42)
An outline of this section of John's Gospel can be described thus (Click for a larger view):
The narrative could very well be a theological reflection on the evangelization of the Samaritans that Luke recounts in Acts 8:4-25. But it can also be a theological motive for the evangelization of a people for any given time. The key here is an encounter where a person has an experience of Jesus,"the Messiah" (vv. 25.29) "the Savior of the world" (v. 42).
John 4:4-26 is usually labelled "Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well". It is a dialogue that occurs in a specific place (Jacob's well, Sychar) and time (noon). The narrator is careful to show that the dialogue is held in private: it begins when the disciples have gone out for supplies (v.
and ends just when they arrive (v. 27). The launch pad for the dialogue is Jesus' request for a drink (v.7).
Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman moves from the topic of "water" to "worship" and ends with the revelation of Jesus as "the Christ". This is accompanied by the woman having a deeper understanding of who Jesus was: first, she knows him as a "Jew" (v. 9), then "a prophet" (v. 19) before receiving the revelation that he is the Christ (vv. 26.29).
There are elements in the dialogue that either continue preceding themes or or are deepened in other parts of the Gospel: "living waters", "the hour", "Jesus' knowledge".
Jesus' request for a drink of water leads to a conversation about waters that gurgle to eternal life (v. 14). "Living waters" originally referred to spring waters as opposed to waters in a cistern which can go stale. It can as in Psalm 42 become an image for God, the object of the soul's thirst for life. In John 3:5, Jesus tells Nicodemus "Unless a man is born by water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5)." Later, during last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, when water from the pool of Siloam is poured before the altar of holocausts, Jesus will cry out: "If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink (7:37)." When Jesus dies on the cross, not only blood but also water flows from his wounded side (19:34). These passages lend their light on Jesus' talk about "living waters" to the woman who has come to draw water from the well. Jesus is the source of living waters that rise from within the person who has received it to eternal life (4:14). Those waters, foreshadowed in Ezekiel's vision of the waters that flow from the Temple (Ezekiel 47), were released on the cross.
The connection of "living waters" with the cross of Christ is underlined by Jesus' mentioning the "hour" (4:21.23). It is the "hour" the coming of which Mary hastened with her request for wine (2:4). It is the hour of Jesus' passion when he is offered up as the Lamb of God on the cross (12:27;17:1). Jesus mentions the "hour" in relation to worship "in Spirit and in truth", a reference to the time when God will receive the worship of men that He desires through, with and in Christ. Jesus is "the Truth" (14:6) that sets men free (8:31.36). The Spirit that he breathes on the disciples after His Resurrection, is the Spirit of Truth (14:17;15:26:16:13) that abides in them and leads to all truth. The Spirit, a gift from the Father (15:26), is a spring of water (8:38-39) giving life (6:63). To worship in Spirit and in Truth is a privilege given to those who have come to know Jesus and have begun to share in His hour (16:2-4).
The woman at the well will later on tell his town mates about Jesus "the one who has told me everything I've done" (4:29). Earlier in the Gospel, it was Nathanael who gets impressed at how Jesus knew him (cf. 1:48). On that occassion Jesus presents Himself as the "place" of God's revelation, as Bethel was to Jacob (Gen. 28:12-19). The woman expresses a belief of the Samaritans when she talked of the Messiah who "when he comes will tell us everything" (4:25). It is at this point when Jesus reveals Himself to her as "the Christ".
Jesus' phrase "It is I, the one speaking to you" is the first of the I AM statements of Jesus. Later, he will identify himself as "Bread of Life" (6:35. 41. 48. 51), "Light of the World" (8:12; 9:5), "the Gate" (10:7), "the Good Shepherd" (10:11), "the Resurrection and the Life" (11:25), "the Way, the Truth and the Life" (14:6), "the True Vine" (15:1.5). He will also present Himself simply as "I AM" (8:28. 58; 13:19). In the person of Jesus, the Samaritan woman now comes into contact with the one thing that she shares with the Jews and those who search for Life and Truth. In the prologue to the Gospel, John had declared: "No one has seen God; It is God the only Son who is close to the Father's heart who has made Him known (1:18, NRSV)." The Samaritan woman who had started out to do a menial task (draw water) in the full light of day (it was noon, after all) arrives at an experience of Jesus in what John Paul II calls "a dialogue of life". She will later on lead other people to Jesus who will know Him as "the Savior of the world". And this will happen because of a basic human experience, the need for water. Her thirst will later on be the thirst of Jesus on the cross (19:28) as He draws all men to Himself (12:32). And He who had asked for water will give the water that rises to eternal life.
