1 When the Lord learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was baptizing more disciples than John, 2 even though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but rather his disciples 3 He left Judea and went back to Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a city in Samaria called Sychar, near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 And there was Jacob's well. So Jesus, being tired from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 Then a woman from Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me something to drink.” 8 For his disciples had gone into the city to buy something And food.

9 Then the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you ask me to drink, since you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman?” Because the Jews do not deal with the Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me something to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you fresh water “Oh.” 11 The woman said to him, “Lord, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where do you get living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself and his children and his livestock? 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. 14 But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life Yes. 15 The woman said to him, “Lord, give me this water, so that I neither thirst nor come hither to draw.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her: “It is well said that I have no husband, 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. “You said this with the truth.” 19 The woman said to him, “Lord, I see that you are a prophet! 20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people should worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me that the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You prostrate to what you do not know, but we prostrate to what we know. Because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such worshipers as these. 24 God is a spirit. And those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah, who will be called the Christ, is coming. And when he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “It is I who am speaking to you.”

27 Then his disciples came, and they were astonished that he was talking with a woman. But no one said, “What do you seek?” Or “Why are you talking to her?” 28 So the woman left her pitcher and went into the city and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who has told me everything I ever did. “Is this the Christ?” 30 So they left the city and came to him.

31 Meanwhile his disciples asked him, saying, “Teacher, eat.” 32 And he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 Then the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him anything to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, “There will be four months, and then the harvest will come?” Behold, I say to you: Lift up your eyes and see the fields, that they are white for harvest. 36 And the reaper receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that both the sower and the reaper may rejoice. 37 For in this the saying is true: One sows and another reaps. 38 I have sent you to reap what you have not labored for. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

39 And many of the Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the words of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 When the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there for two days. 41 And the more believed in him because of his words. 42 And they said to the woman, “We do not yet believe because of your words, but we have heard and know that this is truly Christ the Savior “A scientist.”

Explanation of my parish bulletin:

Jesus is in the Samaria region, and Samaria is only mentioned here because of its connection with God’s design to bring all who believe in Jesus into eternal life. The importance of this issue is strengthened when we know that the Jews, after their return from the Babylonian captivity in the year 537 BC. When they built the Temple of Jerusalem, they refused to deal with the Samaritans on the pretext that they were a race stained with foreign blood and a pagan religion.

Thus began the hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans. However, it intensified later, when the Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim in the year 315 BC. Not even the destruction of this temple (in 128 BC) at the hands of King Maccabee John Hyrcanus succeeded in dissuading the Samaritans from their position on the Jews, or vice versa.

This hostility is behind the woman in our evangelical class saying: “How do you ask to drink from me when you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman, and Jews do not mix with Samaritans?” This behavior of Jesus is evidence that he does not care about the legal rules of purity (see Mark 7: 1-15), just as he does not care that he is talking to a woman, which provoked his disciples (see verses 27-28). Because he is the Savior of the world, he does not make any social discrimination, but rather cares for all men and women, that is, for all people.

Then John gives Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman a theological character, when he moves from drinking water to talking about “the gift of God”: “If you had known the gift of God and who said to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked of him and he would have given you living water.” The woman does not understand Jesus’ words about living water. She thinks he means flowing water. As for him, he means the water of eternal life.

The Samaritan woman came to Jacob's Well to quench her thirst for the waters of Israel, and it again filled it with the waters of eternal life. The fountain of life came to her at the well, so she carried it with her spirit and took it back to the city and poured its overflow on the people, so they began to seek living water from its source.

Six o'clock according to Jewish time, that is, twelve noon. This is not an appropriate time to draw water. The normal time is in the morning or evening. The Lord Jesus wants to go to Galilee and choose the road to Samaria, which is dangerous and exposed to attacks by thieves and attacks by the Samaritans on the Jews. All the disciples go to the city to buy food, while a number of them were enough to bring food. All these points indicate that this meeting between the Lord Jesus and the Samaritan woman was inevitable. It is as if the Lord Jesus had recorded in His promises from eternity this decisive meeting in the life of this woman.

The Lord Jesus breaks the barrier of hatred that exists between the Jews and the Samaritans because human barriers do not prevent God from pouring out His blessings on whomever He wishes. Therefore, he said to the woman, “If you knew the gift of God and who said to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” The Lord Jesus wanted the woman to focus her attention on him personally, in the hope that she would discover the divine side in him and forget the issue of sectarian differences. The woman taunts him, saying, “Are you greater than our father Jacob?” She still emphasizes the issue of sectarian disagreement and wants to confirm that she is from the origin of Israel, as she is one of the sons of Jacob, the father of the fathers. The Lord Jesus again draws her attention to his person, saying that Jacob’s waters do not quench his thirst at all, while the water that he gives of himself turns into “a spring of water springing up into eternal life.” Living water is associated with the Holy Spirit. The Evangelist John tells us that the Lord Jesus said to the Jews, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water,” and by that he meant “the Holy Spirit, whom those who believe in him will receive” (see John 7: 38-39). The coming of the Holy Spirit was linked to baptism, so the Apostle Peter said to his listeners on the Feast of Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized every one of you... and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

The Lord Jesus refers to baptism, which presupposes repentance, that is, a radical and final change from a life of sin to the Lord Jesus. So he said to the woman, “Call your man” when she asked him for water. The woman knows that she had five men and that the one she is with now is not her man. It is most likely that the five men here, in the context of talking about the worship of the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim, is a veiled allusion to the pagan peoples mentioned in 2 Kings 17:24, who came to Samaria with their false gods. “The one who is with you now is not your husband,” another veiled allusion to the incorrect religion of the Samaritans or their incorrect worship of the true God.

So Jesus wants her to reconsider her life as she is ready for a new life. It became clear to her that the details of her life were clear to him, so she began to address him as a prophet, but she still adhered to her ethnic affiliation, as she answered, “Our fathers prostrated on this mountain, and you say that the place where one should prostrate is in Jerusalem.” The Lord Jesus confirms that there is no connection between geography and worship. Worship is not linked to a place, it is linked to a person, and this person is present everywhere and accompanies those who prostrate to him in spirit and in truth.

The woman acknowledges that Jesus is a prophet. Her acknowledgment is only a prelude to the dialogue that will take place between her and Jesus about true worship, because the presence of the Prophet is necessary, in popular thought, for every decision taken regarding matters of worship.

The Lord Jesus does not want to confirm that the Jews are right. “Salvation from the Jews” means that the Lord has entrusted them with His plan of salvation and has sought to implement it through them to lead all people to worship in spirit and truth. “Because God is a spirit,” meaning that God is not like creatures. The goal here is not to determine the nature of God, but rather to confirm that God is unparalleled, that He cannot be understood by human logical templates, and that His worship transcends these templates. The purpose of worship is to know God and be enlightened by the uncreated divine logic.

Waiting for the Messiah was not at the heart of her life. It was just a belief, so she said to the Lord Jesus, “When he comes, he will tell us.” When she admitted that everything she based her talk on was uncertain unless the Messiah came, then the Lord Jesus revealed Himself to her and the conversation stopped at its peak. So after the divine announcement nothing is said. She left her jar, that is, she left her old one, and went to preach and began to push people to meet the Lord Jesus, “so they left the city and came toward him.”

The disciples were amazed that he was addressing this woman, then they offered him food. He answered them, explaining the purpose of his words to the woman, and he said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me,” and his will now is to hunt the people of Samaria through this woman. Jesus was the first to sow the word in Samaria and later the disciples would reap, as the good news would be transmitted there through Deacon Philip (see Acts 8).

“He stayed there for two days, and many more people believed because of his words.” The woman was the threshold to enter the hearts of the Samaritans. This change that happened to her, which became clear to her listeners, was what prompted the Samaritans to meet Jesus. Then what happened to her happened to them, as they began to confess that the Lord Jesus “is the Christ, the Savior of the world.” The Lord Jesus revealed His truth to them and this led them to certainty. The divine revelation is still shining in this world through the teachings of the Lord Jesus and His love that produced the living water on the cross, but we withhold this revelation because of our sin, materialism, and adherence to the narrow concepts of the world. This deprives us of the gift of God, the fountain of the water of life.

Explanation of the Lattakia Archbishopric Bulletin:

The Gospel passage that is read on Pentecost, which falls on the Wednesday before Samaritan Sunday, is taken from the Gospel of John, chapter seven, which talks about Jesus’ ascension to the temple at the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles, which lasted seven days. On the last day of the feast, Jesus stood in the crowd and said to them: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. He said this about the spirit that those who believed in him received” (37-39). On this basis, the Church arranged to hold on this Sunday, “the last day of the feast,” a memorial to the Samaritan woman whom Jesus met near Jacob’s Well (John 1:4-42) and to whom he said: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst forever.” But the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (4:14). It is as if today's feast is the last day of the feast, and the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples and the church. From today we are in the atmosphere of preparation for the feast of Pentecost.

On this day, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman near Jacob’s Well. “It was about the sixth hour” (John 4:6), which is the hour in which Jesus later hung on the cross and from his side flowed rivers of water of life for all. Jesus sometimes goes out to meet souls who, if left to their own devices, may not know the way to Him or see Him. He is the good shepherd who goes out: to search for the lost sheep (Luke 4-5).

Other times he sits and waits for a lost tourist to come to him, even when we are with him, he is waiting for another step forward. Christian life is a constant presence of Christ and a series of encounters with him. Jacob's well moves with me, giving me opportunities to encounter divinity.

Choosing Jacob's Well, the father of the fathers, may be a place to meet the Samaritan woman, a return to the roots and innocence of the relationship with God. Thus, the Christian student must return to the roots, to Christ, to open a dialogue with God, where there is one rule for speech. Financial need may be necessary to start a dialogue. This is what happened with the Samaritan woman who needed water to drink. The material leads to the spiritual. Jesus may wait for the opportunity of my need to intervene in my life and lead it towards the highest.

Jesus asks the Samaritan woman to give him water, and he is the one who can give her living water, but as the giver, he puts himself in the position of the questioner (the seeker). Being humble, making yourself indebted to the other, in need of him, may be a way for the other to open his heart to you. This shows the coexistence of humility and giving. Jesus in today's Gospel asks for water to drink and he is the one who gives the water of life, the life of the soul and spirit in all its dimensions. We all desire the fullness of life, and Jesus asks us to give Him something from our lives that will be the path to the fullness of life. If the meaning of life is absolute love, then Jesus thirsts for our human love. He is so close to us and humble that He asks that we love Him, “Give me a drink.” He will respond to our poor love with infinite love: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked of him and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10). We seek to quench the thirst of our souls and achieve sufficiency in life by multiplying what we possess and what we desire. We chase sensations, emotions, and ideas, but we remain thirsty. “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again” (4:13). But to whom Jesus gives his life, he will not be tormented by thirst - “he will never thirst” - but - and here is the paradox - he becomes the source of life: “The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (14:4). He draws from Jesus the source of life to become It is a source.

The basic condition for Jesus to give us the water of life is to overcome our sin - not in the general sense - but rather the sin that actually burdens us and that binds us.

The Samaritan woman asked Jesus for this water and he asked her to bring her husband because he knew that she was living with someone she had not married and he was not her previous five husbands. In order for the Lord to give us His grace, we must overcome the moral obstacles that stand between us and Him. Spiritual life is inseparable from moral life. Therefore, we must free ourselves from its idols and adultery and direct it towards the eternal Bridegroom.

We often delude ourselves that we do not have the courage to deny our “husbands,” that is, our sins, so we replace them with beautiful words about God, theological conversations, charitable projects, and ecumenical issues. Jesus crosses the road and asks the question directly: Where is your man? I didn't entrust you with the entire universe, what about yourself? The Samaritan woman admitted her condition with humility, contrition, and frankness. One thing is yet lacking, and it is not distracted by the peels: Will you worship in Jerusalem, or in the mountain, or in another place? God is present everywhere, and the important thing is to distance Him in spirit and truth: “The true worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth” (4:23). The Lord Jesus Christ is the essence of our worship and the fullness of our faith and salvation.

Worshiping in spirit and truth is not dogmatic, emotional, ritualistic and formal. It is the constant effort to think and say what is right, to unite our will with the will of God, to let the Holy Spirit guide our souls absolutely. These words of Jesus are hated by everyone who wants human authority because they are trying to replace divine authority. These words will forever remain beloved by those who desire to free themselves from every sin and yoke that stands between the Savior and their souls.

Jesus says to us as he said to the Samaritan woman, “I am the one who is speaking to you” (4:26). Will we respond to him like the Samaritan woman and announce to everyone that he is the expected Messiah? The important thing is that our answer comes before the “last days,” so that we reach Jacob’s well to the roots, meet Christ, and drink from it the eternal water of life that never empties.

On the meanings of the Gospel:

The Samaritan woman's encounter with Christ is an example of man's gradual acquaintance with Jesus. It seems that knowledge of God is accompanied by knowledge of the self, and vice versa, that knowledge of the self is achieved in light of our knowledge of God.

While the Samaritan woman was at the well asking for water to draw water, she met Jesus, there with her financial concerns, she could not have expected him except a mere Jew. So she called him: “How can you ask me to drink?”

Jesus spoke to her about “living water.” Whoever drinks it will never thirst. These words led her into eternity to religious contemplation, so she called out to him, “Are you greater than Jacob?”

From this religious dialogue, the Lord led her to herself and asked her about her personal life. There, when the words touched life and heart, Jesus became like a “prophet” to her.

From this threshold of life, the Lord spoke to her about a religion of worship in the spirit and not in the letter, about religion as freedom, about a filling of the human heart that man can only feel comfortable with. Then this dialogue reminded her of the expected “Messiah,” so Jesus told her: “I am the one speaking to you.” Here the Lord became the Savior God for her.

Thus, the Samaritan woman progressed in knowing the Lord as much as she progressed in knowing herself. When she looked at her material needs, she saw him as a Jew, and when she wandered in the world of religion, she thought he was greater than Jacob, and when she came to spiritual experiences, self-knowledge, and recognition of her truth, she saw him as a prophet. And then, when I achieved worship in spirit and truth and freedom of faith, I recognized Him as the Savior God.

Jesus is not a Jew or anyone else, nor is he a teacher or religious reformer. He is the God who touches our lives, transforms them and saves them.

Jesus is not an issue in life, he is the issue of our life, and our goal, through him we exist, we live, and we move.