Kirkepiscatoid

I've been dealing with John 4 this week and something seemingly unremarkable caught my eye in v. 6: “Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.”

So...where’s Jacob’s well? And what’s Jacob’s well got to do with it?

Well, a little Googling gave the answer. Jacob’s well is still in Sychar, and it is now a shrine, tended by Eastern Orthodox monks. In fact, the monks have kept records on the well since the first century...and here’s what is cool that goes with the story. It is a VERY deep well. The deepest it has been is 240 feet to hit water (670 AD) and the shallowest it is was 67 feet (1881 AD). It also turns out to be spring fed. The Aramaic term for moving, spring fed water is “living water.” Hmmmmmm.

You know, when I think of this story, I always thought of just “a well like a NE Missouri well” with the water table 15-30 feet below me or so. Uh-uh. This well is DEEP. So people coming to get a drink, had to lower the community bucket at least a hundred feet or so before they hit water. So this well is not just a piddly-assed well...it is deep and dark and must have looked like a bottomless pit to them—dark, foreboding, with the potential to swallow you up.

Also, this spring fed water must have been incredibly refreshing and cool to people in an arid climate. It truly must have felt life-giving. So when Jesus and the Samaritan woman are talking about “living water”, it makes it even more of a “DUH” when you think of those who mistakenly think it’s important to take Jesus literally. It’s not like the Samaritan woman is sounding like a literal fool. She knows what “living water” is. It’s cool and spring fed water and she has been refreshed by living water many times before. She knows the feel already of what getting a drink of “living water” feels like.

(I have to get a little irked at the author of this part of my Bible commentary. The commentary sort of paints her as being a little on the ignorant side with her strange literal questions. I am thinking her initial conversation with Jesus was more "banter." As a Samaritan, she is not used to any Jewish folk being civil to her. When he asks for a drink, I can see her sort of going, "Hellooooooo? Did you sort of notice, sweetie, that I'm a Samaritan? Do you know what you're asking for?....What? You're going to give me a drink of living water? Well, DUH, I don't see any bucket on you? You been out in the sun too long?")

Wow...this is a little like my own journey, isn’t it? I travel through times of dark deep nothing that feels like there’s no bottom at times, but at the bottom of that dark pit...is living water...and the taste of that water is so good and sweet, even for just a little gulp or two, to my arid soul, that I want as much of that water as I can get, and I become more and more willing to traverse the pit to get to it. Hmmm.