This lengthy passage from the Gospel of John about the Woman at the Well has been studied and commented upon by many learned authors down through the centuries. Whole books have been devoted to it’s dissection. And so anything I say this morning can really only be regarded as giving just a glimpse of the riches to be found in it.

Many authors have examined the customs of the times governing the relationships between men and women and have concluded that the woman’s action of approaching the well at noontime when a man was sitting there inevitably meant that she was of dubious reputation. The later revelation about her five husbands only confirms the assumption.

Whether this is so or not, she certainly was both a Samaritan and a woman and therefore not someone any respectable Jew would engage in conversation. But respectability was never something Jesus regarded highly.

Jesus asks her for a drink and so initiates this fascinating dialogue on two levels. He is speaking about living water and the life of grace while she is thinking only of the water in the well and the mundane realities of her rather chequered life.

She says: Give me some of that living water so that I may never get thirsty and never have to come to the well again. There is a hint of incredulity and mockery in her voice. And then Jesus’ penetrating remark cuts right through her defences: Go call your husband. 

Her response exposes her vulnerability: I have no husband. And Jesus reveals his knowledge about those five previous husbands and she realises that this is no ordinary man standing before her. 

She believes him to be a prophet and tries to engage him in a standard religious discussion about the differences between Jews and Samaritans—as if that’s the sort of thing you would say when you talk to a professional religious person.

This gives Jesus the opportunity to speak about how all these earthly differences will soon be transcended. The woman says she knows that the Messiah is to come and that then all will be revealed. Jesus simply replies: I am He. 

We can almost experience through the page the depth of the silence that must have followed that astonishing statement. Then disciples suddenly return from their shopping expedition and their encounter is interrupted.

The woman is filled with joy and rushes to her people to tell them about Jesus, in turn they come to him and also experience a similar conversion.

This Gospel story provides us with a wonderful paradigm for our own conversion story. It provides the classic pattern for all religious conversion. Acknowledgement of sinfulness, experiencing non-judgemental acceptance by Jesus, followed by some event or remark which cuts through to the inner core of the person and then a moment of startling insight or revelation leading to a proclamation of the Gospel to others who in their own turn experience this process for themselves.

Each of us has most likely experienced a similar sequence of events in our own life which has brought us to faith or which has more deeply confirmed us in the faith that we already have.

Each of us is in our own way therefore is involved in a similar drama. (And I deliberately use the present tense.) We do not live mundane and boring lives of interest to no one. We are key players in a cosmic drama which involves God himself.

And this is not a one-act play in which at some opportune moment we experience conversion and then live on as before. No, this is an extraordinary epic which lasts till the end of time; it has many episodes and frequent twists and turns of the plot.

And what is this so-called Living Water that will well up to eternal life; this water which once we have drunk it we will never be thirsty again?

This Living Water is the water of Baptism, it is the grace of Christ, it is the great outpouring of God’s love and salvation that is the direct consequence of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary and his resurrection from out of the empty tomb.

In our hearts we need to drink long and deep this refreshing and healing water. When we embrace Christ and give the assent of faith to his Gospel we become one with him; we experience his life living in us; we experience his power living through us.

We have become altogether new creatures and it is no longer a case of accepting Christ because that is what our parents brought us up to do or any other second-hand religion but as the Samaritans said: We no longer believe because of what you have told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he really is the Saviour of the World!