06/15/2024
The woman at the well in John 4. Who is she? A harlot who goes through men like water? A victim of cruel men who either die or get bored of her?
The underlying reasons for those questions are important. But what if we are simply coming to the story with 21st century concerns instead of looking for what the context and its symbols are telling us?
What symbols? John 4 comes right after John 3. And what is at the tail end of John 3? John the Baptist talking in symbols: he’s the best man introducing the Great Groom (Christ) who strides forth, coming for his Bride.
And then what do we have at the start of John 4? That very Groom, walking toward another symbol: a well. A well he just “had” to come to (v.4). Why? What was so important about this particular well?
This is when our Old Testament alarm bells should start ringing. It was Jacob’s well. He had to go to *Jacob’s* well.
Why? Because Jacob is one of Israel’s patriarchs. And who, exactly, meets Israel’s patriarchs when they arrive at a well? A bride.
Abraham, the father of nations, orchestrates the match between his son and a bride there: Isaac and Rebekah. Isaac’s son, too, meets his wife at a well: Jacob and Rachel. And don’t forget Moses and Zipporah meet at a well, too.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses: meeting a bride at a well runs right through all their stories.
So when we see John 3 bring up the symbol of a Groom and John 4 bring up the symbol of a well, our hand should hood our eyes as we scan the horizon. Who will the bride be? What kind of match is the Heavenly Father, the father of nations, striking up for his Son at this well (in broad daylight, by the way)? The fair Rachel? The weak Leah?
No. She’s even more surprising. It is fitting that the camera would pan to the Samaritan woman as the symbol of Christ’s Bride: a biblical symbol that represents the church. For as we know, as a Samaritan, she’s both Jew and Gentile in one. And so is the church.
Here is the Bride that Christ is interested in: the one who went through so many grooms that failed her, the one no one wants to talk to, the lowly and unexpected. Not the most impressive, rather the overlooked and misunderstood. Not the self-righteous and smug, rather the dejected and ostricized. This is exactly who comprises the church. She is exactly who the woman at the well represents. She’s us.
Shared from Ashley Gorman
