An important detail to pay attention to in the opening verses of John 4 is the time of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. It was the sixth hour – 12 noon. Traditionally this was an odd hour. So we could suppose that the Samaritan woman was avoiding other women and their gossips probably due to her way of life. Her thirst for water which drew her to the well could be a symbol of her woundedness and her inner thirst for God that will draw her to Jesus. Her experience of satiation comes in stages.
The Prophet Jeremiah complains to God: “You have seduced me, Lord, and I have let myself be seduced; you have overpowered me; you were the stronger” (Jer 20:7). Being ‘seduced’ could imply two aspects: to be attracted to something, and then being deceived. In fact, other translations of the same text from Jeremiah (20:7) say, “O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived” (RSV). We will have time to look at the meaning of ‘deception’, but let’s focus on attraction.
The focus of our reflection here is the Encounter with Jesus as the climax of our Christian life journey (the 5th step). There are two powerful, related images in the wedding at Cana that are meaningful to our understanding of the encounter: wedding and meal/celebration.
When she experienced Jesus as the I AM, the Samaritan woman’s thirst was fulfilled. The “seventh man” that she met had perfected everything. She did not need the empty water jar anymore: “The woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town…” (Jn 4:28). This was her point of conversion, which was the result of her encounter with Jesus.
The Samaritan woman, having been healed of her of the wounds, she “put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people, 'Come and see a man who has told me everything I have done; could this be the Christ?' (Jn 4:28-29). The two disciples, John and Andrew, who went and stayed with Jesus for the rest of the day, would like to share this experience with others. “The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother and say to him, 'We have found the Messiah' and he took Simon to Jesus” (Jn 1:41-42a. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus who were running away from Jerusalem on the day of the resurrection recognized the Lord at the breaking of the bread. “They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem. [There]… they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of bread” (Lk 24:33-35).