A Longing Soul

In the fourth chapter of his gospel, John records a narrative that is filled with surprises. Some of these have been included in commentaries for years. The Pharisees’ opposition to Jesus had begun in earnest, and having decided to return to Galilee from Judea, He “had to” pass through Samaria, a region whose people the Jews had shunned for centuries. There, He engaged in a long conversation with a woman, a conversation in which Jesus reveals deep theological mysteries about salvation, worship and the Trinity, and identifies Himself as the Messiah. Contrary to teaching and tradition, He sent His disciples to the nearby Samaritan town of Sychar to buy food. Ultimately, a great many of the Samaritan townspeople believed in Him, first because of her testimony, and then because of their own interactions with Jesus.

In this third week of Lent, the revised common lectionary draws our attention to the story of the Woman at the Well. Her story is familiar, and so are the usual explanations of it. This anonymous woman was acquainted with rejection, her status being an outsider not only as a woman and a Samaritan, but because of her personal history. We’re not told why she had had five husbands (death? divorce? a combination of the two?), but we do know that she was then living intimately with a man to whom she was not married. She confessed that she would very much want the living water Jesus offered, if for no other reason than that she would no longer have to come to the well to draw water. When Jesus mentioned her marital situation, she deflected His words with a religious-sounding question. And when the townspeople heard that the stranger at the well had told her everything she had ever done, because of her infamy they were intrigued and hurried to see this clairvoyant. Such are the usual contours of the story.

But a closer reading of the narrative helps us see some things perhaps even more surprising. The Samaritan woman had a longing soul.

Longing is an interesting and complex human experience. A dictionary search presents us with a list of synonyms—yearning, craving, hunger, thirst, hankering, burning—all tied to the sense of a strong, persistent desire for something or someone. That something or someone may be unattainable, or seemingly so; the longing may perhaps be directed toward an expected pleasure, or may be based in actual need. Longing is thus a strong emotion, but it is also a state of mind, often accompanied by physical manifestations.

Longing is also an evocative concept. If we look at the word’s origins in Old English, we find it means to grow long, to reach or extend; or to prolong, in the sense of dwelling in thought. It is the picture of stretching out towards, of making oneself longer in the attempt to reach and grasp hold of what is desired and yearned for.

Longing can take a variety of forms. For some, it might be a type of vague yearning; a general dissatisfaction, a sense that “there must be something more than this.” But more often, our longings are identifiable. Perhaps we’ve been rejected, or deserted, or suffered setbacks of one kind or another. Sometimes we yearn for “the good old days,” if only for a little while. Or, increasingly common in modern life, we are confronted with consumerism and a multitude of narratives, conveyed through media of many sorts, that tell us there are so many things we need and that will make us happier, if only we can attain them.

Whatever our yearnings, and whatever their personal or external sources, longing has one essential characteristic: its direction is outward, and ultimately upward.

At the heart of all human longing is a desire for God, a real need for what only He can fulfill. Augustine, writing in his Confessions in the late 4th century, put it this way: “God, You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You.” Having sought fulfillment in physical, intellectual and philosophical achievements, Augustine ultimately found his deepest longings met only in God, and knowing the Person and Presence of God became his only priority from then on. In this, he was very like David, who freely expressed his spiritual desires and longing for God in the psalms. (“I stretch out my hands to You; my soul longs for You, as a parched land” is but one example, 143:6). This should also remind us of Paul, whose burning desire was to know and be like Christ, to be found in Him because of a righteousness that comes from faith and trust, and to press ever on to attaining the prize of the upward call of God.

What can we see of the Samaritan woman’s restless heart and longing soul? She is surprised when this stranger, likely recognizable as a rabbi by His clothing, asked her for a drink, for “the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans” (4:9). So many issues to divide them! The Samaritans called themselves the Sons of Israel, considered themselves keepers of the true ancient religion, believed that the Jews had followed the wrong religious path, and thus saw Mt. Gerizim – there, in the vicinity of Jacob’s well – as the true and rightful location to worship God. The Jews saw the Samaritans as heretics, theologically and ethnically contaminated by their intermarrying with Gentiles after the Assyrian exile long before. Yet, Jesus did not condemn her, but treated her with compassion and gently led the conversation as He answered her questions and revealed the source and fulfillment of her deepest yearnings.

Archaeologists tell us that Jacob’s well was both fed by rain water (a cistern) and supplied by an underground spring. So her initial expectation of that “living water” was of the spring. The well is deep, she tells Him. You have no bucket. Where do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us this well? Then Jesus tells her the water He gives will impart eternal life, and she begins to begins to see, though dimly. At His revelation of her life story, said to her without judgment or condemnation, she realizes He must be a prophet.

And then, she immediately exposes the longing of her heart: to know and to worship God. Trusting herself to this Man who no longer seems a stranger, she asks about a main point of division between Jews and Samaritans, the rightful place where God meets His people. And Jesus tells this woman, clearly a seeker after God, that a time is coming when true worshipers will worship Him in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such worshipers. “I know that Messiah is coming,” we hear her say to Jesus, daring to believe; “when He comes, He will tell us all things.” Jesus replies, “I who speak to you am He.”

This is not a conversation she could have engaged in without having pondered these questions, very likely for years. It is all the more remarkable because this Samaritan, a woman of, at best, unusual lifestyle choices and, at worst, immoral character, is able to understand and ask theological questions. And if she had been deeply interested in these issues of worship and faith, how many of the people of Sychar might she have gone to for answers to the burning questions of her soul? The religious leaders, perhaps before her succession of husbands? Or other elders? Friends, perhaps? This makes her a more complex person indeed, and makes her credibility more understandable when she declares to the townspeople, “He told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

And what might she have been thinking about the site of this encounter, Jacob’s Well? Even if this were not the location of the well where Jacob first met Rachel, she would have known the story; she had referred to Jacob as “our father.” And she would have known that even further back in time, when Abraham sent his most trusted servant to find a wife for Isaac from among his relatives, the servant first encountered Rebekah at a well, and asked her for a drink of water. How many thoughts and reflections must have appeared in her longing soul and searching spirit as she realized that God was seeking her!

The Woman at the Well didn’t know this, of course, but John gives us an added understanding of the significance of this meeting, at that time and in that place. At the end of chapter 3 of his gospel, he records what some study bibles refer to as the last testimony of John the Baptist. Here, the Baptizer tells his disciples that he, John, must decrease while Jesus must increase, and he uses the metaphor of a bridal party to convey his joy. John likens himself to the best man, “the friend of the bridegroom," who has been sent to prepare the way for Christ, who is the bridegroom. And our minds go naturally to the passage in Ephesians 5, which describes the Church as the bride of Christ. The Samaritan woman also may not initially have recognized an added significance of the image of “living water:” when converts to Judaism in the first century were baptized, the water was required to be “living,” that is, free flowing rather than collected. When Jesus informs her that the water He gives will become in the believer “a well of water springing up to eternal life,” it is a beautiful picture of salvation extended to the world by Him who came to earth that He might be the Savior of the world – the only One who can fill and satisfy our longing souls.

In his mid-twentieth century classic The Pursuit of God, A. W. Tozer noted a lovely characteristic of those who long for the presence of Christ and to be more like Him as they continue on their faith journey: “To have found God and still to pursue Him is a paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religious person, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.”

In this season of Lent, and always, may we be found among the children of the burning heart.

Revised Common Lectionary, Third Sunday in Lent (Year A):
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42

This Reflection is adapted from Ellen’s small group study series, Ancient Pathways: A Lenten Journey for the Soul (session three: “The Path through Longing”).

Image information: Woman at the Well, Carl Heinrich Bloch (Chapel at Frederiksborg Palace, Copenhagen; 19^th century). Public domain; commons.wikipedia.org.

Copyright ©2017 Ellen Koehler.  All Rights Reserved.