“I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.” –Luke 23:43
Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” (John 4:13–14 NLT)
In one of the most famous evangelical passages in the Gospels, Jesus invites a Samaritan woman to drink of the living water found only in the Messiah, and she in turn invites everyone in her village to meet the Savior of the world. Yet, according to the conventions of the day, righteous and upright Jews did not freely interact with Samaritans. The Samaritans were of Jewish descent, but at some point in the past there was a schism over the proper location of the temple: the Jews worshiped in Jerusalem while the Samaritans worshiped on Mount Gerizim, and both believed the other to be wrong, even heretical.
Jesus didn’t care that it was seen as wrong to talk to a Samaritan, let alone a woman who had been married five different times and was currently living with a man she was not married to. As He told the disciples when they returned, “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work” (John 4:34). Jesus consistently invited people to live in the reality of the Kingdom of God—the rule and reign of God—often disregarding social norms in favor of caring for and loving people. As followers of Jesus in 2019, the invitation remains the same. Ask God to lead you to your own interaction with someone in need of a drink from the well that springs eternal, and share the love of Jesus, the accessibility of salvation, and the Kingdom of God with that person.