The first person Jesus ever told, plainly, that he was the Messiah was a tired woman drawing water alone at a well.
Not a priest. Not one of his own friends. Not a king in the great city. A woman, and an outsider on every side. It is worth seeing how big this is.
The one everyone was waiting for
For hundreds of years, people had waited for one man. A rescuer. A chosen one, sent from God. Whole nations watched for the day he would finally arrive and say it out loud: I am the one you have been waiting for.
You would think, when that day came, he would say it on the temple steps. To the crowds. To the leaders. To the men who ran everything. That is how anyone would do it.
He did not do it that way at all.
He was traveling, and he went through a place called Samaria. His own people and the people of Samaria had hated each other for a very long time, and most travelers went the long way around just to avoid it. Jesus went straight through. Around midday, tired from walking, he sat down by an old well. His friends had gone into town for food. And a woman came alone to draw water.
The woman he was not supposed to talk to
Jesus said to her, give me a drink.
She was stunned, and she said it right out loud.
Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.John 4:9
There were walls everywhere in that one moment. She was from the wrong people. She was a woman, and men like him did not talk to strange women in public. And she was there alone. Jesus stepped over every line at once. He did not do it by accident. He picked her.
He knew her whole life, and he stayed
Then the talk turned to her life, and gently, he told her he knew.
For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.John 4:18
Five times she had belonged to someone, and five times it had ended. Maybe they died. Maybe they left. Back then a woman could not simply walk away from a marriage. So it was a life of being handed from one man to the next. Loss after loss. Being passed along.
Then there is what Jesus did not do. He did not call her a bad woman. He did not shame her. He did not tell her to go clean up her life. People have piled a lot of guesses on top of this story over the years, and the story itself does not say any of that. It says he knew all of it, and he stayed. He kept talking to her, like she mattered.
The walls come down
Then she asked the big question, the one sitting under everything. Where are we supposed to worship God?
Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father… God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.John 4:20-24
He told her the walls were coming down. Not her mountain. Not his city either. He was honest with her, and he did not pretend every path was the same. But he told her God was never trapped on one hill. You would not need the right address anymore. You would need a true heart.
I am he
And then she said the thing that opened the door. I know the Messiah is coming, she said. When he comes, he will tell us everything.
Jesus looked at this woman. This outsider. This person the world had passed around and passed over. And he said the words he had not said plainly to anyone yet.
Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.John 4:26
That is the moment. It is the first time in the story that Jesus himself says it out loud: I am he. The Messiah. Elsewhere he often kept it quiet and told people not to spread it around. Here he just says it. And he says it to her. First.
The chosen one whole nations had waited centuries for, and the first face he says it to belongs to a lonely woman at a well in the middle of the day.
And look what she did with it. She left her water jar sitting right there and ran back into town and told everyone.
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.John 4:39
The outsider. The woman nobody expected. She became the very first person to carry the news that the Messiah had come.
He chose you first
So here is what I want you to hold onto. Maybe you have felt looked over. Maybe you have felt like you showed up at the wrong time, from the wrong place, with too much behind you to matter. Maybe you have been the one passed around and passed by.
When Jesus had the most important thing in the world to say, he did not save it for the important people. He said it to her. He chose her first. He was never looking for the people at the front of the line. He came looking for the ones left out of it. He came looking for you.
So come find us. We are New Testament Only, and this is what we do all week, walking through these old stories slow and plain, so nobody gets left behind. It is all free. Put your name on the newsletter at newtestamentonly.com, and the next teaching will land in your inbox before you go looking for it. There is room for you here at this well. There always was.