Conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Conversation between the Lord and the Samaritan woman Call your husband, what does the gospel mean?
Priest Alexander Men
Conversation of Jesus Christ with the Samaritan Woman (Gospel of John 4.6-38)
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
In today's Gospel you heard a story about the Lord's meeting with a simple woman. This woman was not going to the temple, not to prayer, not for some special feat, not for a special good deed, but simply walked for water, as thousands of women in all countries walked, as she walked from her youth: she took a jug, went down to well into the valley, collected water - this well is still preserved - and returned along the path up the mountain to her village. But that day was special for her, although she did not suspect it. As always, she got ready, put on some shabby clothes, took the jug, put it on her shoulder, as was customary to wear, and walked along the path. Tradition says that her name was Ora, in Greek, Photinia, in Russian we pronounce this name as Svetlana. But her name is not mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. It is said that she was a Samaritan, belonged to the sect of the Samaritans, who also believed in God, expected the deliverance of the Lord, but believed that the most Holy place- Mount Gerizim, where they had a temple. Here this woman walked and, perhaps, thought about her difficult and bitter fate. Her life did not work out: five times she tried to start a family, and each time it failed, and what she had now did not give her any joy. Thinking about her worries, about the fact that she needed to wash clothes and bake bread, the Samaritan woman went down to the well. Some tired traveler was sitting by the well and asked her to drink. This is how something completely new began in her life. This traveler was our Lord Savior Jesus Christ. He seemed to be waiting for her there and, asking her to drink, He Himself gave her the living water of truth.
This gospel story tells us three things. First: that you can meet the Lord in your most ordinary life. The Samaritan woman did not suspect that at the well, where she took water every day for food and washing, a prophet, Messiah, Christ, the Savior of the world was waiting for her. So we, going about our daily work, also think that at this time He is far from us, but if our heart does not lose the Lord, He will meet us here too.
And one more thing: this woman had a difficult fate; she herself was probably to blame for the fact that her personal life did not work out, but this did not stop the Lord from meeting her and talking to her about the highest things. She began to ask Him about faith, about where the holiest place on earth was: in Jerusalem, as the Jews thought, or among them, the Samaritans, on Mount Gerizim. The Lord said: “Yes, Jerusalem is a holy place, salvation comes from there, but the time is coming, I tell you, woman, when people will worship not on this mountain, and not in Jerusalem, but everywhere, in spirit and truth. God is Spirit."
What a great secret He revealed to her! There is no need to think that God lives in temples, in buildings, in churches - there is no place in the world where He does not live. There is only one place where He is not - where evil lives. He calls us all by saying that God is Spirit, and whoever worships Him must worship in spirit and in truth.
This does not mean that we should not gather in churches; of course, it is a great blessing to pray together. This does not mean that we should not have icons before our eyes - they remind us of the Lord himself and of His saints. This does not mean that we should not have candles and lamps burning in front of our icons - they illuminate holy images and symbolize with their fire our sacrifice to the temple, our sacrifice to the Church. But the main thing must be in the heart, for no sacrifice is pleasing to God unless the spirit is turned to Him, to the truth, to righteousness, in good testimony.
Spirit and truth is faith, real firm faith. Spirit and truth are love, spirit and truth are service. This is not available to some holy supernatural people who are chosen from the womb, but to everyone. The Samaritan woman is an example for us, an ordinary woman who went about her ordinary business. And God called her, appearing to her, telling her about spirit and truth. This means that none of us has the right to say: “I am too sinful, I am too small, I am too unworthy to hear and understand the Message of Christ.” The message of Christ is addressed to each of us, to each and in its own time. The Word of God, like a sword, penetrates the heart and reaches the very depths. Just feel this power, and it will give you eternal life, living water, which the Lord promised to the Samaritan woman. Amen.
Excerpts to the text:
John 4:6-38
Jacob's well was there. Jesus, weary from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about six o'clock.
A woman comes from Samaria to draw water. Jesus says to her: Give me something to drink.
For His disciples went into the city to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to Him: How can you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? for Jews do not communicate with Samaritans.
Jesus answered her: if you knew the gift of God and Who says to you: “Give Me a drink,” then you yourself would ask Him, and He would give you living water.
The woman says to Him: Master! you have nothing to draw with, but the well is deep; Where did you get your living water from?
Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, and his children, and his cattle?
Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone drinking water this, he will thirst again,
and whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.
The woman says to Him: Master! give me this water so that I won’t be thirsty and won’t have to come here to draw.
Jesus says to her: Go, call your husband and come here.
The woman answered: I have no husband. Jesus says to her: you said the truth that you have no husband,
for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband; That's right what you said.
The woman says to Him: Lord! I see that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where we should worship is in Jerusalem.
Jesus says to her: Believe Me, that the time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You do not know what you bow down to, but we know what we bow down to, for salvation comes from the Jews.
The current fifth week of Easter is called church calendar“A week about the Samaritan woman.” The theme of the holiday is the Savior’s conversation with a certain woman at Jacob’s well in Samaria.
The circumstances of this meeting are extraordinary in many respects. Firstly, Christ’s speech was addressed to a woman, while the Jewish teachers of the law of that time instructed: “No one should talk to a woman on the road, even to his lawful wife”; “don’t talk to a woman for a long time”; “It is better to burn the words of the Law than to teach them to a woman.” Secondly, the Savior’s interlocutor was a Samaritan woman, that is, a representative of the Judeo-Assyrian tribe, hated by the “pure” Jews to such an extent that they considered any contact with the Samaritans to be defiling. And finally, the Samaritan wife turned out to be a sinner who had five husbands before uniting in fornication with another man.
But it was to this woman, a pagan and a harlot, “suffering the heat of many passions,” that the heart-reader Christ deigned to give “living water, drying up the fountains of sins.” Moreover, Jesus revealed to the Samaritan woman that He was the Messiah, God’s anointed, which He did not always do and not in front of everyone.
Speaking about the water that fills Jacob's well, the Savior notes: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; and whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.” This, of course, is an allegorical distinction between the Old Testament law and the miraculously increasing grace of the New Testament in the human soul.
The most important moment of the conversation is Christ’s answer to the Samaritan woman’s question about where God should be worshiped: on Mount Gerizim, as her fellow believers do, or in Jerusalem, following the example of the Jews. “Believe Me that the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem,” says Jesus. “But the time will come, and has already come, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father seeks such worshipers for Himself.”
In Spirit and Truth - this means that faith is not exhausted by rite and ritual, that it is not the dead letter of the law, but active filial love that pleases God. In these words of the Lord we find at the same time the most complete definition of Christianity as life in Spirit and Truth.
Christ's conversation with the Samaritan woman was the first sermon of the New Testament in the face of the non-Jewish world, and it contained the promise that it was this world that would accept Christ.
The great event of man’s meeting with God at Jacob’s well also brings to mind the wonderful words of one ancient theologian, who argued that the human soul is by nature Christian. “And according to the sinful custom of everyday life, she is a Samaritan woman,” they may object to us. So be it. But Christ, let us remember, did not reveal himself to the Jewish high priest, nor to King Herod the Tetrarch, nor to the Roman procurator, but confessed His Heavenly mission to this world before the sinful Samaritan woman. And it was through her, according to God’s providence, that the inhabitants of her hometown were brought to Christ. Truly, around the one who has acquired the truth of the Holy Spirit, thousands will be saved. So it was, so it will be. For the source of the water of Salvation, with which Christ blessed us all, is an inexhaustible spring.
According to legend, the Savior’s interlocutor was the Samaritan woman Photina (Greek parallel to the Russian name Svetlana), who, after cruel torture, was thrown into a well for preaching the Lord.
Photinia - according to Tradition, this was the name of the Samaritan woman whom the Lord met at the well and through whom he converted the whole village (Chapter 4 of the Gospel of John). The fifth week of Easter is dedicated to this event.
A small ethnic group, descendants of the pagans who settled this land after the captivity of the Israeli people by Babylon. Their religious ideas seriously differed from the traditional faith of the Jews.
By the time of the story being described, the Jews and Samaritans had already been in mutual enmity for several centuries and did not communicate with each other.
Christ and his disciples returned to Galilee, to the north of the country, through Samaria - this was the shortest route. Here, near the city of Shechem at the foot of Mount Gerizim, He stopped to rest at a well. The disciples went to the village to buy food.
At that moment, a woman came from the city for water with a jug adapted for lowering it into a deep well. Jesus asked her to fetch water for Him. How can you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? - Photinia was surprised. If you knew the gift of God, - Christ answered, - and Who says to you: Give Me a drink, then you yourself would ask Him, and He would give you living water... Master! You have nothing to draw with, but the well is deep; where did you get your living water from? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and who drank from it, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus said in response what she never expected to hear: Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again, and whoever drinks the water that I give will never thirst, but the water that I will give him will become his own. a source of water springing up into eternal life.
Then, in her simplicity, the Savior’s interlocutor asks: “Lord, give me such water that I will no longer go to the well!” And Christ tells her to go to the city and return to the well with her husband, so that He can explain to her the meaning of what was said. “I don’t have a husband,” the woman admitted. “You told the truth. You had five husbands, and the one with whom you live now is not your husband,” answered the Lord.
Photinia is surprised by the insight of the One sitting in front of her, but continues to ask. With the same sincerity and simplicity, she immediately begins to clarify the most important question for her: whose faith is right? “I see, Lord, that you are a prophet! Our fathers worshiped God on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place of His worship is in Jerusalem.” Believe Me,” Christ answers, “that the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” You do not know what you bow down to, but we know what we bow down to, for salvation comes from the Jews. But the time will come and has already come when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is looking for such worshipers for Himself.
I know,” Photinia continues, “that the Messiah, that is, Christ, will come; when He comes, He will tell us everything.
To which the Lord answers directly to this simple-minded woman: It is I who speak to you. What was supposed to happen in her soul? She runs to the city, where she talks about the perspicacious Wanderer who spoke to her: is he not Christ? And then the inhabitants of Shechem go to the well. The Lord, at their request, stayed in this city for two days, and many believed in Him.
This event is remembered by the Church in the weeks after Easter. And he applies to us the words spoken by Christ to the Samaritan woman. This is reflected in the kontakion: “In the middle of the legal holiday, You, the Creator of the whole world and the Lord, proclaimed to those present, O Christ our God: “Come and scoop up the waters of immortality!” Therefore, we fall to You and cry out with faith: “Give us Your mercies, for You are the source of our life!”
Unlike the paralytic, the further fate of the Samaritan Photinia is known to us: she was baptized in 66, under Emperor Nero, for Christian faith suffered torture and death in Rome, together with her sons Josiah and Victor (Photinus), as well as her sisters Anastasia, Paraskeva, Kyriacia, Photo and Photida. Tradition says that thanks to the Samaritan woman, the daughter of Emperor Nero, Domnina, turned to Christ, and later also joined the ranks of Christian martyrs.
Jesus comes to the city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the plot of land given by Jacob to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. Jesus, weary from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about six o'clock. A woman comes from Samaria to draw water. Jesus says to her: Give me something to drink. For His disciples went into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to Him: How can you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? for Jews do not communicate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her: if you knew the gift of God and Who says to you: Give Me a drink, then you yourself would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. The woman says to Him: Master! you have nothing to draw with, but the well is deep; Where did you get your living water from? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.
The woman says to Him: Master! give me this water so that I won’t be thirsty and won’t have to come here to draw. Jesus says to her: Go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered: I have no husband. Jesus says to her: You said the truth that you have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; That's right what you said.
The woman says to Him: Lord! I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where we should worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus says to her: Believe Me, that the time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You do not know what you bow down to, but we know what we bow down to, for salvation comes from the Jews. But the time will come and has already come when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is looking for such worshipers for Himself. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman says to Him: I know that the Messiah will come, that is, Christ; when He comes, He will tell us everything. Jesus says to her: It is I who speak to you.
At this time His disciples came and were surprised that He was talking to a woman; however, not one said: what do you require? or: what are you talking to her about? Then the woman left her waterpot and went into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a man, who told me all things that I have done: is not this the Christ?” They left the city and went to Him.
Meanwhile, the disciples asked Him, saying: Rabbi! eat. But He said to them: I have food that you do not know. Therefore the disciples said among themselves: Who brought Him anything to eat? Jesus says to them: My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. Don't you say that there are still four months and the harvest will come? But I say to you: lift up your eyes and look at the fields, how they are white and ripe for harvest. He who reaps receives his reward and gathers fruit into eternal life, so that both he who sows and he who reaps will rejoice together, for in this case the saying is true: one sows, and the other reaps. I sent you to reap what you did not labor for: others labored, but you entered into their labor.
And many Samaritans from that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman, who testified that He told her everything that she had done. And therefore, when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And further larger number believed according to His word. And they said to that woman: We no longer believe because of your words, for we ourselves have heard and learned that He is truly the Savior of the world, Christ.
In today's Gospel we hear how the Savior came to Jacob's well to meet the Samaritan woman there. He walked for a long time to this woman, to one person, making His way under the scorching sun. It was the sixth hour, that is, noon according to the calculation of that time - the very peak of the heat - and He was exhausted from fatigue and thirsty.
Why, the holy fathers ask, did He not walk at night, when it was cooler and much easier to walk? Because, as we know, He devoted the whole night to prayer, and the day, without wasting an hour, to serving people. And we see that this is our Lord - God who became man. The one who cries when he sees the dead. The One who will suffer on the Cross. And now He is exhausted from thirst. Why can He, being God, not overcome His By divine power this thirst? Of course, everything is in His power. But then He would not be a true man. And the victory that He would win would not be a victory that we can share in.
Didn't He feed five thousand people with five loaves? Didn't He walk on the water? What does it cost Him, with one word, with one thought, to command that a spring flow from a rock or from sand and quench His thirst? But this is where the most important thing is revealed to us. Never, not once in His life did He perform a single miracle for His own sake: in order to feed Himself, quench His thirst, alleviate His pain.
From the very beginning, from Christmas, He shares in all our weaknesses. As a baby He flees from Herod's sword like a simple man. And He also does this for our sake, and not for His own sake, because His hour has not yet come. But when the time comes for Him to fight death, He will come out to meet it in order to save everyone and so that the death of each of us will turn into eternal life.
Everything in Him is filled with infinite Divine love for the entire human race and for each individual person. Everything is weighed for every hour and in every place. The Lord contains everything and carries the whole world like a Cross, on which He will say His holy words: I'm thirsty.
And so a Samaritan woman comes to the well where Christ sits - a simple woman who does not have a servant to bring water. And we see how Divine Providence achieves great goals through events that seem to mean nothing. The Savior's disciples went into the city to buy food, but Christ did not go with them. Not because He disdained to eat in the Samaritan city, but because He had an important task to do.
We know that He often preached to a multitude of people, but here He carefully bends down to one soul - one woman, a simple poor foreigner, in order to teach His apostles and His Church to do the same thing, so that they know that the joy of the Lord is to save just one soul from death.
The Lord begins the conversation with a request to give Him something to drink. Give me a drink- He says to the woman. He, Who holds in His hands the sources of all waters, the Creator of the world, became poor to the end and asks from His creation. He asks this woman because he wants to enter into genuine communication with her. He still asks of us through all those who hunger and thirst, and says: Whoever gives only one cup of cold water in His name will not lose his reward(Matthew 10:42).
The woman is amazed because there is mortal religious enmity between the Jews and Samaritans, and they do not communicate with each other. For it was the pride of the Jews to endure any hardship in order not to accept anything from the Samaritans. And Christ takes the opportunity to lead the soul of this woman to greater depths. He does not seem to notice her words about the enmity of the Jews and Samaritans. There are differences between people that should not be treated as something of secondary importance, but sometimes these differences are better healed when we deliberately avoid the occasion to enter into disputes regarding these differences. And in the same way, we will see further that the Lord, in a conversation with the Samaritan woman, will bypass the question of where is the best place to worship God, For the time is coming when you will worship the Father, not on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem,- He says.
The Lord, talking with a woman, leads her to the idea that she needs a Savior. She really begins to understand that now she can find through the Lord what will be most precious to her in life. If you knew the gift of God,- says Christ, - “and who is it that asks you to drink?” Before that, she thought that in front of her was just a Jew, just a poor, tormented wanderer, and in front of her was the gift of God, the ultimate manifestation of God’s love for man—God Himself.
How can this gift of God be offered to people? God asks man: give me something to drink. And the Lord says to this woman, ThuO What would she do if she knew Him? You would have asked. Whoever needs any gift, let him ask Him.
And then the Lord reveals to us the whole secret of prayer, the whole secret of our communication with God. Those who have once known Christ will always seek Him. And nothing else in the world will ever be sweet to them, will never be able to quench their thirst. He will give living water, and this living water is the Holy Spirit, which cannot be compared with the water at the bottom of a well, even a holy well, but which He compares with living (that is, flowing) water. The grace of the Holy Spirit is like this water.
Christ can give, and He wants to give this living water to all who ask Him. And the Samaritan woman looks at the Lord with amazement and disbelief. You have nothing to draw from, but the well is deep,- she says to Him. Where do you get your living water from? And then Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well?
Like Nicodemus, who secretly came to Christ at night to talk with Him about the Kingdom of God and did not understand how a person should be born again, so this woman understands all the words of Christ literally. And the Lord supports her, strengthens her, leads her further, shows that the water from Jacob’s well provided only temporary quenching of thirst, both physical and spiritual. And whoever drinks the water that He gives will never thirst.
A person does not need to turn to anyone for consolation in sorrows. He who believes in Christ will have within himself a fountain of living water, ever flowing. And this water is always in motion, because the grace of the Holy Spirit gives newness to life, continuous, constantly miraculous. Everything in this world is already old, no matter how new it may seem. And what the Lord gives is absolutely new, and it becomes continually new, it is in the continuous movement of life.
The Lord simultaneously warns that if the great truths that He reveals to us become like stagnant water in our souls, this means that we do not live by these truths, that we have not yet accepted them as we need to accept them. God,- the woman says to Him, both believing and not believing, - Give me water so that I won’t be thirsty and won’t have to come here to draw. Perhaps a vague insight is already being born in her that something extraordinary is happening here, the most important thing.
Suddenly the Lord connects the conversation about living water with her personal life, with the depths of her conscience. And this is something that each of us should think carefully about, to see this inextricable connection between the deepest secrets of life and our destiny. Go ahead- says the Lord, - call your husband and come here. Call your husband to help you understand everything. Call him so that he can learn with you, and you both can become heirs of a grace-filled life. Maybe He told her more than what is written in the Gospel, because it says that He told her everything she did in life. It was as if he had given a description of her entire past.
“You have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband,” that is, she lived in fornication, in adultery. But how carefully and at the same time firmly the Lord treats her soul! How skillful is His reproof, how full of love it is for this soul! The one you have now is not your husband,- the Lord says with sadness, with sorrow and leaves her conscience to finish the rest. But even in this, He offers an explanation of her words, better than she herself was able to immediately bear. You said the truth that you don't have a husband. And again he says: you said it rightly. What she said at the beginning was simply a denial of the fact that she has no husband, and the Lord is helping to turn it into a confession of her sins. And this is how the Lord deals with every human soul. Thus, He gradually leads us to the deepest true repentance, without which we cannot taste the water that He offers us.
Let each of us understand what we are talking about here. These words were spoken not just to a harlot woman, but to every human soul. Because everyone human soul there were “five husbands,” say the holy fathers, that is, five senses that are given to man and with which he lives in this world. And it seems to a person that he can live like this - with these five senses that determine his natural life. But, being unable to provide life with his own strength, a person retreats from these unions with natural life and acquires a “wicked man” - sin.
The Lord wants to say that natural life - even in goodness and truth - sooner or later inevitably becomes unnatural, sinful, where there is no grace. Until a person finds grace - new life, for the sake of which Christ goes to the Cross, are the best, the purest, the most noble of people, especially all of humanity, as we observe, follows precisely this path. From its five natural senses, from its natural gifts, it falls into a subnatural state, so that sin becomes the norm of life for everyone. Only the grace of God, only this living water, which Christ speaks of, can save a person.
And only after this the Lord speaks about true worship of God. The time is coming and has already come when it will not matter in what place God is worshiped, because what is essential is worship in spirit and in truth. It all depends on the state of our spirit in which we worship the Lord.
We must worship God in spirit, trusting that God the Holy Spirit will strengthen us and help us achieve true life. We must worship Him with fidelity to truth and fervor of love. We must worship Him in truth and in righteousness with all sincerity, valuing the content infinitely more than the form. Not only by the drawer, through which the precious water is given to us, but by the water itself, because if we do not partake of this living water, then, no matter how golden everything else may be, it is of no benefit to us. The Father is looking for only such fans. Because the path to true spiritual worship is narrow, but it is necessary. And the Lord insists on this, and He says that there is no other way.
The more we feel the imminent coming of Christ, the more the Church cries: “Let him who thirsts come, and let him who desires take the water of life freely!” It becomes all the more obvious that a person who is spiritually thirsty cannot continue his sinful life. Look at the fields, Christ tells us today, how white they are for the harvest! But how our fields are trampled and burned! The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, the Lord grieves. Is it possible that we will not be able to reap what the Lord sowed through His death and Resurrection? Will the blood of countless new Russian martyrs, the seed of the Church, be in vain? Haven't we learned anything from past experiences? Didn’t we just recently miss when our people, at the turning point of history, were so receptive to God and Christ’s harvest? How did it happen that the enemy pushed us back and occupied all the lines, and instead of living water they gave our people a drink, and every day they continue to give us the wine of fornication?
Let the awareness of our powerlessness to change anything become deep repentance and turning to the Lord with the determination never to depart from Him, and then strength Christ's Resurrection will open the way for us. With Him, only with Him, can we overcome those who have overcome us for so long. The sad time has come, but those who sow in tears will reap with joy(Ps. 125:5).
The fact that the Lord seeks those who worship Him in spirit and truth means that He Himself creates such worshipers. And the woman becomes such a fan. Many Samaritans believed in Christ before they saw Him, according to the word of this woman. She did not perform any miracle, she did not have the gift of speech, she was a simple woman. IN grave sins all her life she abided, but what a harvest her word brings, because she truly met Christ!
We remember how the inhabitants of the Gadarene country begged Christ to move away from their borders after He performed a miracle, one might say resurrecting a demon-possessed man almost from the dead. And these beg for Him to remain with them. And the Lord obeys both. Oh, if only the inhabitants of our country today would become like the Samaritans, not the Gadarenes! But for this we need to become like the Samaritan woman. So that we too may know and taste how good the Lord is. And living water became a source of life for us and for other people.
The Samaritans said to this woman: We no longer believe because of your words, but we ourselves have heard from Him and we know that He is truly Christ the Savior. We do not know what Christ talked about with the Samaritans, but it is clear to us that they drank of that very living water, having tasted which a person no longer thirsts. And to this day Christ stands in the midst of all our holidays and all our everyday life and calls loudly, as it is said in the Gospel, so that everyone can hear: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink(John 7:37). Only He, and no one else, can give life to exhausted people dying of thirst in the middle of the hot desert of the world.
Art. 16-19 Jesus said to her: Go, invite your husband and come here. The wife answered and said (to Him): The husband is not the imam. Jesus said to her: You have spoken well, for you have not had a husband; for you have had five husbands, and now, having the same husband, you have no husband: behold, truly you have spoken. His wife said to Him: Lord, I see that You are a prophet:
That is why He reveals power to her through His insight; however, he doesn’t immediately denounce her, but what does he say? Go, invite your husband and come here. The wife answered and said to Him: “I am not the imam of my husband.” Jesus said to her: You said well, for you are not an imam, for you had five husbands, and now you have him, and you are no husband; Behold, truly you have declared. His wife said to Him: Lord, I see that You are a Prophet (vv. 16–18).
What, however, wisdom there is in this wife! With what meekness she accepts reproof! Why shouldn’t she accept it, you say? But tell me: didn’t He often and even more strongly rebuke the Jews? It is not the same thing to reveal innermost thoughts and reveal secret affairs. The first is characteristic of God alone: no one knows thoughts except the one who has them; and deeds are known to all those involved in them. But the Jews did not endure reproof with meekness, and when Christ said: Why are you trying to kill me?(7:19) - not only were they not surprised, like the wife, but they also blasphemed and slandered Him; they had evidence in other signs, but the wife only heard this one; but they not only did not marvel, but also reviled Him, saying: Is Imashi the devil? Who is looking to kill you?(7, 20) . She not only does not reproach Him, but is surprised, amazed and concludes that He is a Prophet, although the wife’s reproof was stronger than theirs. The sin exposed in her was her sin alone, but they were exposed as common sins; but we are not as tormented by the exposure of common sins as our private ones. Moreover, the Jews thought that they would do a great thing if they killed Christ; and everyone recognized the wife’s case as bad. Despite all this, she is not annoyed, but amazed and surprised. Christ did exactly the same thing with Nathanael; He didn’t suddenly show his insight, he didn’t immediately say: existing under the fig tree videh Ty, but then, when he asked: How do you know me?(1, 48) . Christ wanted both His prophecies and miracles to originate from those who come to Him, both in order to thus bring them closer to Himself, and in order to Himself avoid suspicion of vanity. That's what He does here too. To warn a wife with reproof that she does not have a husband could seem burdensome and inappropriate; but to make a reproof, having received a reason from her herself, this was very appropriate, and prompted her to listen to the reproof with greater meekness. But what, you say, is the sequence in the words: go, invite your husband? It was about the gift of grace that surpasses human nature, the wife urgently desired to receive this gift; So He says: go, invite your husband, as if showing by this that the husband should also take part in the gift. The wife, in a hurry to receive and hiding her shameful deeds, moreover, thinking that she was talking with a simple person, speaks: not the husband's imam. Having heard this, Christ now introduces reproof into His conversation, precisely expressing both: He lists all the previous husbands, and reveals the one whom she was hiding at that time. What about the wife? He is not annoyed, does not run away from Him, and does not consider this circumstance a reason for indignation at Him, but is even more surprised at Him, and shows even more firmness. I see, speaks, For you are a Prophet. Notice her prudence. And after that she does not immediately submit to Him, but still reflects and is surprised. Her word is I see means: it seems to me that you are a Prophet. But as soon as she had such a concept about Him, she no longer asked Him about anything worldly: neither about bodily health, nor about property or wealth, but immediately about dogmas.
St. Kirill of Alexandria
“Jesus said to her: Go, invite your husband and come here.” In all fairness, we can say that the thoughts of the female sex are, as it were, feminine, and the mind that dwells in women is weak, completely incapable of a deep understanding of anything. But the nature of men is more inclined to learning and much more capable of reasoning, since it has a spirit directed towards research, so to speak, ardent and courageous. For this reason, I believe, I commanded the woman “call my husband”, secretly denouncing her for having a coarse heart, incapable of assimilating wisdom, and at the same time building something else very beautiful.
Interpretation of the Gospel of John. Book II.
Blazh. Theophylact of Bulgaria
Art. 16-22 Jesus says to her: Go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered: I have no husband. Jesus says to her: You said the truth that you have no husband; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband; That's right what you said. The woman says to Him: Lord! I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that the place where one should worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus says to her: Believe Me, that the time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You do not know what you are bowing to; but we know what we worship, for salvation is from the Jews
“Go, call your husband.” Seeing that she insists on receiving, and encourages Him to give, she says: "Call your husband" as if showing that he too must participate with you in this gift of Mine. She, in order to quickly hide and get it together, says: I don’t have a husband. Now the Lord, through prophetic knowledge, reveals His power, lists her former husbands and reveals the one whom she is now hiding. Wasn't she annoyed after hearing this? Didn’t she leave Him and run away? No, she was even more surprised, even more strengthened and said: Lord! I see that You are a prophet; and asks Him about divine things, and not about everyday things, for example, about the health of the body or about property. So chaste and well-disposed to virtue is her soul! What is he asking about? "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain". This says about Abraham and his successors. For here, they say, Isaac was sacrificed to them. How then, he says, do you say what should be worshiped in Jerusalem? Do you see how she's gotten taller? Shortly before this, she was concerned about not being tormented by thirst, and now she is asking about teaching (dogmas). Therefore, Christ, seeing her understanding, although he does not resolve this bewilderment of her (for it was not of particular importance), but reveals another, more important truth, which He did not reveal to either Nicodemus or Nathanael. The time is coming, he says, when God will be worshiped neither in Jerusalem nor here. You, he says, are trying to prove that the Samaritan customs are more worthy than the Jewish customs. But I tell you that neither one nor the other has dignity, but another certain order will come, which is better than both of these. But even at the same time, I declare that the Jews are more worthy than the Samaritans. You, he says, bow to what you do not know; but we Jews bow to what we know. He classifies Himself among the Jews, because He speaks in relation to the concept of a woman, and she understood Him as a Jewish prophet. That is why He says: "We" we bow. - How did the Samaritans not know what they were bowing to? They thought that God was limited to place. Therefore, when the lions devoured them, as was said above, they, through ambassadors, reported to the king of the Assyrians that the God of this place did not tolerate them. However, even after that they continued to serve idols for a long time, and not God Himself. But the Jews were free from such a concept and, although not all, recognized Him as the God of all. "For salvation comes from the Jews". These words give us a double thought. Or the one that the good for the universe came from the Jews, for the knowledge of God and the rejection of idols from them had its beginning, and all other teachings (dogmas), and this very kind of your Samaritan worship, although incorrect, received its beginning from the Jews. Or He "salvation" names His coming, which was from the Jews. Possible under "salvation" to understand the Lord Himself, who was of the Jews according to the flesh.
Evfimy Zigaben
Jesus said to her: go, invite your husband and come here.
When the Samaritan woman persistently asked and desired to receive living water, Jesus Christ said to her: go, invite your husband and come here, showing that he also needs to be given this gift. As an omniscient, He knew that she did not have a legal husband, but wanted her to say that she did not, so that, taking advantage of this opportunity, he would reveal the circumstances of her life and act on her correction. Jesus Christ always deigned to borrow the reason for prophecies and miracles from those who came, in order to avoid suspicion of vanity, and to bring them even closer to Himself. To say earlier: you had many husbands and now you have an illegitimate husband would have seemed unnecessary and untimely, but to say this when she herself gave the reason was very consistent and well-timed.
St. Maxim the Confessor
Art. 16-18 Jesus says to her: Go, call your husband and come here. The woman answered: I have no husband. Jesus says to her: You said the truth that you have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; it's fair what you said
Question: What do the five husbands of the Samaritan woman and the sixth, who is not her husband, mean?
Answer: Samaritan woman and woman, according to the Sadducees, who married seven brothers (Matthew 22:25-28), bleeding (Matthew 9:20), and also crooked (Luke 13:11), daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:22ff) and the Syrophoenician (Mark 7:25ff) - [all of them] reveal both the nature of people and the soul of an individual person, each denoting, according to the existing passionate disposition, this [common] nature and [individual] soul. For example, the wife of the Sadducees is a nature or soul that cohabits fruitlessly with all the divine laws given from time immemorial, but does not perceive the aspirations of future [goods]. In the same way, the bleeding is the nature or soul, pouring out the power given to it for the birth of righteous deeds and sayings in a passionate commitment to the substance. The Syrophoenician is the same nature or soul of an individual [person], having, like a daughter, a thought, which in the despair of an epileptic fit is painfully torn by love for matter. In the same way, the daughter of Jairus is a nature or soul dependent on the law, but completely dead as a result of non-fulfillment of its commandments and inaction in the implementation of divine instructions. And a crooked woman is nature or soul, which, through the temptations of the devil, inclines all the power of spiritual activity to matter. The Samaritan woman, like these listed women, represents the nature or soul of every person, cohabiting without prophetic charisma, as if with husbands, with all the laws given to nature; Of these, five are already dead, and the sixth, although alive, was not a man of nature or soul, since he does not give birth to righteousness from it, which is the guarantee of complete salvation.
The first law that nature possessed was the law [given] in paradise; the second is the law after heaven; the third is the law given to Noah at the flood; fourth, the law of circumcision given to Abraham; fifth is the law of the sacrifice of Isaac. Nature, having received them, rejected them all, and they perished in sterility regarding the deeds of virtue. Having the sixth law, [given] through Moses, [nature] was as if not having it, either because it did not fulfill the righteous deeds prescribed by him, or because he had to pass, as a husband, to another law - the Gospel, which was not given, like the [previous] law, to the nature of men through this age], but, according to [God's] Economy, it was given for the education of the better and more mysterious. For this reason, I believe, the Lord says to the Samaritan woman: And the one you have now is not your husband. For He saw that [human] nature had to move to the Gospel. Therefore, around the sixth hour, when the soul is especially illuminated on all sides by the rays of knowledge as a result of the coming to it of the Word and when the shadow of the law disappears [in these rays, the Lord] spoke to her, standing with the Word at Jacob’s well, that is, at the source of speculation, related to Holy Scripture. Let it be said this way for now.
Questions and answers to Thalassia.
Lopukhin A.P.
Jesus says to her: go, call your husband and come here
Since the Samaritan woman turns out to be unable to understand the speeches of Christ, He commands her to call her husband here to talk with Him, who, it is assumed, will explain to her later what she herself is not able to understand.