By Monk Moses the Athonite
In today’s Gospel passage from the Evangelist John the Theologian, we heard in our churches about the meeting of Jesus with the Samaritan woman beside a well…
This meeting is of especially great importance not only for the suffering woman. Christ meets the whole fallen world, even the world of today. He does not quarrel with, reject, or drive anyone away. He wishes to communicate with everyone, even the most downtrodden. Christ Himself said that He came chiefly for sinners. It is enough that they receive Him, that they open the leaves of their closed hearts to Him. He does not ask for much. A little water. Something very small, in order to become the occasion for an exit from the cage of our self-imprisonment.
At first the Samaritan woman is rather cautious. She is bound by mistaken opinions, fanatical ideas, long-standing prejudices, and therefore trapped, ensnared, blocked, and suspicious. According to her tradition, she is unable to give water to a Jew, to an enemy. Christ in truth is not greatly thirsty for water. He thirsts for the liberation of His afflicted interlocutor. The conversation begins to become fascinating and revelatory.
Christ does not wish to expose her, shame her, or crush her personality. On the contrary, He feels compassion for her, because five times she tried to find love, to build a family, and did not succeed. The Samaritan woman does not react angrily, does not become irritated, does not justify herself, but humbles herself, repents, and admits her defeat. She accepts Jesus as a great prophet, a knower of hearts and worker of wonders. Christ entrusts her with the revelation that He is the expected Messiah.
The Samaritan woman was saved; for the first time in her troubled life she was filled with true joy. The Samaritan woman was not some great lady. She was a woman not of particularly good reputation and therefore despised. The Savior condescends to human misery, degradation, and impropriety. He cleanses, illumines, adopts, and corrects human weakness.
We might say that the conversation with Jesus awakened the Samaritan woman from her numbness and reminded her of her childhood innocence. Christ even entrusts her with rare and exalted truths. The Samaritan woman was a feminist of her time. The much-discussed contract of free cohabitation would probably have suited her well. Yet after the sublime conversation with Christ, the Samaritan woman transforms fleshly eros into divine eros.
She is reborn, transformed, raised up. Five men were unable to give her joy. She ended up becoming an evangelist, equal-to-the-apostles, and great martyr. She suffered martyrdom together with her daughters for the love of Christ. This is Saint Photini. Her life became filled with joy and peace. Saint John Chrysostom says that through repentance even the wolf becomes a lamb.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.