NOTES for Joh 4:1-42
The chain of themes through which the Lord persistently leads the Samaritan woman has been and remains for many an image of how a person seeks the most important thing in life, and at the same time of how God seeks the human soul. The Lord takes the first step by asking for a drink, thereby prompting the woman to take a responding step that requires some effort from her: out of mercy toward a weary traveler she has to step over the religious ban on communication with Jews. The following steps also require ever greater openness from the woman and trust in the Man at the well. She has to admit to Him that everything in her life is very complicated, but after trusting Jesus she asks Him about what seems to her the most basic question in life: where to worship, how to believe? Then she opens to Him her deepest hope: even if life is not coming together and religious disagreements have reached a dead end, there is One who, when He comes, will be able to set everything in order, explain everything, and answer the most hidden questions and desires: the Messiah.
As a result she is the first, even before the disciples, to learn of Christ's coming into the world. She turns out to be the most suitable person for this, because the desire to know Him overcame in her both distrust and shame and despair.