It is an impressive move that the Lord Jesus Christ had diverted his travel route to make a stop in Samaria. There, He was to meet a woman who was sinful and a reject in the eyes of the society.
Jesus went out of his way in order to bring healing to a person who others had given up on. Jesus showed Photini, as her name is according to the church tradition, one of love and great respect but at the same time He did not waver from declaring to her the full truth in a kind manner.
It is also equally impressive that Saint John the Evangelist dedicated a large portion of his gospel to record in detail for us, her conversation with the Lord Jesus Christ. Especially knowing that Saint John was laconic in his selection of Jesus’ miracles and actions.
When pondering upon these details, one cannot help but conclude the importance of Jesus encounter with the Samaritan woman, and the significance of Saint John’s choice to preserve it for us.
This Samaritan woman was suffering from a common disease that strikes people in every age as much as it has done during our age. It is the disease of being worldly or in love with the earthy pleasures and glory of this transient life.
The healing of this woman is important to give hope to the vast majority of Christians that are suffering from the same cunning disease of worldliness so that their souls would not suffer quietly under torturous, worldliness and the results of consequences of merciless spiritual blindness and illness.
“Worldliness” or as is known in the literature of the Church as the sickness of “Insensibility” is the disease of being in love with this world and distracted by its earthly glory.
If malnourish, the soul remains with no food, depriving it from being able to be nourished by the essential and true spiritual food that is found in the Holy Scriptures and holy sacraments.
“Insensibility” also prevents the person from seeking the healing through the prayers of the Church as well as the teaching of the Fathers of the Church.
Spiritual insensibility causes insensitivity within the human conscience. It blinds the person from recognizing that sin is not a theoretical exercise or an intellectual concept, rather it is a true predator that causes the eternal death of the soul.
Insensibility hits the person’s ability with physical and spiritual paralysis, causing them to continue to suffer from the pain of the sin while freezing their ability to heal.
This physical and spiritual malnutrition prevents them from turning to repentance in order to connect with God and the font of the healing grace, thus allowing them to become pain free.
The disease of insensibility is as common spiritual illness today and as harmful as it was in the days of Jesus Christ.
Living in sin, putting up with it, loving, seeking it is a serious reason to be rejected by God.
Christians are reminded through the example of the Samaritan woman to take the warning about the deadliness of sin seriously.
They are reminded that believing in Christ means the realization of one’s sinfulness and the importance of striving to reach the state of holiness and detachment from sin.
Confession and repentance is the only gift that God would accept from the person who has drifted away and chosen to live in the camp of sin.
Those who fall in to sin out of love for it, enjoy it, even though they might participate in the sacraments of the church, they are delusional if they don’t know that they do not belong to God.
The holy sacraments while a person is being in love with sin are not a source of healing to the partakers, rather a cause for their condemnation and destruction.
The Christian life that is pleasing to God is a life that is lived according to God’s commandments. A Christian life that is not inspired by God’s commandments is like a body without soul.
A Christian life is nothing but a life of constant repentance. Repentance is the main daily task of every Christian. It will result in granting the person the most profound vision of himself and of his fallen state and it will allow him to discover the truth about his current suffering under the tyranny of the devil as a result of his sin.
Repentance heals the righteous person from the deadly blows of sin and enables him to maintain his fellowship with Christ.
A day without tears of repentance to weep one’s own sins and without striving toward repentance is a day lost on a salvation that could save a soul.
Those who are purified by weeping see their impurity and gain more purity within their souls. Tears of repentance purify our sins and prevent us from more sinning.
Those who don’t concern themselves with the salvation of their souls may experience a state of content as the case was with the Samaritan woman before she had met Christ, but that is not necessarily the gift of peace that is usually given by God as a reward of a pleasing way of life.
Rather this state of content is the result of spiritual numbness brought by the influence of the toxic anesthesia of the vain earthly glory.
The Samaritan woman teaches us through her example that the life of repentance starts with a moment of attentiveness while meeting the Lord Jesus Christ and by reacquiring the remembrance of the fear of God.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4) Mourning and shedding tears of repentance are gifts from God. Weeping our sins would bring us as sweet feeling as the eating of honey.
Fearing to fall into the state of insensibility after recovering from it is of a great importance. It should be a daily remembrance on our mind and continuous task on our list as it safeguards us from falling again into the captivity of the enemy, and prevents the eternal death from devouring us mercilessly.