Jacob's Well by Stephen D. Edwards
Ariella rushes with excitement back into Sychar leaving her water jar at the well. As she walks past people, she urges, “Come and see the man who told me everything I’ve ever done!”
The people are surprised because Ariella usually stays quiet in her home except to get water and food. They ask her, “How did that happen?”
“He looked quite tired and asked me for a drink. So I asked the man, ‘How it could be that a Jewish man could like you could be asking a Samaritan woman like me for a drink from the well?’ He told me, ‘If you were aware of God’s gift and who asks you for a drink, you would have asked, and he would have delivered living water.’”
“Did this prophet have water with him?”
“No. He didn’t. And I told him, ‘You have no way to draw the water,’ and asked, ‘Where do you get this living water?’ Then I told him that the well was Jacob’s.
“What did he say next?”
He told me, “Anyone who drinks of the water that he gives will never thirst, but whoever drinks of the water from that well will always thirst, and it will become a spring of water gushing up to eternal life,” Ariella answers. “I asked him to give me that living water.”
“We saw you talking to him for a long time. What else did he say?”
“He asked me to get my husband. I said that I’m not married. It was then that I became perceived him to be a prophet because I hadn’t told him anything about my life. He said, ‘You are right that you are not married, for you’ve been married five times. The man you are with is also not your husband.”
“Is all of that true?”
“Yes,” she confirms.
“So he really is a prophet. Only a prophet could know that kind of intimate detail about you.”
“He is much more than that. He is the One the Jews said is to come,” she said.
“We must meet this man and invite him to stay with us for a few days.”
§§§
As Jesus enters the town with his disciples, he finds a lame man on the street. Surrounded by a crowd, he tells the man, “Rise and walk.”
With little effort, the man gets up and walks, shaking his legs. No one could question that the man might have been well all along because his legs are still weak and almost withered away even as he stood up.
Jesus also heals the blind, deaf and mute. He delivers demons too.
After a day there no one else left who needs healing. Jesus allows one of His disciples to talk to the people. He tells them that the kingdom is near, and that they need to repent and be baptized.
Then Jesus tells them that the most important of God’s commandments to a man are two: that he loves God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength, and that the second is like it, to love his neighbors as himself.
§§§
Two years later, Ariella sees Jesus in Jericho as he travels to Jerusalem. She follows him to the holy city with the desire to discover what Passover is like in Jerusalem. She becomes hysterical at the sight of him crucified, because of her love and gratitude for what he did for her. She goes home with dark clouds in her eyes.
§§§
Another year passed with Ariella believing that Jesus was one of the many false messiahs. She walks out of Sychar to get water and sees a commotion near Jacob’s well. She puts her jar down out of curiosity and hears Philip the Apostle say, “… and Jesus was raised from the grave on the Third Day, appeared before 500 people at one time and ascended into heaven as we watched. Two angels in white robes asked why we stood there gazing into heaven and told us that he will return just as we saw him go.”
Ariella’s eyes return to their normal color, and she left her jar at the well as she did years ago.
Stephen D. Edwards began writing in his teen years but lost the
passion for it. After gaining freedom from depression, he wrote a
memoir titled “The Branch and the Vine: How Jesus Gave Me Freedom from
Depression” to share his experience to help Christians who suffer. The
memoir is available at Kobo and Amazon. With his passion reignited, he
now writes Christian-themed short stories and novels to encourage and
inspire. Edwards’ most recent work has been published in “Agape
Review.”