THE WELL IS DEEP
"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and
the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater
than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did
also his sons and his flocks and herds?" John 4:11-12
This is the reply given by the woman of Sychar to the
address of the Savior. It is an answer which begins, at all events,
deferentially. Her previous reply was that of a churlish, uncourteous
Samaritan, startled and offended at the familiarity of a hated Jew: "How is it
that you, a Jew?" But now the kindness alike in the tone and substance
of His language has apparently disarmed the virulence at least of her dislike
and antipathy, taken the rough edge off her sectarian prejudice, and she
addresses Him with the respectful title of "Sir," or "Lord." The promise,
however, in the opening of her reply is not sustained. She gradually lapses
into the old feeling and expression of disdain. He had designed to elevate her
thoughts to everlasting verities—from the well at their feet to the water of
life. But she has no spiritual discernment to raise her above the material;
the human supersedes the divine; what was spoken figuratively is
taken literally. His golden gate of salvation becomes, in her hands, iron and
brass. So true is it that "the man without the Spirit does not accept the
things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and
he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."
With no higher thought, then, than a supposed reference to
Jacob's Well, she starts difficulties in her rejoinder. There is, first, the
lack of any mechanical provision (rope or pitcher) to fetch up the water,
this, as we previously noted, not being the public well of the city—"Sir, you
have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep." And, secondly, if it were
some other well or fountain he referred to which contained this living water,
she repudiated the tacit claim of superiority on the part of a modern Jew over
the illustrious Father who gave the well, and "drank thereof himself, his
children, and his cattle." There is evidently an implied antithesis in her
expression, "gave us the well," to that of Christ's words in the previous
verse, "the gift of God."
Could this novel gift He speaks of with such emphasis
(living water), dare be compared with the patriarchal gift which had
consecrated the whole valley, and around which clustered the most sacred
memories of her tribe and nation? Indeed, though beginning with the courteous
salutation of "Sir," she would seem, with the passionate fire of her race, to
wax indignant at the slur expressed or implied on her great progenitor. After
all, had this stranger only muffled his reproaches and deep-rooted antipathies
under a feigned and counterfeited blandness, while there lurked underneath an
unworthy reflection on Father Jacob? And yet, too, with an inquisitive nature,
we note her eager curiosity to discover who this traveler was.
Question follows question. "From where have You?"—"Are You
greater?" Who can this be, to dream of any other, any better fountain? The
most prudent and sagacious of all the shepherd patriarchs had deemed this the
best in the neighborhood. It had proved sufficient for the supplies of a vast
encampment, to the cattle that browsed on the pastures around. Who is this
apparently weary, exhausted wayfarer, who speaks so mysteriously of some
superior well of "living water?"
The second part of her reply might appropriately furnish a
motto or illustration for one of the boldest and most meaningless heresies of
these our times. If not of apostolical succession, she was a
bold and brave upholder and defender of patriarchal succession. "Our
Father Jacob," says she, in words of suppressed indignation. That name was
with her a charm. That well contained holy water, because
historically identified with the ancestor of her race. She speaks as if,
moreover, her Samaritan tribe had a monopoly of the grace and virtue
descending from the veins of old Israel. Her words are not, "Father Jacob,"
but, "Our Father Jacob."
We have already treated in full, in a previous chapter, the
history of that Samaritan nation which, in the person of this female, claimed
the rare and exclusive prerogative and blessing of being Israel's children. As
we then saw, they had neither part nor lot in this assumed inheritance. They
were aliens—a mixed multitude from surrounding heathen countries, strangers in
birth and blood, and more alien still in creed and practice. The Patriarch
would have repudiated and disowned the illegitimate offspring. His mantle had
fallen on no such degenerate seed. The claim was spurious, absurd,
presumptuous. She spoke of Jacob as her Father, when alike, she herself
personally and her tribe collectively, had failed to inherit the only true
patriarchal succession, the legacy of his virtues and spirit. She had not
heard words, uttered by bold brave lips, not far from the place where she was
at that moment standing, "Do not begin to say within yourselves, We have
Abraham as our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to
raise up children unto Abraham."
And what is the pretension advanced by the Sacramentarian
body among the Romanists, and by a segment in a Church which otherwise we
delight to honor as a great witness of God's truth, but which, were it
represented by that section, would utterly forfeit and belie the name
Protestant: what is the figment of 'apostolic succession,' but just the
question of this Sacramentarian at Sychar—the clinging to some supposed
mythical virtue descending from the Fathers and apostles of the Christian
era—saying, as they address other Churches beyond their pale, "Are you greater
than our Father Jacob who gave us the well?" "Our father Jacob "is their
self-constituted claim—"us," to whom the well was given.
Of all heresies this is alike the most preposterous
and the most arrogant. What are the grounds on which those speak with
such boldness and exclusiveness—unchurching and unchristianising all others,
whatever be their unmistakable symptoms of a deeper and truer life? What is
this boasted charm of apostolic descent? or, in other words, who is this
Samaritan tribe, with its succession of golden links descending through the
centuries after the age of Constantine—links which impart an assumed validity
to their own ordination alone, while invalidating and negativing that of all
others? The ecclesiastics of the middle ages have about the same claim to the
name and spirit and grace of the apostolic fathers, as the profligate and
heathenized Samaritans had an exclusive claim to the name and spirit and Well
of Jacob. It passes comprehension to an unbiased mind, to a plain reader of
his Bible, to a plain reader of the facts of history—to a plain student of the
simple stern logic of common sense, how any monopoly of virtue can be
claimed through a succession, not of piety and purity and a noble
heritage of Christian and primitive graces, but through a succession of
apostate bishops and debased popes, many of whose private lives were so
stained with every vice and crime, that to speak of them as inheriting, in any
true sense, the patrimony of the apostles, were enough to stir the bones of
these holy founders of the faith, like those of Elisha, to rise and mutiny at
such an abuse and perversion of sacred language and sacred thought.
No! our Father Jacob gave 'the well' with no such
prescriptive rights. No Samaritan body is entitled to extrude and ostracize
Churches who, in simple faith and earnest zeal, are doing Christ's work, or
claim any such monopoly of that name or that free grace which belongs to
Christendom—which belongs to the wide world.
There is a clause in these verses which, separated from its
original connection, may be made to suggest one or two profitable reflections
with which we shall occupy the remainder of this chapter. "Sir, you have
nothing to draw with, and the well is deep." These words may be
affirmed with regard to the insufficiency of Reason, apart from
Revelation, in fathoming the deep things of God. Deep, unsearchable,
inscrutable are the divine counsels. The name of Jehovah, as the covenant
angel said to Manoah of old, is "secret" or "wonderful." All the vastest
problems which concern the human spirit and its relationship to God, and more
especially the relationship of the sinful, conscience-stricken soul to a Being
of infinite holiness and justice and truth, are insolvable by reason.
Reason stands baffled at the well's mouth, exclaiming, "Oh, the depth!"
The world, for four thousand years, deifying Reason, strove
to work out the solution. Greece, in the culture of her refinement and the
wisdom of her philosophy, with all the possible data, which, apart from
revelation, the human intellect could supply, addressed herself to this
problem of the ages. But "the world by wisdom"—the mind of man in its highest
condition of development and activity—"knew not God." All its shrewdest
guesses were splendid but shadowy dreams, or rather gigantic failures. Human
nature was a profound enigma. The high priests of her temple, professing
themselves on these transcendental questions to be wise, became fools. There
were on every side strange and puzzling aberrations, which Reason could
neither explain nor reconcile—the harmony in the material world without—the
disharmony in the moral world within—the glorious casing holding a broken,
dislocated, tuneless instrument—the palace walls festooned and tapestried with
all that is fair and lovely, enclosing a once royal, but now unsceptred and
uncrowned inmate, with sackcloth on his loins, and the shadows of sin and
sorrow on his brow. And more perplexing than all, how is that sackcloth to be
taken off and the royal insignia refurbished and renewed? How are these
tuneless strings to have the old harmonies restored? In one divine word, "How
can man be just with God?"
Oh, proud baffled reason, "you have nothing to draw with,
and the well is deep." The solution of the mystery of ages and generations is
beyond you; as far beyond you as these distant planets are beyond the range of
the naked eye, unassisted by the telescopic lens. But where Reason
fails—where the well is too deep, Revelation, like rope and pitcher,
fulcrum and lever, comes to our aid. Yes, blessed be God; in this precious
Bible, deep though the well be, we have the "something to draw with."
Revelation speaks where reason is silent—unfolding to us the Divine method
(undreamt of by human wisdom or human philosophy) for restoring the
fallen—bringing the present discords of the inner world into harmony with the
order and melody of the outer, and solving in the cross of Christ that mystery
of mysteries, "How is God to deal with the guilty?"
The few brief words of the preceding sentence, uttered in
the ears of this outcast wanderer of Samaria, had given a glorious response to
a question on which all heathen and all reason's oracles had been dumb, "If
you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me to drink,
you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water."
Through that life and immortality which have been brought to light by the
gospel, the little child, as well as the profound philosopher, can stand by
that well's mouth and exclaim, "Oh, the depth!" But it is now with the
apostle's addition, "Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God!"
"Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep."
These words may be uttered with regard to the mystery of God's providential
dealings. "The well is deep." Many a sorrowing broken-hearted one is
brought to the well's mouth, and, stooping over the darkness, is heard to
exclaim, "Your judgments are a great deep!" Here, in this imperfect world,
there is nothing to draw with, nothing to gauge the "needs be" of the divine
dispensations. The more we try, with our puny wisdom, to fathom the depths of
Jehovah's dealings, the more unfathomable they are. The best, fondest, most
treasured names are written on gravestones. Why is this? The vicious, the
selfish, the false-hearted, the unthankful, the useless, are allowed often to
live on, pampered with prosperity—the fabled horn of plenty pouring its
contents into their lap; while the good, the kind, the true, the loving and
beloved are either prematurely cut down, or go bowed with pain, or with
penury, or with blighted affections to the grave—This well is deep!
The aged, the decrepit, the suffering, are often left to
drag on an apparently useless existence. The old, gnarled, decayed trunks are
spared, while the axe is laid at the root of the green sapling, the pride and
beauty of the forest. Why is this?—This well is deep! The careless,
indifferent herald of the truth—the unfaithful watchman of souls, is left to
slumber at his post and trifle with his Master's work, while the
bold standard-bearer in the battle of evil—the toiling, wakeful sentinel at
home, the hero-heart in the mission-field abroad—have their weapons shattered
in their hands, and the Church of God is left to exclaim, through her tears,
over the irreparable blank, "My Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and
the horsemen thereof!"—This well is deep!
But why stand straining your eyes down the dark cavity?
"You have nothing to draw with." Here in this imperfect state, all is
mystery. All the earthly explanation of these deep, these 'great deep'
judgments, is this, "Verily You are a God that hides Yourself." If you had
rope and bucket, so as to descend the shaft and reach its unsounded depths,
there would be no harsh verdict, no questioning the rectitude of the divine
dispensations. Standing as you now are at the well's mouth, amid the glitter
and glare of the world, you cannot understand or comprehend these mysteries
of life and death, these baffling enigmas in providence. But the
hour will arrive when you shall have the needed apparatus, when the profound
secret of the divine works and ways will be revealed and unfolded. "In your
light, O God, we shall see light." To use the language of Deborah's ancient
song of triumph, there is at present 'the noise of archers' at the brink of
the well. But the day is coming when we too shall be able to take up her
joyous strain: "Those who are delivered from the noise of archers in the
places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the
Lord!"
There is a tradition regarding one of the other sacred
wells of Palestine—the Well of the Wise Men between Jerusalem and
Bethlehem—that when the Eastern Magi had at one time lost the guidance of the
mystic star, while stooping over this fountain they saw it once more reflected
in its waters; forthwith it guided them to the place where the young child
was—"When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy." True, at
all events, is this beautiful tradition regarding God's providential
dispensations. At times we lose the guiding star; it is swept from our
firmament; we travel on in darkness, in our unpiloted way—led in our sorrowful
musing to exclaim, "Where is now my God?"
But when on our bended knees we stoop over the well—yes,
often in our very darkest night of mystery and sadness—lo! the heavenly light
reappears—we see the lost star of Providence mirrored in the fountain of
salvation. The work and the love of Christ explain what is otherwise often
inexplicable. God our Maker—God our Redeemer—gives "songs in the night."
"Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep."
These words may be affirmed with reference to the veiling of the future.
Standing by the mouth of that well, looking down its unexplored cavity, "The
well is deep." The future—that dark, ungauged, unfathomed future, how many a
thought it costs! Yet it is a vain musing, a fruitless conjecture. "You have
nothing to draw with." Even tomorrow has no pitcher that can be let
down for a draught: you know not what a day may bring forth! The past
we do know about, and there are special times when it comes before us with
fresh vividness. Memory follows group on group, coming through the glades of
the olive-forest to draw water; some with elastic step, and ringing laugh, and
joyous song; some with mourning attire, and tearful eye, and broken pitcher;
yes, some, unknown to themselves, to draw their last draught, to fill their
last flagon: we lose them among the twilight shades; they are never again to
return.
But from the standpoint of the present, who can forecast
the doings at the well's mouth? who has rope or pitcher or plumb-line to
fathom the depth? Some may now be gazing, as the writer did from the literal
Well of Jacob, on golden vistas, bars of glorious amber clouds stretched
across the luminous horizon, lighting up with parting radiance Gerizim, the
mountain of blessing; but before another week or month or year measures out
its course, every such vista may be curtained with mist and thick darkness,
Gerizim obscured from view, and Ebal alone, with its dark, gloomy grey,
meeting their eye.
But it is well for us we cannot anticipate the future.
Thank God for the gracious provision, "You know not what shall be on the
morrow." Were the morrow unveiled, this world would be hung with curtains of
sackcloth; there would be fewer happy hearts among us. Inevitable trials,
of which, by a wise and kind arrangement of Providence we are kept in
ignorance, would then project their long deep shadows athwart life's bright
sunshine, and make existence itself one protracted period of anticipated
sorrow. It is a merciful thing, when, ever and anon at solemn anniversaries,
we attempt to cast a glance down the future, to hear Him who has that future
in His hand saying, "You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep."
Yes, but this is our comfort. Though too deep for us,
it is not too deep for Him. He has the rope and pitcher in His hand;
and whether, in drawing up the vessel from the unseen depths, it reaches
safely the well's mouth, or is broken in the transit, all is appointed and
ordained. "The Lord reigns." "Trust Me," He seems to say; "that Well is Mine.
Trust me; that white, unwritten scroll of the future is Mine. It will be
filled up by Me, whether in gleaming letters of gold, or with the dark
lettering of sorrow." "Although you say you can not see Him, yet judgment is
before Him, therefore trust in Him."