Embrace Worship: Wells

If we’re to become followers of Jesus who truly embrace worship for all that it is, for all that He is and with all that we are, we’ll need to learn how to go beyond the surface. And dig deep.

So far our exploration of worship has hovered around altars – moments of encounter with God, places of entering God’s presence, and lives that become intentional with our offerings to God, especially in the sacrificial giving of ourselves. Today, however, marks a shift as we make a bit of a turn and look less at altars and more wells.

Like altars, wells find connection between the Old and New Testaments. It’s a marvel to watch how an inanimate object, that by definition goes deep into the earth in order to provide the one thing people seek from it, becomes a symbol for the depths of God and our faith in Him. 

Wells of Old

I once walked the dry, dusty hills of Israel, and I recall thinking, “Ooooohhh, this is the desert where the Israelites wandered. This is the wilderness where Jesus went for His temptations – the area where shepherds like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David led their flocks.” To be honest, I was startled by its vast nothingness. Nothing but dirt and rocks. No rivers or streams. No shade trees. Really, no vegetation that my untrained eyes could see. 

One day our crew clambered off the bus at an archaeological site in ancient Beersheba to see more dirt. To feel more hot sun. To hear more ancient stories from Scripture that would come to life before our squinting eyes. As we circled around the remains of the well of Beersheba and heard about Abraham digging that very well (Genesis 21:27-31), I wiped my glistening forehead and reached for my lukewarm water bottle. 

Jolted by the contrast, I realized just how thirsty Abraham, his people, and his flocks must have been every single day. And they had no access to water – not without digging. Not without digging very deeply through the layers of rock and dirt in order to find streams of fresh, ‘living’ water that flowed underground. A hidden yet most necessary life source.

Isaac and Jacob followed in their fathers’ footsteps, living nomadic lives, leading flocks and families through this rough terrain. Isaac would reopen wells left by Abraham as he moved around (Genesis 26:18), but because the Philistines saw Isaac as a threat, they regularly stopped up those wells (vv.14-15). Isaac moved on, building wells everywhere he went, only to have others claim each well as their own until, at last, Isaac landed in Beersheba (vv.19-23). There he built an altar – and a well (v.25). 

Jacob isn’t actually described as digging wells, but he meets his future bride at a well in the land of his mother’s family (Genesis 29). When he finally returns to the land of God’s covenant, he buys a plot of land in Shechem and builds an altar (Genesis 33:18-20), where he more than likely also built a well. Some believe this would be the well where another man meets a woman – a man who would extend, not an offer of marriage but eternal life.

Shechem

There is so much history in Shechem, and all of it helps us grasp the intentional ways of God. Let’s watch this story unfold and see where it leads:

• Shechem is the first place Abram stops upon his arrival to Canaan, at the oak of Moreh, and is the location of covenant-making with God (Genesis 12:5-7).
• Jacob buys the aforementioned plot of land in Shechem; it’s where he commands his family and servants to remove all their idols and serve only God. Then he buries those idols under Abraham’s oak tree (Genesis 33:18-21, 35:2-4).
• A brutal conflict breaks out between Jacob’s sons and the local prince of Shechem after he violates Jacob’s daughter (Genesis 33-34).
• Generations later, Moses gathers the Israelites in the valley where Shechem lies tucked between two mountains and has them choose which ‘god’ they will follow (Deuteronomy 11:29-31, 27:11-13, 30:15-20). 
• Near the end of his life, Joshua brings all the tribes together once again to have them choose who they will worship – in Shechem (Joshua 24).
• In the era of the judges, Gideon’s son, Abimelech, slaughters the people of Shechem (Judges 9).
• Much later in Shechem, the nation of Israel has to choose between two kings, Solomon’s son Rehoboam and his challenger, Jeroboam, which leads to conflict and the split of the nation into the northern and southern kingdoms (1 Kings 12). 
• King Jeroboam fortifies Shechem, making it the capital of the northern kingdom and their place of worship – of golden calves, not God (1 Kings 12).
• After the Assyrians defeat the northern kingdom and drag the Israelites into exile, the land of Shechem comes to be known as…Samaria.² 

No Chance Meeting

All this history, all these wells, lead us to one place – Jacob’s well, in Samaria, on a hot day as Jesus waits for one particular woman to come fill her jars (John 4).³ 

Earlier that day Jesus had taken his disciples by surprise when He chose the unbeaten path through Samaria. Then He sent them to town for supplies so that He could have a conversation with this woman alone. 

Jesus and the Samaritan woman coming together is no chance meeting.

And this is not your typical woman – a ‘hated’ Samaritan, an outcast in her own village because of her life situation, a loner who gets her water at noon in order to avoid those who scorn her. 

This is who Jesus wants to talk to.
This is who Jesus asks for a drink from the well (v.7).
This is who Jesus invites to drink His living water (v.10,14).
This is who Jesus chooses to reveal His true identity: Messiah (v.26)!⁴ 

It’s in this conversation that Jesus gives the picture of worship under the new covenant:

“Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. …But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

John 4:21,23-24 NLT

All Hebrew history comes to a head in this conversation, at a place it always has. A well. In Shechem. 

And it has much to do with worship.

The Deep Well of Living Water

When we look at this holy conversation at a well, at the place that has been the spot of conflict, choices, and covenant-making for thousands of years,² it dawns on us that Jesus is leading this Samaritan woman beyond the surface. He’s not there to talk to her about her many husbands and the one she’s living with who isn’t her husband (v.18). He’s not there to judge her. He’s not there to poke fun at her nor spit upon her. 

He’s there to offer her the chance to dip her bucket in a well that’s much deeper than Jacob’s (v.11), to drink from living water that comes not from the ground but from the Father in heaven (v.10). This well offers water that quenches thirst for all time and is a source of eternal life (v.14). 

It’s not long after this encounter that Jesus stands before all the Jews gathered in Jerusalem and extends the same invitation (John 7:37-38). This time John interprets “living water” for us as the Spirit who lives and flows inside all who believe in Jesus (v.39).

And we think of the Samaritan woman who turns the conversation with Messiah to worship (John 4:20). 

Jesus welcomes her question and proceeds to unveil an integral aspect of life under the new covenant: Worship! The sacrificial systems go away, yes – and so does the requirement that the people of God must only worship in the temple of Jerusalem. In fact, the Father now welcomes anyone, anywhere who will worship in spirit and truth (v.23). Boundaries on places and people are eliminated in Christ. What matters most under the new covenant is that worshipers come to God, who is spirit (v.24), and Jesus, who is truth (John 14:6) – and that they worship in spirit and truth.

Many of us today have spread a wide net when it comes to worship. We’ve read lots of books or blogs about it; we’ve listened to all sorts of podcasts and music; we’ve adopted all kinds of practices that look like God, or at least good, but aren’t. We visit all sorts of churches, looking for places that feed us or help us feel better. We’ve traded Spirit for warm-fuzzies, Truth for an anemic amalgamation of non-truths. We’ve become, what a pastor friend often says, a mile wide and an inch deep. 

My friends, Jesus is meeting us today, and He is asking that we dig deep wells in Him. 

Let’s go beyond surface-singing of words in a hymnal or on a screen and dig a well that leads to rivers of living water flowing within us. Let’s grab hold of Spirit and watch as all those rivers flood into every area of our lives. Let’s grant Jesus space to work His truth into our hearts and minds so that we become anchored in Him rather than the lies of the world, the flesh, and the enemy.

Sourced, fed, and led by Holy Spirit in us, we will encounter God’s love and goodness anew every day. Girded and upheld by Christ and His Truth in us, we will encounter depths of God we had no idea existed.⁵ This is digging deep wells. 

This is worship!

Father God, thank You for leaving a trail for us to follow through all of your Word – to help us see how significant and strong your plans are. As we look upon the place of Shechem, we see a place where You met your people again and again. We see a valley where your people had to choose You over and over. We see a city forever caught in the crossfires of conflict yet was, at the same time, the spot of refreshment – the location of flowing, living waters. And this reminds us that our lives are often the same, full of death and life, sorrow and joy, pain and wholeness. Lord Jesus, the fact that You chose to meet this woman at a well at the site of so much covenantal history gives us understanding that You were and always have been God’s Plan. We see how all of God’s story comes together in You! Lord, we confess how often we fail to come to your well for living water because too often we settle for waters that never really quench our thirst – and they certainly never lead us to life in You. Holy Spirit, we thank You for your rivers of living water that flow through us. We desire to pause our harried lives at the well of Jesus and dig deeply. We desire to know You better and to be led by You into deeper waters. And we ask that You would help us shed all our shallow attempts at worship and instead come before the Father and His Son to worship in spirit and in truth. In Jesus’ name, amen.
(Inspired by stories in Genesis, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and 1 Kings; John 4:1-26; John 7:37-39) 

Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.

• 1 – The opening scene of The Chosen season 1, episode 8 offers a look back at what could’ve been the digging of Jacob’s well in Shechem. “This episode opens with Jacob talking to his sons, saying ‘This is the spot.’ This scene refers to the story in Genesis, where Jacob has just met and reconciled with his brother Esau. After this, he settled in the Canaanite city, Shechem” (quoted from this article).
  **Know that there is little agreement among scholars on which of Jacob’s wells is cited in the scene with Jesus and the woman at the well in John 4. But the writers of The Chosen went with Genesis 33:
  • “Now Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram, and camped before the city.  He bought the piece of land where he had pitched his tent from the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for one hundred pieces of money.  Then he erected there an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.” (Gen. 33:18-20, NASB)
    
    (AND, it is not lost on me that in this passage, Jacob is not shown digging a well but building an altar!!!)
• 2 – This article goes into more detail on each of these bullet points!!!
• 3 – I challenge you to read all of John 4 this week – because with all this history in your back pocket, you’ll now hear the words, see the setting, and understand this conversation with a whole new depth of understanding!
• 4 – The Chosen scene of Jesus with the woman at the well is incredibly well done. Take it in!
• 5 – In her Bible study, A Woman’s Heart God’s Dwelling Place,^ Beth Moore helps us see how we can live out “spirit and truth” in our lives, in our worship, specifically on pages 121-123. Then in true Beth-style, she shows us how our Triune God is in every aspect of worship: “God the Father invites us to worship. God the Son ignites us to worship. And God the Spirit incites us to worship” (p.123).
• If you’d like to soak a little longer in the story of the woman at the well, I offer a post I wrote about her two summers ago in a series called Women of Hope.
• I found one song — only one — in all my searching for worship songs about wells. But I love the one I found. And even though it’s a new song to me, its artist is not. Finding Charlie Hall after all these years is like finding an old friend. And his song, “Deeper Wells,” is perfect for our Embrace Worship Spotify playlist. Hear a few of his Scripture-sculpted lyrics:
  
  Oh I long for deeper rivers and to dive in deeper wells
  
  How could I plumb the depths of Father, Son and Ghost
  You have the words of life, so where else would I go
  
  Spirit of the living God, Fall fresh on me
  Take me deeper, take me deeper
  
  All I want is you
  
  He grabs hold of the truth of what God wants for us as we meet Him at the well. He points our gaze toward the Spirit who will be the One to help us go deeper — and to find more of God.
• Each Wednesday I upload a “Teacup” teaching video that carries on the topic here. You can find all the videos on my Facebook Author Page, Instagram, and YouTube.
• Many of you have already found me on Substack! Thank you so much! While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective. AND…don’t forget if you’d rather listen to these weekly posts, you can now do so on Substack — it’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post.
• My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes of those who have subscribed on my website, and I post them on Substack — usually within the first week of the month. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.

Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike. These next three months we’re focusing on the rhythm of worship (surprise!).

• This week we are highlighting and ‘tabbing’ two section in John 4 in our Prayer Bibles: John 4:11-14 and 21-24. Each week this summer we’re marking significant passages about worship so that we can find them easily, put them to memory, and apply them in our abiding lives. These are words we can pray with a little personalization. They can also become words of reverence-filled worship. Keep these passages nearby because they contain truths about wells and worship that we’ll need to draw from on the regular!
  • “But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?” Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” –John 4:11-14 NLT
  • Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” –John 4:21-24 NLT
  • We’re all called to share the truths about the work of Jesus. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. Believe it or not, we worship God each time we share our stories of faith! We use our whole selves to tell about our holy God!!

Featured Photo by Max Tcvetkov on Unsplash. “All the Bits and Pieces” photo by Aleksandra Sapozhnikova on Unsplash.
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