Let us consider for a moment the “simple” waterpot. This earthen vessel is not of much value today, but if you retreat in time a few thousand years or more, it speaks volumes to its worth.

The waterpot is valuable because water is the very fabric of life. We don’t seem to miss water until we don’t have it; we don’t crave it until we are thirsty. Then, we are willing to pay more for it than gasoline, the present fabric and fuel of our liberties. We have come a long way. All most of us have to do is turn the faucet and “gush” comes this wet refreshment and renewal.

It has not always been thus. Again we retreat to a different place and time. In this more ancient era, in a typical dessert or semiarid community, water was the basic liquid used in cooking, but it was not very good for drinking. Most water supplies were not very safe. If you were fortunate enough to have a cistern, the water would come from the roof of your home channeled by gutters; it was dirty and full of germs. Your cistern would only be a pit dug in the ground with some sort of waterproof lining. You had water, but this fabric of life was not fit to drink!

This is where we see the value of a public well. It would be a shrine in the center of the city where water to drink could be found. It was pulled from within the earth and seemed so cool to the touch and so refreshing to the pallet. By today’s standards it was still lacking but for its time it was a godsend.

Now, enters the lowly and invaluable waterpot. With no modern plumbing there was only one way to get family water to your home, you carried it. Even with Rome and all its ancient aqueducts and plumbing, the water was not fit to drink. When you found a treasure of good water, you carried it.

The size of these family waterpots varied, but they had to carry enough to be worth the trip for your family. They varied from a few gallons to twenty (which was used for ceremonial activities).

The waterpots also varied in quality and materials. The Romans often sported their wealth by using glass pots, but the common folks would just use vessels of clay fashioned to be carried on the head. It would not be uncommon to watch the women of the lower classes hoisting gallons of water over their heads and carrying the balance through the narrow dusty streets of town to their homes. This is survival living; there was no drinking or cooking without it.

It is here I would like to inject a Scriptural principle:

John 4:28-29 The woman then left her waterpot and went into the city and said to the men, Come see a man who told me all things that I ever did. Is this One not the Christ?

The thought of such a valuable tool being left at a well would be more than a little odd. If you were relating an event or examining evidence of some extraordinary happening, a forgotten waterpot would certainly qualify. I can hear some first century sleuth saying, “Here is a waterpot, something important must have happened here. You just don’t leave a usable waterpot at the well. It is too valuable and too hard to come by!”

The picture here is simple, but its meaning is quite profound. A woman of ill-repute is carrying a waterpot to Jacob’s well with the intent of taking water back to the village for cooking and drinking. A simple duty performed by a simple female on an average day. However, the day would be far from ordinary. She meets Jesus at the well. Jesus presents himself as prophet and Messiah and reveals that He is aware of the real thirst of her life. Her life is changed forever. She wants to share this newfound joy and becomes so excited that she leaves that waterpot! This is one of the most beautiful pictures of conversion in the entire Bible!

As I examine the earthen waterpot I see it represents so much of the lives of these ancient people as well as our own.

First It Speaks To Class And Gender:

The waterpots were primarily carried by lower class women. It was hard work and needed for survival. The well-to-do wouldn’t do it, and the men (well you know how men are!) wouldn’t do it. The women folks were like property and, like donkeys; it was their task to do such deeds. Even lower on the ladder were widows and divorcees. Around the wells would always be women carrying water on their heads in these waterpots.

“A woman’s work goes beyond sun to sun, but a man’s work is always waiting to be begun.” (no doubt spoken by some anonymous woman of the day!)

This woman left her waterpot. Something extraordinary has happened; she has found Jesus, the living water at the water shrine of Samaria. Her thirst has been quenched and she leaves not with a burden on her head but brightness in her heart. Rather than being drained by a mundane duty, she, for the first time in her life, is filled with satisfaction and wants to tell others.

Notice Christ’s quest for this soul. The Bible relates earlier that Jesus has gone out of His way to meet this woman at the well. He is on His way to Galilee, but “He must needs pass through Samaria." It is the requisite of bringing deliverance to a perishing soul. He has come on a long journey to meet her, and He has traveled more days and miles than she dare count. He has been in his travel from the foundation of the world. If the seals of time were broken we would see Jesus with His face always toward this sinful, but precious, woman at Jacob's well. Now at last the sun rises; it is high noon as He sits thus by the well. Yonder comes a woman down the path swinging her waterpot. A profound conversation with an outcast begins. All for the love of a soul! The Savior asks for a drink. The value of the waterpot is a soul this day.

Secondly The Waterpot Speaks To Your Value:

Waterpots were carried for one reason: it was survival. If your family lived through these conditions, you had to have water; someone had to carry it to the home. Many looked down on this woman, but she was doing the work that was life giving. She had a bad reputation; multiple marriages and living with a man, but she had value; a Samaritan by birth, but she was important! So are you!

The waterpot is a story of a personal worker. She was without any delicate framework or experience to be thus. She had just found the Savior; she had neither ordination nor commission; and she lived in an time when women were slaves. She was a female about whom there was an unsightly story, a woman with a discredited and sullied record; she was a woman with a tainted life, and an embarrassed past; she is a Samaritan woman with a future void of hope.

The waterpot is a story of her value. Such poor material and yet she was chosen by Christ to hold the water of life, an invaluable treasure in her earthen vessel. If ever there was meager material out of which to make a special worker for Christ, surely it is here. Through the necessity of bringing her waterpot to the well, this woman is saved. Her sins are forgiven. She had come to sip of water from Jacob's well, and Jesus placed the goblet of life to her scorched lips. Her tongue is living with the new message and her feet are swift on a new duty. Her heart is pounding and burning with fire; her eyes are lit up with awakening discovery; and her face is aglow with a holy purpose. She had come for water, but she found salva­tion. In an instant her whole life had changed. That neglected and for­gotten water-pot which she left behind recited her change and her new thirst to share the water of life with others. This mute piece of clay lay by the well's mouth and became expressiveness incarnate and a preacher is born. That vessel that sat on the head of slaves declared that a precious human soul had discovered and drank from the well of salvation. Jacob's well was no longer the end of the trail; the road winds on and on through the haze or prejudice and injustice and toward the sky-line that is eternity.

John 4:4 And he must needs go through Samaria.

Christ has come a long way to meet us, too. He “must needs” go through our towns even as He did for this Samaritan woman. The waterpot is a symbol of Jacob's well for our souls, and Christ is waiting to give us His “water of life”, not the physical, but the spiritual.

Thirdly, The Waterpot Speaks To Your Service:

The carrying of the waterpot is something everyone can do but few actually do. Those who do are looked down upon until we realize how valuable the contents of the “waterpot” are. Now they are heroines.

I have been asked many times over the years if God can use a woman “preacher.” Well, he does here! Anyone can preach; everyone should; few do. When they do, they are looked down upon until we realize the contents of their message. Then, they are champions! The word “preach” is the Greek word “kērussō”, and it simply means “to herald.” The reason most don’t preach because they have nothing in their “waterpots” to herald!

The waterpot spoke of this woman's quest. She has found Christ. Shall she surrender herself to her new joy; shall she dwell there at the well for the rest of that glory-filled day; shall she revel in rapture and give herself over to the thrills of her new delight; shall she dangle her waterpot and merrily sing: " O, happy day that fixed my choice?” No! She forgets her water-pot and hur­ries back to tell her neighbors of the Saviour she has found. She has become a personal worker. Such is the effect of salvation.

Watch this woman preacher as she gets into action. If ever a new convert was thoroughly dis­qualified for such work, it is she, but somehow she gets by. She does not stop to consider her lack of personal fitness; she did not worry or ponder what questions the men of Samaria would ask her; she did not waste time doubting and fearing; she just went and told the others to come and see this Savior! What an object lesson for us today! How beautiful it is to see a forgotten waterpot! Many Christians today would never be in such an instance; Christians today have trouble forgetting the Sunday morning roast or dinner reservations for a sermon that has went over time a few minutes; churches today cannot plan revivals because of ball game schedules; karate practice for Junior is more immediate than bringing that child to Christ! All these things are mere actions of the devil to hinder us in our effort for souls. This woman swept them out of the way in her eager haste and holy joy to carry the good news. She forgets her waterpot because she found something more valuable.

How valuable is the waterpot? Carrying the waterpot to the well is what brought her to Christ! Then Christ became more valuable than the waterpot or anything else. She left one “treasure” and found another. She found Jesus.