“If only you knew…”   Knew what? 

“If only you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water”.  John 4:10

I hear such pleading and invitation in those four words of Jesus..If only you knew.  How his heart wished and hoped that she would know.  What difference did it make if she knew or not?  What didn’t she know, but also, who didn’t she know?  Obviously it made all the difference in her world or Jesus would not have spoken them.  As we see in the next few verses, for the Samaritan woman, the difference between knowing and not knowing changed the entire course of her life.  Not only in this world, but also in the Kingdom that was coming.  Forever.  Like…eternity forever.  A matter of eternal significance -“knowing”.

The Samaritan woman has some bold questions of her own.  In summary and emphasis mine, she asks, “Sir, where can you get this living water, what… are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well, and will you give me this water so that I wont get thirsty and have to keep coming to this God-forsaken well to draw water?”

Jesus did not have any problem with her bold questions.  In return he answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thristy again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thrist,  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”   John 4:13-14 (NIV)

If you continue on through the next verses of their conversation, you will see the effect that her “knowing” had, not only on her, but her whole town!  “If only you knew“.  What a haunting, mysterious, yet beautiful invitation.  What is this desire for knowledge, for the “knowing” that can take us to the lowest pit or the highest of heights?  Maybe we should start at the beginning, where it all began.