The Way - Day 185 (John 4)

Pastor Tom's Journal on Today's Reading:
JOHN 4:1-30
To avoid conflict with John the Baptist's disciples and more scrutiny from the Pharisees, Jesus decides to leave Judea and go to Galilee, "but He needed to through Samaria" (4:1-4). It is significant that John (the gospel writer) mentions Jesus traveling to Galilee by going through Samaria because most Jews avoided interaction with the Samaritans. There had been a long-standing conflict between the Jews and Samaritans which goes back hundreds of years. The nation of Israel split following King Solomon’s rule, with the northern part eventually becoming known as Samaria (1 Kings 16:24). In 722BC, Assyria took thousands of Jews captive from Samaria and transported them out. Some Jews were still left in Samaria, but many non-Jews moved there and intermarried with them. So, the marriages between the Jews and non-Jews created a mixed race. When the Jews returned from captivity, a deep animosity existed between the returning Jews and what had become the Samaritan race.

The Samaritans had also abandoned their religious heritage and established their own system of worship. They only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament and their place of worship was now on Mt. Gerizim instead of Jerusalem. For these reasons, great hatred existed between the two groups and they went to great lengths to stay away from each other.

Jesus chose to go through Samaria because He loved the people there, even though His own people despised them. Weary from His journey, Jesus sits by a well where He meets a Samaritan woman and asks her for a drink of water (4:5-7). Recognizing the division which existed between Jews and Samaritans, the woman says, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans" (4:9). Jesus responds by saying,

"If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water" (John 4:10).

Even more shocking than this Jewish man communicating with a Samaritan woman was that she was speaking to the Son of God, who was able to give her living water (eternal life). Water is needed to sustain physical life just as the gift of God, Jesus Christ, is needed to bring spiritual life. The woman did not understand Jesus' illustration of living water and thought he was referring to drinking physical water, which would permanently quench her thirst so she says,

"Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?" (John 4:11-12)

The dialogue between Jesus and the woman continues.

"Jesus answered and said to her, 'Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.' The woman said to Him, 'Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw'" (John 4:14-15).
The Samaritan woman still did not understand that Jesus was offering her living water, which would bring forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus shifts the conversation to expose her sinfulness and the necessity of repentance and belief to receive this living water. Jesus tells the woman to "Go, call your husband, and come here" (4:16). When the woman heard Jesus' demand, she responded by saying, "I have no husband" (4:17). Since Jesus was God, He already knew her response, but quickly pointed out that she actually had five husbands and the one with whom she was now living was not her husband (4:18). The Samaritan woman was surprised by Jesus' intimate knowledge of her life and said, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet" (4:19).

Instead of acknowledging her sin, the Samaritan woman begins an argument about the two distinct places of worship between the Jews and Samaritans (4:20). Jesus refused to be sidetracked by this argument and rendered the places of worship as non-essential because both would eventually be destroyed (4:21). The place of worship was not as important as the One being worshiped. Jesus declared that the hour was coming (His death, burial, and resurrection) when the "true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth" (4:23).

What is the identity of the true worshipers? They would be the people who reject their own system of works for salvation and worship God the Father by coming to Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. Although the Samaritan woman also believed in the Messiah (4:25), her picture was very different from the Messiah God had promised. The Samaritans expected a political and military leader who could deliver them from their problems. The Messiah promised by God (Genesis 3:15) would deliver from sin. In a shocking revelation, Jesus declared Himself to the Samaritan woman as the promised Messiah (4:26). After Jesus' emphatic declaration to the woman, she "…left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, 'Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?'" (4:28-29) In response to the woman's testimony, many from the city came to see if Jesus was really the Messiah (4:30).

JOHN 4:31-54
John had already written about two separate encounters Jesus had with very distinct people. First, He spoke with Nicodemus, a respected ruler of the Jews (John 3:1-21). He was seeking to know more about Jesus, but ended up listening to Him explain how a man enters the kingdom of God. Jesus' second encounter was not as cordial. He was traveling to Galilee by way of Samaria, when he stopped at a well in Sychar to rest from His journey. At the well He met a Samaritan woman who was fetching water, so He struck up a conversation with her (John 4:1-30). Since Jews and Samaritans had a strong hatred for each other, the woman was surprised that Jesus would even speak to her. As their conversation continued, Jesus revealed very intimate details about her life (4:16-18). He also revealed that He was the Messiah (Deuteronomy 18:15; John 4:25-26), which meant that He was the One sent from God to deliver mankind from the penalty of sin.

The woman left Jesus at the well to go into the city to tell others about Jesus (4:28-29), so the people of the city came to see if what she said was true (4:30). During this time, the disciples returned from the city where they were buying bread (4:8, 27a). They found Jesus speaking to the despised Samaritan woman and wondered why He was talking with her (4:27b). The disciples encouraged Jesus to eat because He was hungry from a long journey (4:32), but Jesus responded saying, "I have food to eat of which you do not know" (4:32). The disciples became confused at Jesus' statement and said to each other, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?" (4:33); however, Jesus was not referring to literal food. He answered His disciples saying, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work" (4:34a). Jesus was not only sustained by eating bread, but also by doing the will of God.

To help His disciples better understand the work He (and they) had been called to do, Jesus points to the fields around them saying, "Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!" (4:35) The fields which surrounded them were used to illustrate the many unbelieving people in Sychar who were waiting to be harvested. In other words, the unbelieving masses were ready to receive the message of repentance and faith through the preaching of forgiveness. In John 4:36-38, Jesus tells the disciples that it is their responsibility to faithfully preach the message of hope through Jesus Christ to the Samaritans, so that the unbelieving could receive eternal life. If the disciples were faithful to preach this message, they would receive reward, even though they had not necessarily done all the work (4:36-38).

Jesus' teaching is comparable to the responsibility all Christians have in sharing the good news (gospel) that Jesus Christ has come to earth to pay the penalty for sin on behalf of the sinner, and He resurrected to guarantee eternal life. Returning to the testimony of the Samaritan woman, John writes that "many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, 'He told me all that I ever did'" (4:39). An awakening breaks out in this city and many believed in Jesus as the Messiah (4:40-42). This is the first mention in Scripture of the gospel being taken to another culture, and a glimpse of what would take place following Jesus resurrection (Acts 1:8).

After two days, Jesus departs from Sychar and goes to Galilee where He is well-received by the people; however, John writes "that a prophet has no honor in his own country" (4:44). This implies that although Jesus' own people in Galilee received Him as a miracle-worker, they did not receive Him as the Savior of the world, as had the Samaritans (4:42, 45). Jesus continues His journey in Galilee and returns to Cana, where he had performed His first miracle of turning water into wine (John 4:46a; see also John 2:1-12).

In Cana, a nobleman (royal official) with a sick child comes to Jesus asking Him to bring healing to his son (4:46b-47). Jesus rebukes the nobleman, as well as the people of Galilee, for only seeking after miracles instead of seeking after Jesus as the Savior from sin (4:48). The nobleman pleads with Jesus to heal his son before he dies (4:49). John then unfolds what happens next. "Jesus said to him, 'Go your way; your son lives.' So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way" (4:50). The key element to this miracle is that this man believed in the power of Jesus to heal. In faith, the nobleman began his journey back to Capernaum, where his son lay dying.
"…his servants met him and told him, saying, 'Your son lives!' Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, 'Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.' So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, 'Your son lives.' And he himself believed, and his whole household" (John 4:51-53).
The healing of the nobleman's son was the second miracle Jesus performed, proving that He was the Son of God (4:54).

The reading of this Scripture should motivate those who believe to do two things: preach hope through Jesus Christ to all people (4:31-42) and have faith in Jesus not only because of what He can do, but also because of who He is (4:43-54).

Dear God, I believe that repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ is the hope for all the world. Help me to speak often of that hope. Help me to also seek Jesus because of who He is, not just for what He can do.