Come See A Man...! - Part Two
SCRIPTUREJohn 4:7-26
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but kwhoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are q prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that, Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
LESSON
Our Lord was on a trip from Jerusalem to Galilee. John 4:4 tells us He had to pass through Samaria. Actually, He didn't have to do anything of the kind, geographically speaking, because there were two other routes from Judea to Galilee. Most often He took the other routes, but this time He had to pass through Samaria. That's like saying that a G.I. from Korea landed in San Francisco on his way to Philadelphia, but he "had to" go through Miami, Florida. There are shorter routes, but you see, his fiancee was there. Then we understand why he "had to" go through Miami. Now in exactly the same way, Jesus had to go through Samaria because before the foundation of the world, God knew there were people in that town who would be saved. That's why Jesus had to pass that way.
He came, with His disciples, to a little village named Sychar. The road they were traveling on ran down through the valley. The village itself was up on the hill where the inhabitants could find better protection from the dangers of those days. Since there was no water in the village, every day the inhabitants took the 45-minute walk down the rocky path to the age-old well that still flows today, and from which men still drink.
There is, just here in the story, one of those little touches which shows the real humanity of our Lord. He was tired. He sat down by the well to rest from His weariness while the disciples climbed the steep path to the village in order to procure provisions for the noon meal.
At this moment there came to the well a woman of the village, bearing a waterpot upon her shoulder. Proceeding to draw water from the well, she was surprised by the voice of Jesus, asking her to give Him a drink. She was surprised because the Jews looked down upon the Samaritans and had no dealings with them at all. She was also surprised because very probably no man had spoken to her like a gentleman for a long, long, time. She was the village harlot. She was used to wisecracks and dirty digs.
So when the woman expressed her amazement that He, being a Jew, should ask a drink of her, an outcast Samaritan, Jesus answered that it was because of who He was. "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water" (John 4:10).
Are there any words more poignant than those of the Saviour as He speaks to this woman? "If thou knewest..." These are words that came to us in our day with unparalleled force. "If thou knewest ..." There are some who have read the accounts of suicides and wished that they might have courage to take the step which they thought might be the end of present misery. "If thou knewest . . :' Christ speaks this word to you today.
STUDY QUESTIONS
- Jesus went to great lengths and distances in order to minister to people. How have you taken the initiative of the Lord to go out and minister in a similar fashion?
- What does the Lord’s immediate relationship with the Woman at the well tell us about the essence of our ministry to the world? What does it tell us about worship?
