www.HopeandHelpCenter.org
March 7
John 4:1-26
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, 'Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John'- although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized- he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink'. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?' (Jews do not share things in common 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 no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?' Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.'
Jesus said to her, 'Go, call your husband, and come back.' 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 have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!' The woman said to him, 'Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.' Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 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 worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these 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' (who is called Christ). 'When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.' Jesus said to her, 'I am he, the one who is speaking to you.'
Jesus loves us in ways that can be surprising. Jesus' love for us can be persistent, creative, groundbreaking, culture shattering, aggressive, packaged in a human body and is often in cahoots with the Holy Spirit.
What brought the Samaritan woman to the well at a time when other women would not be there? To avoid their scorn or possible attack on her for living with a series of men to whom she was not married? Instinct? Thirst? The urging of the Holy Spirit? All of the above?
Consider what Jesus did just to reach one person. As a 1st century Jewish man, Jesus broke the (two) rules and spoke to a Samaritan woman. He took the initiative and started a line of conversation. Did Jesus reveal his knowledge of her many "husbands" to let her see a (truly) God-like ability? To trigger the "Are you the Messiah" question?
Why did Jesus choose this person, at this time, in this way to reveal himself as the Messiah? A huge message to give to one messenger, and an unlikely messenger at that.
What message has Jesus asked you to share with the rest of us? md
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