Compelling Love

The first time in John’s gospel that Jesus reveals who He is, is to a Samaritan woman who seems to be living with a man who isn’t her husband after being married five times.  The revelation has a transforming effect upon her life, as shown by her powerful witness to others in her town.  In this conversation, she progressively comes into the full recognition of who He is.  Many of us have also awakened progressively to His true identity, and now we too can be “a true witness that delivers souls”  (Proverbs 14:25).

This memorable encounter begins after Jesus informs his disciples as they are traveling from Judea toward Galilee, that instead of bypassing Samaria, He needs to go through this territory usually avoided by Jews.

John 4 (NKJV)
A Samaritan Woman Meets Her Messiah
¹ Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John ² (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), ³ He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. ⁴ But He needed to go through Samaria.

⁵ So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. ⁶ Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

⁹ Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “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.”

¹¹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? ¹² 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?”

¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, ¹⁴ 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.”

¹⁵ The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

¹⁷ The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

¹⁹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. ²⁴ God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

²⁵ The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

²⁸ The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, ²⁹ “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” ³⁰ Then they went out of the city and came to Him.

The Savior of the World
³⁹ And 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.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of His own word.

⁴² Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”

The Samaritan woman goes through several stages of recognition of Jesus, just as some of us have done; first she sees Him as simply a Jew (v. 9), then as one to be respected (“sir” in  v. 11), then as  “a prophet” (v. 19), and finally as “the Christ” (v. 29).  She then runs back to the town to invite others to meet Him too.  Having heard Him for themselves, they too recognize him as “the Christ, the Savior of the world.”  (v. 42)

In our day, we have the witness of Scripture and of other believers, inviting us  to know Christ for ourselves.  Jesus prays for all of us in John 17:20-21:

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

David Krause, dhkrause@neteze.com, 9/30/2018, https://compellinglove.net/

Photo credits:
(1)  http://jefe888.blogspot.com/2015/05/
(2)  https://avirtuouswoman.org/living-water-day-42/
(3)  http://www.cherylcope.com/worship-quotes-and-scriptures
(4)  https://slideplayer.com/slide/7266009/