FRIDAY 12 March 2021 “Well Encounter”

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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,

Have you ever had an unexpected but highly significant encounter with someone you had never met before and hadn’t expected to encounter that day, but you both ended up in the same place at the same time and what happened next was truly life changing? That happened with Jesus often, and today we’ll look at one of these occasions found in John 4 as we continue ‘walking with Jesus’ toward Easter.

The past three days we’ve been looking at what happened in Jerusalem when Jesus made His first visit there during Passover. Mayhem in the Temple as Jesus cleared it of business, and then a late night, life changing conversation with a Pharisee named Nicodemus.

John the disciple, continues his account by telling us that soon after that Passover week was concluded Jesus decided to head back north to the Galilee region, but rather than following the roads most other Jews took around the area immediately north of Jerusalem known as Samaria, Jesus decided to take the Samaritan road directly up into Samaria. Why? John doesn’t explain, he simply reports: “Now Jesus had to go through Samaria.” (John 4:4)

I wonder if you’ve ever lived in a place where there is strong animosity, deep prejudice, even outright hatred between people groups that live very near each other? Often it is country borders which divide such angry people. In some cases it’s a river running through a region at war or even a railroad track. Usually such deep seeded anger or rivalry goes back many generations.

That’s how it was for the Samaritans and the Jews. Samaritans in Jesus’ day lived with two historical curses upon them.

First was almost 1000 years before when the northern 10 tribes split off from the united nation of Israel when king Solomon died, and they kept the name “Israel” and made Samaria their capital city! They quickly became an idol worshiping, immoral, violent people frequently attacking their ‘cousins’ the Jews of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah who lived in and around Jerusalem.

Secondly, in 722bc that northern kingdom “Israel” was conquered by Assyria and the conquering king brought in captives who he had taken from many other nations. It didn’t take long and there was little left of the original 10 tribes of Israel which had been the proud northern portion of the unified nation of Israel during the day of King David.

By the first century, Jews once again had restored much of their rich heritage up in the area around the Sea of Galilee, but the area of Samaria, in between the Galilee and Judea remained a region of ‘half-breeds’. Most of them were the result of many generations of intermarrying between many different people groups. Few people in Samaria could trace their heritage back to any of the original tribes of Israel. Here’s a map to help you see that part of the world in Jesus’ day.

For those walking with Jesus that day, we presume they are glad to be heading home, but more than concerned that Jesus was leading them into Samaria! Have you noticed that for those of us people who authentically want God to lead the path of our lives, we will often find ourselves in places we would not have chosen or preferred to be? Why is that? I suggest it’s because God loves to arrange strategic rendezvous moments which become ‘defining moments’ for the people who meet there! You’ll notice in John 4:6 the Samaritan road Jesus was following led Him to the town of Sychar and being weary, hot and thirsty from the dusty road, Jesus stopped at a well there for rest and a drink.

Here, let’s you and me stand over there under that tree and just watch what happens. The men who were traveling with Jesus evidently went into town to get food. John calls them “His disciples”. (John 4:8) We know Jesus had not yet called the 12 to formally join Him as His disciples, so who are these men? Well, I believe them to be some or all of the 5 guys Jesus had met in John 1&2… Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip, Nathaniel and John who later would refer to himself as ‘the disciple Jesus loved’. I believe they’d gone to the wedding with Jesus in Cana and then they’d come to Passover in Jerusalem, as all good Jewish men would, and now they are heading to their homes in Galilee.

They’re watching closely and listening to every word, trying to figure out WHO this Jesus really is and what His life purpose is? Perhaps John stayed at the well with Jesus, perhaps he too had gone for food with the others. If John stayed with Jesus, when the Samaritan woman approached, I would imagine John would recognize her as Samaritan and step back, away from the well, not wanting to engage any conversation with her or be seen with her by anyone. She was Samaritan after all and no God honoring Jewish man would have anything to do with her, not even a conversation.

What transpired next, therefore is beyond shocking. John records Jesus spoke to the woman, “Will you give Me a drink?’ The Samaritan woman said to Him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (John 4:7-9) She was right. No honorable Jewish man would be at that well unless he was suffering heat stroke and had lost his way on the road! But even so, no honorable Jewish man would speak with her, much less ask for a drink, unless… he wasn’t an honorable man! If the angels in heaven were watching, I’m sure they were stunned too!

Within seconds her suspicions were affirmed. Clearly this man was suffering from heat stroke, for Jesus said to her: “If 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)

Now from our vantage point in the shade of a nearby tree listening to this… what do you conclude is happening here? This isn’t really about a drink of well water in the middle of no place on a hot day, is it? Jesus continued: “Everyone who drinks from this well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst! Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13,14) Are you scratching your head yet? Do you feel like you’ve stepped into a 1/2 finished conversation and you need help knowing what you’ve missed so far?

Oh listen, she’s speaking… “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” Well that makes sense, I would have said the same thing! If this man has some miraculous water that will quench thirst and miraculously will bubble up from within every time I’m thirsty, and again quench my thirst in a fresh way, that would be wonderful! Suddenly Jesus said something that seemed to confirm He must be suffering heat stroke. “Go, call your husband and come back.” Where did that come from? What does that have to do with water?

“I have no husband,’ she replied.

Jesus said to the woman, ‘you are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” (John 4:16,17) Now wait a minute, are we talking about water or marriage or broken families or what’s the point of this unexpected, irrational conversation? Ahah! That’s it my friends.

As you and I journey with Jesus toward Easter 2021, over and over we are going to be challenged to step way out of our comfort zone, to open our minds and hearts to see our world through God’s eyes! God came here, to our dysfunctional world, filled with deeply wounded people, to tell us God SEES us, God understands our pain, God didn’t design it this way… what we are living is a profound distortion of the wonderful perfection, the utopia God had originally made for Adam & Eve. As we see our world with clarity, God will ask us to understand HOW it has all decayed to this point, WHO is responsible, and WHAT can be done to bring hope into this mess!

5 husbands… wow! Let’s not assume. It could be she was a widow several times over. It could be she had been abandoned. One of my widow friends has buried three husbands, and her adult son is now nearing death with cancer. She simply has nothing left to give emotionally. Humanly speaking, she’s empty!! But my friend knows Jesus, personally, and so she is actually joyful when we worship together on Sundays. She’s part of an intercessors group and oh my when she prays, the ground nearly shakes! She’s a great encouragement to others who have broken hearts! Where does this unexplainable peace, contentment and even joy come from? Jesus! She has what Jesus was explaining to the Samaritan woman… a spring of living water which bubbles up inside her! Where did she get this living water? That my friends is what this well side conversation in the heat of the day in Sychar, Samaria is all about! Do you have it?

Jesus next said “A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” God was sitting on a well in Samaria explaining that HE loves all people, in all places, regardless of their ethnicity, their religious practices, their gender, their life story. This is why Jesus came to our planet… to help us understand this!

I imagine the woman started lowering the bucket rope into the well. This conversation is interesting, but the sun is hot, the water isn’t going to come up out of that well by itself! As she’s lowering the bucket she says “I know that Messiah is coming. When HE comes, He will explain everything to us.” She was right, Jews and Samaritans and the whole world has anticipated, for many generations, that someday God will set the record straight, answer all the questions, right all the wrongs, settle the score. Her bucket had hit the water, filled and she was pulling the rope up again when Jesus broke the silence… “I who speak to you am HE!” (John 4:25,25)

The woman froze. What had this man just said? She turned and looked at Jesus… then dropped the rope, leaving her bucket to fall into the well, and she rushed off, heading back into town! John records she frantically said to people “Come, see a man who told me everything of my past. Could this be the Messiah?” Confused but intrigued many people who knew this woman followed her back to the well to see what she was talking about. There they found Jesus and His friends who had returned from their food shopping trip. But they were confused. Why had Jesus been talking to this Samaritan woman? What could they possibly have to talk about? They offer Jesus food, but He said “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish HIS work. You say, ‘four more months and then the harvest’, but I say open your eyes and look at the fields they are ripe now for harvest.”

I want us to pause right here until tomorrow. We have lots to think about! Here are some questions to help us…

1. How do you look at people? With prejudice, prejudging them based on the clothes they are wearing, the color of their skin, the accent of their speech? Look back in your life. Have you been a peacemaker or one who added fuel to the fire of social unrest?

2. How deeply wounded are you by the journey of life that you’ve lived? Do you believe God has seen it all and understands it even better than you do? Have you experienced God’s power healing for your past wounds?

3. Do you have a spring of hope, joy, contentment, peace bubbling up inside you especially in these troubling times?

So let’s sit with John chapter 4 for a while today, and let Jesus talk with you, like He did with this Samaritan woman!

Here’s a song to help you. . .

Today’s Scripture is John 4.

Choose below to read or listen.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

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