Jesus & The Samaritan Woman
4:1-42
This passage relates the second evangelistic dialogue in which Jesus engaged. They stand in great contrast with each other. The first dialogue was with Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews. He was well educated in the Jewish scriptures (what we call the Old Testament). He was respected in his society.
This encounter, on the other hand, was with a woman, a Samaritan, and one shunned by her society.
First, let’s look at the setting.
The Setting
4:1-6
The story starts with Jesus out in the countryside of Judea, preaching, bringing people to salvation, and seeing them baptized by his disciples. (1-2) He learned that the Pharisees had become aware of him, and that his disciples were baptizing more people than John. We previously saw the Pharisees come out to evaluate John the Baptist and argue with his disciples. They may have heard John’s disciples complaining that Jesus was baptizing more people than they were.
Hearing that he was now on the radar of the Pharisees, Jesus decided to leave Judea for Galilee. It was evidently not the time for him to engage the Pharisees.
Walking north to Galilee meant walking through Samaria. I’ve heard many sermons and lessons that say Jews did not walk through Samaria, but rather crossed the river and walked up the east bank until they could cross over to Galilee. However, Josephus, the historian, indicates that only some very strict Jews did that. All others walked through Samaria because it was the shorter route. And that certainly comports with human nature.
However, the Jews disdained the Samaritans and avoided contact with them as much as possible. They considered the Samaritans to be racially and religiously tainted. Second Kings 17 gives us the reason for this.
The area known as Samaria was originally the northern kingdom after the split of the kingdom under Solomon’s son. The southern kingdom was known as Judea and the norther kingdom was known in the Old Testament as Israel. King Omri of Israel built a new city to be his capital and called in Samaria. Eventually, the whole area became known by that name.
The Assyrians defeated Israel and carried all of the important people to be resettled in other parts of the kingdom as was their policy. God allowed this because of Israel’s idolatry. The Assyrians then resettled the area with other races. Since those people did not worship the Lord, the Lord sent lions among them. The people asked the Assyrian king to send them a priest because they did not know how to worship the god of the land. It was a common belief in those days that different countries or regions were subject to the power of local gods.
The people began to practice the worship of the Lord in various ways, but also worshipped the local gods they had known before being relocated. Eventually, these religions corrupted the worship of God so that it was different from that prescribed in the scripture. So, the Jews did not consider Samaritans to be Jews racially and did not consider them to worship God correctly. Therefore, interaction with Samaritans would make the Jews ceremonially unclean.
At about noon on a day of travel, Jesus and his disciples stopped at a village named Sychar, in Samaria. The village no longer exists. Many believe it is the place known as Shechem in the Old Testament, where Jacob lived for a while. The land was believed to be part of the land Jacob gave to Joseph. The well known as Jacob’s well was close to the village.
Jesus was hot and tired, so he sat down next to the well while his disciples went into the village to buy food for lunch. This well is where the dialogue occurred.
The Dialogue, Part 1
4:7-15
While Jesus sat next to the well, a woman from the village came to draw water from the well. It was customary for women to come to the well in early morning or in the evening when it was cooler. And they usually came in groups.
Since John specifies what time it was, we have to think there was a reason for it. It is likely that the woman was an outcast and did not want to face the other women or was afraid of being mistreated.
But, of course, when she got to the well, she was not alone. And of all things, there was a Jewish man sitting by the well. Knowing that Jews and Samaritans did not mingle, as John noted in verse 9, she probably expected to fill her water jar and leave without interference form the man.
But it was not to be. Jesus addressed her directly, asking her for a drink. (7) The woman was shocked and asked Jesus how it was that he, a Jew, asked her, a Samaritan for a drink. John inserted a parenthetical explanation that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. (9) The New International Version has a footnote that says those words could be translated as “do not use dishes Samaritans have used”.
As Jesus did with Nicodemus, he responded to the woman evangelistically and metaphorically. He told her that, if she knew who he was, and the gift of God, she would have asked him to give her “living water” and he would have done so. (10) The “gift of God” to which he refers is eternal life and Jesus is the only one who can give it to her.
The term “living water” has a physical meaning, referring to running water in a spring, which was considered cleaner and fresher than still water.
The term also has a metaphorical, or symbolic, meaning. It was often used in the Old Testament to refer to life, particularly life in the transforming power of the Holy Spirt. For example, in Jeremiah 2:3, God accused Israel of forsaking him as the spring of living water to dig their own cisterns, which were broken and could not hold water. They had abandoned the life God could give them for religions of their own making, which could not give life.
But the woman, like Nicodemus, took Jesus as referring to the physical. She pointed out that he had nothing with which to get water from this deep well. So, where would he get it? She was clearly skeptical of his claim.
She was also sarcastic. She asked Jesus if he was greater than Jacob, who gave the Samaritans this well. (12) (This was their tradition; there is no Old Testament record of Jacob digging a well there.) Samaritans believed themselves to be descended from Jacob, despite their actual racial makeup. Jesus could have said he was greater than Jacob, because he is. But, he ignored her sarcasm and skepticism and pressed on with his message.
Jesus drew a distinction for her. He distinguished physical water from spiritual, or living, water. He told her the physical water in the well would only satisfy her thirst for a while. In contest, the living water he offered caused a permanent transformation. She would never be thirsty again. That water would become in her and anyone who received it, as a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (13) When a person receives Jesus as savior and lord, he receives the Holy Spirit, who is our pledge of eternal life.
2 Corinthians 1:22 says God put his seal on us and gave us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. Ephesians 1:13-14 says we are sealed with the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.
As with Nicodemus, the woman continued to dwell on the physical. She asked him to giver her the water so she would not be thirsty or have to come to the well again.
The Dialogue, Part 2
4:16-28
Jesus had a way of getting past the barriers to get to the need. With Nicodemus, he cut off the flattery of being told Nicodemus knew he was a man sent by God by telling him he must be born again.
When a young rich man, who believed he was righteous, asked Jesus how to get eternal life, Jesus knew he was attached to his riches and went straight to that point, telling the young man to give away his possessions and follow him.
Here, Jesus cuts through the woman’s skepticism and focus on the physical by going directly to her problematic moral life. He told her to go get her husband. She said she did not have one and Jesus said that is true, you have had five husbands and are now living with a man who is not your husband.
This story shows us the two natures of Jesus at work. As fully a man, a human being, he was hot, thirsty, and tired. As fully God, he knew this woman’s circumstances even though he had never met her. He demonstrated his divine omniscience.
But Jesus was not trying to show off his knowledge, he was showing the woman her need. She was a sinner and was living in sin. She was spiritually thirsty and she needed to know that in order to receive Jesus’ gift of salvation.
Upon hearing this, the woman realized that Jesus was no ordinary man. She called him a prophet. She did not yet realize who he really was. But, since he was a prophet, she decided to sidetrack the conversation by bringing up a big theological disagreement between Samaritans and Jews: the proper place of worship. The Samaritans built a temple on Mount Gerizim, which was close to the location of the well. This may have been in response to the Jews refusing the people of the land to help in building the second temple under Ezra.
The Old Testament shows that the temple in Jerusalem was sanctioned by God, but there is no mention of God allowing a temple on Mount Gerizim. However, the Samaritans only accepted the first five books of the Bible, so the story of God sanctioning the building of the temple in Jerusalem by Solomon would not carry any weight with them.
Jesus did not ignore the error, pointing out that the Samaritan worship was in error, but he quickly moved on to the real point: the hour was coming, and had come, when temple worship, even that of the Jews, would become obsolete, and true worshipers would worship God in spirit and truth.
The New International Version uses the word “time” instead of the word “hour”, which is the literal translation. In this case, the term “hour” is important. When Jesus spoke of his hour (or of when his hour comes) he referred to the events of his death, resurrection and exaltation. So, Jesus was saying when his death, resurrection, and exaltation occurs, temple worship in any place will be obsolete and worship in spirit will take its place.
True worship comes only through Jesus. He is the true temple (2:19-22), he is the resurrection and the life (11:25), and he is the only way to the Father (14:6). Further, the gift of the Holy Spirit comes only after Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation.
Jesus also said the hour is now here. He used an oxymoron, a contradictory phrase, saying the hour is coming but also saying it is now here. He does this to reveal who he is. He is the one and only one through whom true worship can occur and he is right there with her.
Finally, Jesus reiterates the point of worship in spirit by saying God is spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and truth. God is different than us. We are flesh, physical, visible, human. God is spirit, invisible, divine, life giving, and unknowable unless he chooses to reveal himself. John told us that in the Prologue. He said that no man has seen God the Father and that Jesus the son has made him known to us. The Father has revealed himself to us in the Son.
John also told us, by telling Nicodemus, that only those who are born from above through Jesus, who are baptized by him into the Spirit, can see the kingdom of God and worship God truly, or in truth. By being in Christ, knowing him, and being in the Holy Spirit, we can know the Father as much as he can be known by us and, thereby, worship him as he wants to be worshipped, in spirit and truth.
We see a picture of this in Revelation 21:22, which is a picture of the new heavens and new earth. John saw the throne of God and of the Lamb there with his servants, believers, worshipping him. But there was no temple there because the temple is the Father and the Son there in their midst. This would be the ultimate fulfillment of what Jesus was speaking to the woman about. We experience an imperfect version of that now, but still a version that has made the concept of temples and locations obsolete.
The Samaritan woman likely did not understand all of this, as Nicodemus did not understand all Jesus told him. So, she replied that when Messiah comes, he will explain all these things to us. And John again explains to his Greek readers that “Messiah” means “Christ”.
The Samaritans did not normally use the term Messiah, so she may have used it in deference to the Jewish Jesus. They referred to the Taheb, who was a teacher and prophet as foretold by Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15-19. Therefore, she could wait for him to come and explain it to her.
But, Jesus did not allow her to wait. He told her “I who speak to you am he”. (26) This is his declaration that he is the Messiah, God’s anointed one, come to bring salvation.
And that changed everything. His declaration that he was the Messiah\Christ accompanied by his knowledge of her circumstances, and his teaching of true worship sparks in her the belief, or at least the hope, that he is indeed the one God sent to bring salvation to the world.
Takeways
Jesus demonstrated his love for the world by evangelizing both the devout Jew and the unorthodox Samaritan, a man and a woman, the educated and the uneducated, the upstanding citizen and the outcast. We should follow that example.
Jesus also shows us that we should not be preoccupied with buildings and furnishings and procedures, but be focused on the true worship of God in the Spirit and in the truth of Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment