Alive To God

Everyone who starts a social media account usually wants to be known, respected, and remembered for something. This person is known for his insightful Bible messages. This company has a fantastic following because of his Bible archaeology documentaries. Jesus wanted to be known as well. But He was not getting the right attention. He didn’t come to be a miracle worker or healer. He came to present Himself as a Savior, that whoever believed in His person and claims would have life.

Everyone had different expectations of what the Messiah would do when He came to Israel. Drive out the Romans. Make Israel great again. Reign righteously for ever. Reveal the secrets of our hearts?

When the disciples came to Jesus at the well, bringing food, the woman He was talking to left her water pot, went to the city, and began telling the men of the encounter. “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (vv. 28-29).

It’s interesting that she did not talk about living water, but that He knew everything about her. She probably mentioned this aspect because she said something earlier that revealed what was more significant to her people: “I know that Messiah is coming. When He comes, He will tell us all things” (v. 25).

Do you remember the Magic Eye stereograms that were all the rage a few decades ago? You saw a poster with a jumble of colors, focused on a dot in the center, and soon a jet in 3D popped out of the poster, coated with the random pattern saw earlier. Every now and then we would read the Word of God, reading a passage we’ve read many times, but then, focusing on it a little longer, there comes a freshness, a great dimension is added to it, and we wonder. Sometimes we get these “Aha” moments when the Spirit opens our understanding.

Passing through Samaritan territory, Jesus did what Jews don’t normally do. He took time to start a conversation with a marginalized woman which started when He sat at a well asking her for water.

She, surprised, asked, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (John 4:9). She points right at the bone of contention. The elephant in the room. They were speaking from opposite sides of the tracks. How, indeed, could He ask?

Because He’s Jesus. He came to break down walls that separate people from God. Easing the conversation forward, Jesus addresses her with a spiritual question, “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” (v. 10).

We are continuing the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at a well. But the claims Jesus makes of Himself are not what she expects.

When Jesus, tired by His journey from Judah midway to Galilee, asks for a drink, the woman who came to the well is puzzled or perhaps suspicious. “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (John 4:9). She knows that Jews avoid her people at all costs.

Jesus 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” (v. 10).

In many places, racial, religious, and cultural differences divide us from one another. Jesus transcends these boundaries, bringing salvation to all peoples. In John 4, we see Jesus breaking through boundaries.

John 4:1-3 gives the reason why Jesus is on the move from His place in Judah at the end of the previous chapter. He is returning north to His hometown in Galilee.

What changes everything, though, is v. 4, “But He needed to go through Samaria.” Generally, the Jews avoided meeting Samaritans by taking a longer route around them. The Samaritans had intermingled with other races when the Assyrians led the northern tribes into captivity in 722 BC, and left behind Gentile captives from other lands.