The Woman At The Well. Part 2: For The Third Sunday In Lent

The Woman at the Well, Part 2

John 4:27–42 NKJV

And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”

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

In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”

But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”

Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”

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

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.”

This morning we covered the first of two interleaved narratives. As the sermon ran long, I chose to cut the sermon off at verse 26 of a very long passage. Tonight, I want to cover the other narrative. so turn your bibles to John 4:27 and we will continue.

After Jesus had revealed Himself to the Samaritan woman, the disciples arrived. They had gone to a Samaritan village to buy food. Jesus was in a very bad way, so the desperate disciples forgot about the animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans and went to what was probably the same village of Sychar which the Samaritan woman was from. did they pass each other on the way to and from the well. did they take notice of each other. And if they did, what would each have thought, If it was the same, then all the residents would have seen the very odd spectacle of Jewish strangers going to their Samaritan village. Their dress would have identified them as Jews and not visitors from another Samaritan village. The news must have been spread throughout the village, Something strange was going on. They did not know just how strange the events of the day would be. These disciples returned with the intention of saving Jesus’ life.

Things were about to get even more strange. As they approached they saw that He was talking with someone. Getting closer, they noticed that it was a Samaritan woman. As we noticed, they might have passed this woman on the way to town. Many Jewish men would not talk publicly with a woman, no less a Samaritan one! The text tells us that they took special notice of this.

Another strange thing they noticed. Jesus appeared to have recovered in their absence. It is possible that the woman drew water for Him and He drank and revived. However, there is no mention of this detail if it happened. It is at this point that the Samaritan woman returns to her village to tell the men. “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Certainly this man is the Christ.” The Greek text forms this assertion in the form of a negative question “Is not HE the Christ?” However, this is a question in Greek which grammatically expects the positive response that He is indeed the Christ. We might think that what the woman says is ambiguous and could be answered either way. The emphatic use of “HE” which is not necessary to make grammatical sense amplifies this positive response. The woman says that the proof that He told her everything she ever did led to the inescapable conclusion that Jesus is the Christ.

We should notice that the Samaritan woman uses the Samaritan word Taheeb or the Jewish term Messiah, but the universal Greek “Christ.” This is not to say that the woman understood Greek (she may have), but John here conveys the meaning of what she said. Jesus Christ is greater than the Jews and the Samaritan beliefs. Neither of the terms are comprehensive enough. Christ came to redeem a people unto Himself from all nations and tongues.