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THE TEXT

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

² Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic^[a] called Bethesda,^[b] which has five roofed colonnades. ³ In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.^{[c] 5} One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” ⁷ The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” ⁸ Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”⁹ And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath. ¹⁰ So the Jews^[d] said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” ¹¹ But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” ¹² They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” ¹³ Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. ¹⁴ Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. ¹⁶ And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath (John 5:1-16).

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THE TEXT

John 4:27-54

THE WILL OF HIM

Why are you here? What are you here for? There are fundamental questions that, unanswered, can leave us with deep uncertainties. And there are people making millions of dollars giving you cheap, trivial platitudes that pretend to be answers. One of the things that is most striking about Jesus is his certainty of who he is and what he is here for (John 4:34, cf. 5:30, 6:38). He is immune to the trivial insecurities that plague us because he has a deep understanding of who he is and what he is here for.

THE SIGNS

We have in this passage two different responses to Christ. The woman at the well who abandons her waterpot to run and tell the village (v. 28) and the man from Capernaum whose son was dying (v. 47). The need for signs (v. 45 and 48) is a weakness that Jesus bears with. But it reveals a problem that we have with understanding what Christ is for. The woman at the well, on the other hand, abandons her waterpots and runs to point others to Jesus.

THE FINGER OF GOD

Jesus comes to point us towards eternal life. We, in our sin and in our finitude, can’t understand what life really means, especially the life that God is pointing us towards. Instead, we are like a dog who can’t trace the line from the master’s finger to what the master is pointing at. Instead, we keep looking blankly at the fingertip. But Jesus’ signs are pointing to so much more.

THE WHITE HARVEST

Because we don’t see what God is pointing at, we miss the significance of right now. Now is the harvest (v. 35). And the virtue of right now is that it is always right now. Life and all that God is offering to you in that life are all right before you now. Go to the ant you sluggard! The present matters. Eternal significance is in the moment before you.

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THE TEXT

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” . . . (John 4:1-25)

A WOMAN AND A WELL

There are numerous accounts in the Gospels of Jesus encountering various women. But the disciples never “marveled” (v. 27) at any of these. Why was this so different? This whole encounter looks like the setup for a man finding a wife. Moses (Ex. 2:15-21), Isaac (Gen. 24:14-16), and Jacob (Gen. 29:1-9) all meet their brides at a well in a foreign land.

HER FIVE BAALS

We can infer that this woman has had a rough life with five different husbands (v. 16-18), probably the result of a string of divorces. It is interesting that the Hebrew word for husband is baal, the same word that is used to describe the pagan gods (Hos. 2:16-18). Samaria is the land of false gods and religious syncretism (2 Kings 17:29-40) and a woman with five baals is a picture of this land. Jesus corrects her theological misunderstanding (v. 20-22), while pointing her to a much more significant truth.

LIVING WATER

Living water is a Hebrew expression to describe running water of a spring or a river, as opposed to standing, stagnant water. In Jewish legend, when Jacob rolled back the stone from the mouth of the well for Rachel, he also turned the water of the well into living water that overflowed the well. Living water was required in the ceremonial washing to be clean from an impurity (Num. 19:17-20). One of the occasions that required this kind of washing with living water was the bride before her wedding, to purify her for the ceremony.

THE TEMPLE AND THE RIVER

The Old Testament prophesied that the time would come when a river of water would flow out of the Temple (Ez. 47) or out of Jerusalem (Zech. 14:8), as Israel looks on the One whom they have pierced (Zech. 12:10). Jesus was announcing to the Samaritan woman, what would be revealed on the cross (John 19:34).

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