We look here at chapter four of the gospel of John, as a whole, before going through it verse by verse this week.
Jesus, growing up in Galilee, has been ministering far south of home, in the region around Jerusalem.
John 4: 1-3, Return to Galilee
The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
It is not clear why Jesus returns to Galilee here. There seems to be some controversy that has been stirred up by Jesus's popularity.
John 4: 4-10, A well in Samaria
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered 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."
There are a number of social taboos being broken here. First, Jesus speaks to a woman by herself. And she is not a Jew but of "mixed" racial heritage, a Samaritan, a descendant of the racial mixing of Jews with non Jews after the return from Babylon. Many Jews despised Samaritans as religiously impure, not just racially impure. The author of the book makes a brief comment to that effect, saying either that "Jews do no associate with Samaritans". (The NIV footnotes suggest that this may simply mean"Jews do not use dishes Samaritans use.")
But Jesus responds to the woman's questioning by saying, "I give you an opportunity for living water." Here "living water" is a metaphor for "fresh water", for water that is pure and moving, not still and brackish.
John 4: 11-16, Eternal fresh water
"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
The woman first thinks Jesus claims to have found a spring of fresh water. But Jesus is pursuing a metaphor. The "fresh" water he offers will satisfy one's thirst forever.
John 4: 16-26, Tangents
He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
"I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "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."
"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
At this point, both the woman and Jesus play a little game. The woman is intrigued by this offer of eternal fresh water but Jesus intends a serious spiritual encounter and the woman's sex life presents a barrier to her a relationship with God. So Jesus diverts the conversation to her "marriage", suggesting that he will explain this "living water" to her and her husband. She deflects this by claiming to be single, so there is no need to invite anyone else. At this point Jesus corrects her half-truth. Shocked by his knowledge of her life, she makes no denial of his statements but quickly diverts the conversation a second time, trying to discuss the Jew/Samaritan controversy about the correct place of worship. Jesus follows this pseudo-religious distraction by telling her that a time has (Now!) come when the place of worship is irrelevant. No matter what direction the woman takes the conversation, however, it is going to ultimately end up discussing the Jewish Messiah -- who is sitting in front of her.
The disciples return at the end of this conversation and we then see the impact this conversation has on the small town of Sychar.
John 4: 27-38, Harvest
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?"
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."
But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."
Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, `Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying `One sows and another reaps' is true."
"I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
The disciples are, of course, surprised to see their Jewish rabbi talking to a woman -- those things were not done in that society -- but they keep their questions to themselves. Meanwhile the woman goes back to the townspeople to talk about this strange man.
Jesus continues to speak in metaphors. Having identifying himself as the (eternal) Fresh Water for mankind, he now speaks of his work in terms of food (or meat.)
In some parts of my country, some churches do a bit of boasting about "numbers saved", as if the current evangelist or preacher (seeking financial support) is the one responsible for conversions. But Jesus mentions a principle in his harvest metaphor, that "reaping" is just one part of a long process. This principle is an important one -- anything important (evangelism, teaching, coaching) that involves developing people will require a long patient process.
John 4: 39-42, Samaritan believers
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
John reports that these Gentiles (or partial Gentiles, half-breed Jews?) respond to the Jewish Messiah. And so Jesus stays in the town for several days.
John 4: 43-54, Two royal sons
After the two days he left for Galilee. (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, for they also had been there.
Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.
"Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders," Jesus told him, "you will never believe."
The royal official said, "Sir, come down before my child dies."
Jesus replied, "You may go. Your son will live." The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, "The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour." Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." So he and all his household believed.
This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee.
The Royal Son heals a royal son. Although Jesus has mentioned the "prophet without honor" concept, he is well received by this royal official.
The author identifies this as the second miracle in Galilee. This implies that the events up to this point in John's Gospel occur before the opening of the Galillean ministry as recorded in the other gospels; presumably these events occur before Mark 1: 14-15, for example.
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