New Testament Doctrine — John 4:27-42

First, some chronology. Jesus passed through Samaria to get away from the political heat in Judea, but to also avoid the higher likelihood of arrest in Perea, on the heels of John the Baptist being put in prison at Machaerus. Jesus stays a couple of days in Sychar, then heads north. In Nazareth He encounters resistance to point they tried to push Him off a bluff to His death. From there He continues north to Cana, from whence He heals the nobleman’s son. The nobleman had hiked all day from Capernaum to plead with Jesus, and got back the next day to find his son healed.

But the story at hand is the time Jesus spent among the Samaritans.

Jesus told the brassy woman He was the Messiah. She completely forgot her water pot and quickly went back into Sychar. From a distance, the Disciples were returning and saw their Master talking to this woman, and thought it quite strange. Not only was she a Samaritan, but Jesus normally observed strict protocol about such things as talking to non-family women in public. Of course, they had no idea how pushy she had been with Jesus, and how aloof He had been with her. Still, knowing their Rabbi had done many strange things so far, there was not much use in asking Him about this odd scene.

She had run off to blabber in the town about this encounter with what she believed was the Messiah, seeing that He knew all she had ever done without ever seeing her before. She managed to stir up quite a crowd. Being a pushy gal, she would have pestered everyone in sight, and the difference in her message this time would have been quite obvious to the folks living in Sychar.

Meanwhile, the disciples were trying to get Jesus to join in the lunch they bought in Shechem. It’s probably not obvious to some readers what would make Jesus lose His appetite at this point. He was still a man, and had resolved to do nothing that wasn’t possible for any man under under the Covenant. But He did possess moral purity under the Covenant, and so was deeply moved by spiritual events.

This encounter with the Samaritan woman echoed with a mighty move of the Spirit. And it wasn’t over yet. Jesus was so stirred savoring this spiritual victory that He couldn’t be distracted with eating mere food, and He said so. But of course, He spoke in parables, and His disciples were puzzled, as usual. We aren’t told much about this event in terms of how it was so important to His mission, only that Jesus regarded this as something too good to miss.

This was the cool rainy season, when the crops around them were still green. It was still another four months before the grain would mature and turn dry, with the heads drooping. Yet, here came out of the city a hoard of people whose clothing would have been roughly the same color as ripened wheat, an off-white color some Samaritans still wear today. Jesus told them that the spiritual harvest was ripe. The Samaritan woman had planted the seed, and they were about to reap.

The crowd approaching had been primed to believe Jesus was the Messiah. Upon arriving, they asked Him to stay with them and share His message. We aren’t told how the disciples reacted to this prospect, but Jesus stayed a couple of days. If you keep in mind what kind of personality she had, it does matter what the townsmen said to her. They admitted that she piqued their curiosity. This woman, of all people, ranting and raving about the Messiah? But after a couple of days under Jesus’ teaching, it was obvious to them He certainly was the Messiah.

And we know that Jesus would have spoken straight from the Old Testament without compromise. They embraced it; John’s choice of words indicates it was not unanimous, but it was a substantial portion of the folks in Sychar. What John gets across is that these folks were already primed to hear what Jesus taught. From what we can tell, the Samaritans had latched onto the ancient Hebrew style of mysticism, and had never developed the legalism of the Talmud. They had far less resistance to Jesus’ parabolic style of teaching, and His emphasis on otherworldly truth.

But the most important element here is how even those who didn’t embrace His teaching weren’t hostile. His time there didn’t create any trouble. What He said to the woman about worshiping in spirit and in truth was not foreign to their religion, yet we know that such talk got Him into big trouble among Jews. This was a good time for His disciples to see just how hungry souls were to hear the message that Israel should have carried to the rest of the world.