THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
John 4
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
I don’t think that the meeting at the well was a chance encounter. Just like the man who was possessed by the legion, and the syro-phoenician woman, it seems to me that Jesus made choices that allowed him to meet the woman. And if that were the case, it tells me that God is very much aware of the individual and in these cases, individuals who live in non-jewish communities.
For the woman to quickly move from “interesting Jewish man who is willing to cross cultural barriers”, to “I can see you are a prophet” and finally to “you are able to explain and show me how to overcome the differences between my community and the Jews so I can reconcile the God whom we both worship, could you be the Messiah” tells me that she has been seeking the truth and getting lost along the way.
Having found answers that satisfy her soul, she naturally shared her joy with her community and brought them to meet Jesus. “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
This was not an invitation to be entertained or to be impressed by Jesus’ prophetic abilities; “Could this be the Messiah?” she asked. It was an invitation to investigate the credentials of the man who claimed to be he.
The onus was on Jesus and he did not disappoint. “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.”
In this encounter, we see what it means to Jesus to bring people to know the truth of God and ultimately to worship him in truth and in spirit; not to be distracted by man-made issues, not to be overwhelmed by personal issues, not even to be encumbered by secondhand knowledge—knowing God by proxy and relying on the experience of others—ultimately the Gospel is about encountering the Way, the Truth and the Life.
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”