Cross sculpture on campus

Day

8

Come and See for Yourself

Lent 2022

Read John 4:1-42

1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman from 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 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Her shame and circumstances push her to draw water in the middle of the day where she can avoid the other women. This makes her physical task much more demanding. Then Jesus comes and breaks all the social rules of the day. As a Jew, he holds no hostility for this Samaritan. As a man, he demonstrates no denigrating attitude toward a woman. But most importantly, as God, he holds no condemnation for this sinner, who is condemned every day when she makes the lonely walk to the well. Instead, our Lord has a conversation forged from compassion, out of a desire to redeem and restore.

As he offers her water that quenches thirst forever, her mind raced to the possibility of never having to make that walk to the well again. Maybe she thought about how this water just might remove one thing from her life that underlined her shame. But what Jesus offers is intended to do so much more. Because of that, at the conclusion of their conversation, leaving her water jug behind in her great excitement, she goes to the village. She seems to be no longer burdened by shame and condemnation, as she points out to everyone who would hear her how Jesus told her of all that she had ever done. Replacing shame and condemnation, she is now compelled by a desire to invite everyone else, “Come and see for yourself.”

In the barren desert of sin and broken lives, our Lord quenches our thirst. “If you knew the gift of God, and who I am, you would ask for a drink, and I would give you living water.” This is the compassion, mercy, and grace of our Lord. We are invited to drink deeply. With our deepest thirst quenched, we, too, are compelled to invite others who thirst. Because of her words, others came to see Jesus and then asked him stay. They heard his word. They believed. “We know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Prayer: Lord, forgive my sin and restore me in the joy of your salvation. Help me to be compelled by your compassion for those around me who need living water, so that I would be bold to say, “Come and see.” Amen.

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