At Jacob’s Well

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The disciples wondered who could have brought Him food; but He explained, “My meat is to the will of Him that sent Me, and to accomplish His work.” John 4:34, R.V. As His words to the woman had aroused her conscience, Jesus rejoiced. He saw her drinking of the water of life, and His own hunger and thirst were satisfied. The accomplishment of the mission that He had left heaven to perform strengthened the Savior for His labor, and lifted Him above the necessities of humanity. To minister to a soul hungering and thirsting for the truth was more grateful to Him than eating and drinking. It was a comfort, refreshment, to Him. Benevolence was the life of His soul. 

 

Our Redeemer thirsts for recognition. He hungers for the sympathy and love of those whom He had purchased with His own blood. He longs with inexpressible desire that they should come to Him and have life. As the mother watches for the smile of recognition from her little child, which tells of the dawning of intelligence, so does Christ watch for the expression of grateful love, which shows that spiritual life is begun in the soul.

 

The woman had been filled with joy as she listened to Christ’s words. The wonderful revelation was almost overpowering. Leaving her water pot, she returned to the city, to carry the message to others. Jesus knew why she had gone. Leaving her water pot spoke unmistakably as to the effect of His words. It was the earnest desire of her soul to obtain the living water; and she forgot her errand to the well, she forgot the Savior’s thirst, which she had proposed to supply. With heart overflowing with gladness, she hastened on her way, to impart to others the precious light she had received. 

 

“Come, see a man, which told me all the things that I ever did,” she said to the men of the city. “Is not this the Christ?” Her words touched their hearts. There was a new expression on her face, a change in her whole appearance. They were interested to see Jesus. “Then they went out of the city, and came unto Him.”

 

As Jesus still sat at the well side, He looked over the fields of grain that were spread out before Him, their tender green touched by the golden sunlight. Pointing His disciples to the scene, He employed it as a symbol: “Say not ye, There are four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” And as he spoke, He looked on the groups that were coming to the well. It was four months to the time for harvesting the grain, but here was a harvest ready for the reaper.

 

“He that reapeth,” He said, “receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.” Here Christ points out the sacred service owed to God by those who receive the gospel. They are to be His living agencies. He requires their individual service. And whether we sow or reap, we are working for God. One scatters the seed; another gathers the harvest; and both the sower and the reaper receive wages. They rejoice together in the reward of their labor.

 

Jesus said to His disciples, “I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor: other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors.” The Savior was here looking forward to the great ingathering on the day of Pentecost. The disciples were not to regard this as the result of their own efforts. They were entering into other men’s labors. Ever since the fall of Adam Christ had been committing the seed of the word to His chosen servants, to be sown in human hearts. And unseen agency, even an omnipotent power, had worked silently but effectually to produce the harvest. The dew and rain and sunshine of God’s grace had been given, to refresh and nourish the seed of truth. Christ was about to water the seed with His own blood. His disciples were privileged to be laborers together with God. They were coworkers with Christ and with the holy men of old. By the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, thousands were to be converted in a day. This was the result of Christ’s sowing, the harvest of His work.

 

In the words spoken to the woman at the well, good seed had been sown, and how quickly the harvest was received. The Samaritans came and heard Jesus, and believed on Him. Crowding about Him at the well, they plied Him with questions, and eagerly received His explanation of many things that had been obscure to them. As they listened, their perplexity began to clear away. They were like a people in great darkness tracing up a sudden ray of light till they found the day. But they were not satisfied with this short conference. They were anxious to hear more, and have their friends also listen to this wonderful teacher. They invited Him to their city, and begged Him to remain with them. For two days He tarried in Samaria, and many believed on Him.

 

The Pharisees despised the simplicity of Jesus. They ignored His miracles, and demanded a sign that he was the Son of God. But the Samaritans asked no sign, and Jesus performed no miracles among them, save in revealing the secrets of her life to the woman at the well. Yet many received Him. In their new joy they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”

 

The Samaritans believed that the Messiah was to come as the Redeemer, not only for the Jews, but also for the world. The Holy Spirit through Moses had foretold Him as a prophet sent from God. Through Jacob it had been declared that unto Him should the gathering of the people be; and through Abraham, that in Him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. On these Scriptures the people of Samaria based their faith in the Messiah. The fact that the Jews had misinterpreted the later prophets, attributing to the first advent the glory of Christ’s second coming, had led the Samaritans to discard all the sacred writings except those given through Moses. But as the Savior swept away these false interpretations, many accepted the later prophecies and the words of Christ Himself in regard to the kingdom of God.

 

Jesus had begun to break down the partition wall between Jew and Gentile, and to preach salvation to the world. Though He was a Jew, He mingled freely with the Samaritans, setting at nought the Pharisaic customs of His nation. In the face of their prejudices He accepted the hospitality of this despised people. He slept under their roofs, ate with them at their tables, partaking of the food prepared and served by their hands, taught in their streets, and treated them with the utmost kindness and courtesy.

 

In the temple at Jerusalem a low wall separated the outer court from all other portions of the sacred building. Upon this wall were inscriptions in different languages, stating that none but Jews were allowed to pass this boundary. Had a Gentile presumed to enter the inner enclosure, he would have desecrated the temple, and would have paid the penalty with his life. But Jesus, the originator of the temple and its service, drew the Gentiles to Him by the tie of human sympathy, while His divine grace brought to them the salvation that the Jews rejected.

 

The stay of Jesus in Samaria was designed to be a blessing to His disciples, who were still under the influence of Jewish bigotry. They felt that loyalty to their own nation required them to cherish enmity toward the Samaritans. They wondered at the conduct of Jesus. They could not refuse to follow His example, and during the two days in Samaria, fidelity to Him kept the prejudices under control; yet in heart they were unreconciled. They were slow to learn that their attempt and hatred must give place to pity and sympathy. But after the Lord’s ascension, His lessons came back to them with a new meaning. After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they recalled the Savior’s look, His words, the respect and tenderness of His bearing toward those despised strangers. When Peter went to preach in Samaria, he brought the same spirit into his own work. When John was called to Ephesus and Smyrna, he remembered the experience at Shechem, and was filled with gratitude to the divine teacher, who, foreseeing the difficulties they must meet, had given them help in His own example.

 

The Savior is still carrying forward the same work as when He proffered the water of life to the woman of Samaria. Those who call themselves followers may despise and shun the outcast ones; but no circumstance of birth or nationality, no condition of life, can turn away His love from the children of men. To every soul, however sinful, Jesus says, Id thou hadst asked of Me, I would have given thee living water. 

 

The gospel invitation is not to be narrowed down, and presented only to a select few, who, we suppose, will do us honor if they accept it. This message is to given to all. Wherever hearts are open to receive the truth, Christ is ready to instruct them. He reveals to them the Father, and the worship acceptable to Him who reads the heart. For such He uses no parables. To them, as the woman at the well, He says, “I that speak unto thee am He.” When Jesus sat down to rest at Jacob’s well, He had come from Judea, where His ministry had produced little fruit. He had been rejected by the priests and rabbis, and even the people who professed to be His disciples had failed in perceiving His divine character. He was faint and weary; yet He did not neglect the opportunity of speaking to one woman, though she was a stranger, an alien from Israel, and living in open sin.

 

The Savior did not wait for congregations to assemble. Often He began His lessons with only a few gathered about Him, but one by one the passers-by paused to listen, until a multitude heard with wonder and awe the words of God through the heaven-sent Teacher. The worker for Christ should not feel that he cannot speak with the same earnestness to a few hearers as to a large company. There may be only one to hear the message; but who can tell how far-reaching will be the influence? It seemed a small matter, even to the disciples, for the Savior to spend His time upon a woman of Samaria. But He reasoned more earnestly and eloquently with her than the kings, councilors, or high priests. The lessons He gave to that woman have been repeated to the earth’s remotest bounds.

 

As soon as she had found the Savior the Samaritan woman brought others to Him. She proved herself a more effective missionary than His own disciples. The disciples saw nothing in Samaria to indicate that it was an encouraging field. Their thoughts were fixed upon a great work to be done in the future. They did not see that right around them was a harvest to be gathered. But thorough the woman whom they despised, a whole cityful were brought to hear the Savior. She carried the light at once to her countrymen.

 

This woman represents the working of a practical faith in Christ. Every true disciple is born into the kingdom of God as a missionary. He who drinks of the living water becomes a fountain of life. The receiver becomes the giver. The grace of Christ in the soul is like a spring in the desert, welling up to refresh all, and making those who are ready to perish eager to drink of the water of life.

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