But He needed to go through Samaria
His meeting with the Samaritan woman, at the Sychar well, was within the Lord’s mission. It was a laborious journey that took 6 hours to walk and with extreme endurance of the elements, until the sixth hour of the day (12 noon). The Lord endured all of that just for the joy of gaining the subject placed before Him, for the sake of wining the soul of the Samaritan woman.
Therefore, our meeting with Jesus is not accomplished with friendship, or conditional… For Jesus doesn’t abide to conditions, or changes. The meeting is a premeditated and divinely arranged. Our Lord Jesus places this obligation “MUST” for our salvation. As He told Zacchaeus, “For today I must stay at your house.” (Luke 19:5). Jesus came for our salvation. Therefore He must go by us, and nothing in this world should prevent us from meeting with Jesus. Therefore, every time we enter the church we do it to meet Jesus, every time we stand when the Bible is read, and every time we hear His voice, when God deals with us, we confident that these meetings with God were prearranged for us, and they were fulfilled according to Him.
And it was the sixth hour
This is the same time, the Lord was nailed to the cross for the life of the world… There (on the cross) He also met the thief… This is the same time when Phillip met the Ethiopian eunuch. It was the same time when God met Abraham in the past. God meets us at high noon, when we are tested by heat… Here Jesus meets us, and offers us the spring of life, He is willing to give it, if we ask for. But conditionally, we have to acknowledge our sin, the abandonment of the old sack, and the change of all the ways of our life.
The dialog with Jesus
It is not strange to observe that the Lord Jesus is the initiator of the dialog with Samaritan woman, as this is the nature of God in all ages. He is the source of every blessing, the fountain of life giving and the finite gift. We love Him, because He first loved us… He first initiated with His incarnation to lift us towards Him. He first talked to those He called upon to be with Him… The Lord Jesus starts His dialog as if He needs us, “Give Me to drink.” (John 4:7). If we answer His call, then He will give us living water… The Bible didn’t mention that the woman gave Him water to drink, for Jesus doesn’t thirst for water. He thirsts for our souls and for our salvation… For when His disciples returned, and they told Him, “Master eat. He said to them. I have food to eat of which you do not know.” (John 4:31, 32). Therefore He was not thirsty for water, but thirsty for something else, as He said on the cross, “I thirst.” (John 19:28). But when they lifted the hyssop to Him, He didn’t want to drink. He thirsts for the soul of the thief, and He thirsts to fill us… Whoever interacts with Him will quench His thirst and simultaneously takes from His ‘living water’.
The gift of God
The Lord told the Samarian woman, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you…” (John 4:10). The soul in its journey with God is not aware of the gift of God… And, the One who is talking to it… Jesus dawns on the soul to know the extent of the gift, then it says: Master, give me. But first, the soul goes into an earthly comparison and similarities of the gift, “Where then do You get that living water?” (John 4:11). But Jesus lifts our souls to the level of spiritual worship and truth, after He frees the soul from the limits of the letter and old believes.
A dialog about worship
It is strange that the Samaritan woman talks about worship and prostrate, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” (John 4:20). O, what an evasion and mistake in her sinful life, is she attempting to discuss the faith, the worship and the approach to God. Isn’t that the attitude of many individuals to have, ‘numerous questions, information, inquiries, worship details, discussions, limitations, in their lives’. A lot of souls live with many sins bound to the world, with five husbands, and a life so distant from God. But if the occasion brings them, among spiritual individuals or in a religious setting, they quickly ask a lot of questions, inquires and explanations concerning a discussion about worship and belief in which they are stead fast. But there is a large partition between the talk and living with God. They discuss everything as if they are religious. But they are as it was said, “These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.” (Matt.15:8). “Brood of vipers! How can you, being so evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Matt.12:34).
The worship with the spirit
Let us notice, that Jesus doesn’t contradict the Samaritan woman during their long discussion and with evasion of words. He directly transfers her to the spiritual worship, not by word or falsehood but in truth. For as long as our lives are stained with sin, then our worship is worthless. It is true what the Lord said, “Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer you gift.” (Matt. 5:23, 24). Those worshipers are the ones the Father is asking for. The Father doesn’t rejoice with us because we of what we know or discuss. But He rejoices with the spiritual fruit within us, and the worship of God in the Holy Spirit. There is a large gap between the spirit of Jesus and the spirit of hollow dialog, slander and stupid discussions….
The Christ
The woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming (who is called Christ). When He comes He will tell us all things.” (John 4:25). Then Jesus told her, “I who speak to you am He.” (John 4:26). Here we discover something about the woman. Deep within her, she was searching for the Christ, for she knows that He is coming. She is in a state of waiting and internal observation for the salvation of Israel. O what a marvel, that the depth of the Samaritan woman’s heart was quite different from her exterior appearance. She was observed as a sinful woman drowned in evil. But from within she was waiting for the Christ, the Savior. You can compare her to a very precious stone thrown in the mud of the earth, and mixed with the defile of desire. If handled by a jeweler, he cleanses it, removes the dirt and exposes its precious value. We wish not to question a lot of souls, and judge them according to the neglect that stuck to them, and the dirt that covered their beauty. They brought these souls to Christ to a simple meeting at the well at high noon. Observe when Christ brings forth a preacher in His name, as He brought forth Matthew the apostle from the tax office, Matt.(9:9), and Paul the Apostle on the way to Damascus, Acts (9:3).
The Lord Jesus calls on us to work
Look, even with just a spiritual view, at the souls around you. You will see them as white fields ready for harvest without labor…. Others labor, and we entered accordingly without labor. There are souls that only require a simple word to be gathered in the Father’s bosom. Ripe souls are just waiting, for our hands to do the spiritual work, not to miss the chance to harvest. O, brethren let us do the work of the Lord in His fields, to gather and harvest for the church. Let us collect the fruits of eternal life, to rejoice with those who planted the seed of the Word, in the old and New Testament, and to receive the wages of harvest from the Lord’s hands.