Good Morning, Meetpastordan Readers…What a beautiful day in our little slice of paradise right here in Southshore Falls, Apollo Beach, Fl. I woke up early this morning and took a few minutes to bask in the beauty of His creation, asking again for a subject, a direction, anything that could get me going on the blog that I intended to write today. For the past two days, my “creative well” has been bone dry, and I wasn’t getting any promptings…but I was persistent. “Ask and keep asking; knock and keep knocking; seek and keep seeking.” Matthew 7:7. All of a sudden, I got what I was hoping for, and not only the subject, but an idea for the layout. Why that happened now, and not earlier, I cannot say. But what I can say is this: God is faithful when we stand on His promises. So today, I would like to talk about the story of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well. (This story is found in its entirety in Matthew 4:1-42)
Jesus learned that the jealousy and disdain for Him from the Pharisees had reached a feverish pitch, so He and His disciples left Judea to return to Galilee. The most direct route was through Samaria, but Samaria was considered to be an “unholy country” because of the history of intermarriages between Jews and pagans. Most Jews chose to walk many additional miles to circumvent Samaria, but not Jesus. He and His disciples walked straight into Samaria, and all the way to Jacob’s well, because Jesus had a divine appointment to fulfill.
When He and His disciples reached the well, the disciples left to find food. Coming from another direction was an unaccompanied woman to gather water. She was unaccompanied because she was shunned by the other women. Her poor reputation and her promiscuous behavior left her with no friends. But that didn’t deter Jesus. He said, “Please give Me a drink of water.” Surprised, the woman replied, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are You asking me for a drink? Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you, and who is asking you for water, you would ask Me, and I would give you living water.” He went on, “People soon become thirsty again after drinking your water. But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life.” “Please, sir” the woman said, “give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to haul water.”
When Jesus was speaking of water, living water, He was speaking of Himself, the giver of new life. Once people accept Him as their Lord and Savior, they are reborn; they receive a new life…eternal life. They are never spiritually thirsty again. Even when it first appeared that the woman might be getting the message, she then revealed that her hope was in never being physically thirsty, and never having to come to the well to gather water again. This wonderful offering could make her life simpler. But this scene was only the introduction; the next scene rocked her world.
Jesus then told the woman to “Go. Call your husband and bring him here.” She replied, “I don’t have a husband.” He replied, “You’re right. You don’t have a husband. But you have had five husbands, but you’re not married to the man you are living with now. No doubt the woman was absolutely shocked by Jesus’ knowledge of her life. To give herself time to regroup, she drastically changed the subject.
“Sir” the woman said, “You must be a prophet. So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped”. Jesus replied, “Believe Me, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father here or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know so little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about Him, for salvation comes through the Jews. (Jesus again was referring to Himself here as the fulfillment of the Scriptures.) But the time is coming, in fact, it is already here, (again Jesus was referring to Himself) when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship Him in that manner. For God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
We always have to remember that when we are reading about Jesus’ life, we are still in the Old Covenant. The New Covenant doesn’t begin until His resurrection. Therefore, what Jesus is doing is giving the woman a glimpse into what the New Covenant will look like. For instance, the woman’s concern is, “where is the proper place to worship?” Since Jesus fulfilled all the Scriptures and the Law, and since we are in Christ, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit in us – the essence of Jesus Christ. We can’t get any more intimate with Christ than having Him inside of us. We can worship, pray, have a conversation with Him any time and any place.
And to worship Him “in spirit and in truth” means that we are not under the Law; we don’t worship to earn God’s favor. We are in Christ, so we already have His favor! Therefore, we worship as our way of saying, “Thank you, Jesus, for what you did for me.”. In other words, we no longer count on our own effort to make us right with God; we get out of the way and let the Holy Spirit work through us to accomplish God’s purpose.
This is a story of hope. The woman in the story was a fallen woman, a shunned woman, an adulteress. But Jesus went out of His way to offer her the gift of salvation. As Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:22: “We can all be saved in the same way (through Jesus Christ), no matter who we are or what we have done.” And the last part of this section is a reminder of the difference between the Old Covenant (the Law) and the New Covenant (Grace.) Under the Law, we had to live up to God’s standard through our own effort. From the Garden of Eden (the Fall) until 2020 years ago (the coming of Christ), God allowed Man to wrestle with the dilemma of sin through his own effort. And how did he do? Romans 5:6 is our report card. “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came, at just the right time, and died for us SINNERS! And what was “just the right time”? When we proved ourselves to be utterly helpless to overcome sin through our best effort.
Now, for the rest of the story. “The woman said to Jesus, “I know the Messiah will come – the one who is called Christ. When He comes, He will explain everything to us”. Jesus replied, “I AM the Messiah!” The woman left her water jar beside the well, and went back to the village to tell everyone about what had just happened. “He told me everything I ever did.” The villagers came out to see Jesus, and they begged Him and His disciples to stay in their village. They stayed for two days, long enough for most of the people to hear the message and believe. They said to the woman, “Now we believe because of what we have seen and heard ourselves. He is indeed the Savior of the world!”
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May God Bless You All abundantly,
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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