The First Evangelist: A Christmas Story
Blog Series #6: How Jesus Treats Women, Part 4a He Commissions Her - John 4:1-42
As we approach a holiday season of celebration, I begin to think on this magnificent encounter Jesus has with yet another non-Jewish woman. I’ve blogged about one of these encounters in ‘Heard’ and ‘Healed’ where Jesus learns something new from an indigenous woman. I encourage you to read the entire story of The Samaritan Woman at the Well. I’ve re-printed it below. It is found in John 4:1-42 (I use the New International Version of the Bible, 2011). It is so important for us to read the Bible for ourselves and not trust solely in what someone else tells us the Bible says. Every white male evangelical I’ve ever heard preach on this passage has focused on the Samaritan woman’s ‘obvious’ sinfulness. However, a simple reading of the text in a modern translation reveals there is a LOT more to unpack in this story, more than I can cover here — which I look forward to doing in my next blog or two.
For today, as I do every Advent season, I am meditating on Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). This year, however, I am speechless with wonder at this story of a second unmarried woman partnered with a man she is not married to. The woman at the well is kinda like Mary was in this respect. I’m noticing a trend in Jesus’ life and the women He is drawn toward … hmmmm .... This Samaritan is a woman that Jesus is supposed to despise as filthy and untouchable. Instead we watch Him elevate and commission her as the first Christian Evangelist in recorded history.
I look around me this time of year and I am sickened by all the commercialization of the holiday season. Many of us enjoy the good gift of family that God has given. However, most people turn this gift into an idol that becomes far more important to them than our Creator. We do this fanatically at a time of year when … ironically … we are supposed to be focused on the One who created family, not the family itself.
We focus on the wrong Gift. We’ve built an entire industry around
1. that special meal with our family and
2. the gift-giving between family members
— two things that MISS the original intent of the Christ-mas Season altogether. This ‘fake’ Christmas all around me feels like cheap plastic toys when compared to the earthy smells, wooden and stone textures, rough fabrics, kind brown faces, animals braying/bleating/snorting in the background of Jesus’ actual birthplace. The white-washed ‘ho ho ho’ of artificial christmas leaves me thirsting for something far different
deep within my spirit.
Contemplating Mary’s Song and holding her story side-by-side with that of this Samaritan woman in John 4 satisfies that spiritual thirst for me. I breathe deeply as I find Peace in this season of loud advertisements. A modern comparison between cheap plastic toys, an earthy stable, and Living Water leads me away from families gathered around a dead tree. I veer off in a wildly different direction toward two unmarried women each partnered with men they are not married to when they encounter God incarnate. That encounter transforms each of their lives. It satisfies their souls like Living Water that will never run dry:
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.”’
— the Gospel of John, chapter 4 verses 10 and 13-14 (NIV)
For me, the authentic reason for, and meaning of this current holiday season is expressed beautifully in verse 23:
‘Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.’
May you find ways to worship our Creator in Spirit and in Truth this week, as is our immense privilege during this era in which we find ourselves. Please enjoy reading the following story of Jesus’ encounter with yet another filthy foreigner. Marvel at the similarities between her and Jesus’ own mother, and … may your soul be ever satisfied with the GIFT of Living Water:
Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
Many Samaritans Believe
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, “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.”
— John 4:1-42 NIV
And THAT my Dear Ones is the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If you’ve made it this far in my rather long Christmas blog, I hope you are able to seek after what is REAL this season, then celebrate that with everything in you. You will know in your spirit when you find it - and I promise it won’t be plastic, dead, or say ‘ho ho ho!’
Have a merry Living Water,
