The woman left Jesus at the well in order to go into the city to tell others about Jesus, who knew everything about her (4:28-29), so the people of the city came to see if what she said was true (4:30). During this time, the disciples returned from the city where they were buying bread (4:8, 27a) but when they found Jesus speaking to the despised Samaritan woman, they wondered why He was talking with her (4:27b). The disciples encouraged Jesus to eat because He was hungry from a long journey (4:32), but Jesus responded saying, “I have food to eat of which you do not know” (4:32). The disciples became confused at Jesus’ statement and said to each other, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?” (4:33); however, Jesus was not referring to literal food and answered His disciples saying, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work” (4:34a). That which sustained Jesus was not necessarily eating bread, but in doing the will of God.
To help His disciples better understand the work He (and they) had been called to do, Jesus points to the fields around them saying, “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!” (4:35) The fields which surrounded them were used to illustrate the many lost souls in Sychar who were waiting to be harvested; in other words, the people were ready to receive the message of repentance and faith through the preaching of the gospel. In John 4:36-38, Jesus points out that it is the disciples’ responsibility to faithfully preach the message of hope through Jesus Christ to the Samaritans so that the lost could receive eternal life. If the disciples were faithful to preach this message, they would receive reward, even though they had not necessarily done all the work (4:36-38). Jesus’ teaching here is comparable to the responsibility all Christians have in sharing the good news (gospel) that Jesus Christ came to earth to pay the penalty of sin on behalf of the sinner and He resurrected to guarantee the believer’s eternal life. Returning to the witness of the Samaritan woman in the city, John writes that “many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all that I ever did’” (4:39). An awakening breaks out in this city and many believed in Jesus as the Messiah (4:40-42). This is the first mention in Scripture of the gospel being taken to another culture, and a glimpse of what would take place following Jesus resurrection (Acts 1:8).
After two days, Jesus departs Sychar and goes to Galilee where He is received by the people; however, John writes “that a prophet has no honor in his own country” (4:44). This implies that although Jesus’ own people in Galilee received Him as a miracle-worker, they did not receive Him as the Savior of the world, as had the Samaritans (4:42, 45). Jesus continues His journey in Galilee and returns to Cana, where he had performed His first miracle of turning water into wine (4:46a; see also John 2:1-12). In Cana, a nobleman (royal official) with a sick child comes to Jesus asking Him to bring healing to his son (4:46b-47). In a sense, Jesus rebukes the nobleman as well as the people of Galilee for only seeking after miracles instead of seeking after Jesus as the Savior from sin (4:48). The nobleman then pleads all the more with Jesus to heal his son before he dies (4:49). John then unfolds what happens next, “Jesus said to him, ‘Go your way; your son lives.’ So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way” (4:50). The key is that this man believed in the power of Jesus to heal. In faith, the nobleman began his journey back to Capernaum, where his son lay dying, but “his servants met him and told him, saying, ‘Your son lives!’ Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.’ So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives.’ And he himself believed, and his whole household” (4:51-53). The healing of the nobleman’s son was the second miracle Jesus performed proving that He was the Son of God (4:54).
I believe that the words we have read today should motivate us to do two things: preach hope through Jesus Christ to all people (4:31-42) and have faith in Jesus not only because of what He can do, but also because of who He is (4:43-54).
Dear God, I believe that repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ is the hope for all the world – help me to speak often of that hope. Help me to also seek Jesus because of who He is, not just for what He can do for me.
