Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
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?”
The disciples knew that Jewish tradition would not permit what Jesus was doing, talking with a strange woman in the street. But traditions are human inventions, not God’s laws. To their credit, the disciples said nothing.
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 Christ?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
There have been some different ideas about why the woman left her water jar. One is that she simply forgot it, another is that she wanted to leave it for Jesus to drink from; another is that it was too heavy for a quick trip. I’m inclined to agree that the last one is most likely; the water jar would have required a careful trip and she was in a hurry. But whatever the reason for the forgotten jar, she went to proclaim the news.
Her witness was enough for the people of the town. The NIV Study Bible has a very good comment here about the woman’s question, “Could this be the Christ?”: “Her question seems full of longing, as though she did not expect them to say ‘Yes,’ but she could not say ‘No.’”
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?” (NIV)
Jesus’ metaphor is about his work as the Messiah. His work is as vital and necessary to him as food is to us. The disciples don’t understand what he means, and as readers, we wouldn’t quite understand it, either, unless we might already have read the rest of the book. His discourse in chapter 6 about the “bread of life” will begin to help us understand.
The message of the gospel is the most important thing we have; the most important gift we can offer. We don’t neglect other things we can share, but we mustn’t let the gospel take second place.
Something extra:
Psalm 20:6
6 Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
he answers him from his holy heaven with the saving power of his right hand. (NIV)
The Hebrew word translated “anointed” here is Messiah. In the Psalm, David is talking about himself in the third person; as king of Israel, he certainly had been anointed. In David’s case, this had been done by Samuel the prophet at the Lord’s own command (1 Samuel 16:12-13). But David’s soldiers, singing along or listening to this prayer before battle, would also have known about the promise of the Savior, the Messiah promised by God to defeat the work of the devil (Genesis 3:15), that he would be the Son of God (Psalm 2:7), that he would come physically to Mount Zion during his ministry and be called “Christ” (Messiah) there (Psalm 2:6), and that mankind is saved because of God’s righteousness (Psalm 18:30-32).
Here, David also reminds us of what we should already have known: The Lord has the power and the strength to save us; to save all mankind. And the Christ of God, the Messiah, came to earth and fulfilled every part of his task. We have nothing to accomplish toward our salvation; we are like townspeople who emerge from hiding after a great warrior has defeated a monster. For that matter, being a Christian living in this time of the New Testament is like living in the closing moments of a movie with a happy ending; as if our whole lives are spent in the applause during the last five seconds of Star Wars.
The victory is won, and we live in the joy of knowing that we have a place forever with our Savior God, Jesus himself, in heaven.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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