Jesus made it very clear, if you do not have life in Jesus, you don’t have life. So the knowledge of God is made available to those who have put their trust in Jesus. So we are going to lay the groundwork from the perspective of Jesus on a relationship with the Father. Many times the religious people of the day were angry with Jesus because of his claims of being close to the Father. But Jesus doesn’t ask for us to understand all of what God has for us, but only to accept and walk through the door provided.
John seems to understand the various discussions that Jesus is having with people. In this passage, we see Jesus sitting at a well with a Samaritan woman. At the time, this would be culturally awkward. She being both Samaritan and a woman would mean that from a cultural perspective, Jesus should not have talked to her. When Jesus asks her for a drink, she responds that she can but that he shouldn’t even be asking her. There are parallels to the story of the good Samaritan, where cultural divisions were being broken. But his response was that if she knew who he was, she would be allowed to ask him for the living water. This would have blown her mind. That a Samaritan woman would have been given worth and value and had access to God.
Jesus doesn’t even ask her to understand, only to ask for living water. Jesus then goes into full detail of her life. This would have blown her mind again. But what Jesus is saying is that her past, and her present, situations have no bearing on the offering of God. Salvation is provided through the promise of Jesus, period. Jesus says that the food, the sustaining power, is to do the will of the Father.
We move on what Jesus proclaimed of the day of the Sabbath. It was not to be a day that we become disconnected from the work of God in the world. In a dramatic display, Jesus brought a man with a crippled hand into the temple on the Sabbath. When the religious leaders refused to do anything, Jesus healed that man in front of their eyes. But instead of being in wonder of what they just saw, they instead came against Jesus for working on the Sabbath. It says that Jesus was angry because they twisted the Sabbath into something that was not at the expense of others.
But God is working each and every day. He is not taking a day off. But the religious leaders projected what they thought was Sabbath instead of fulfilling what God’s will declares.
This passage is one of the longest narratives that Jesus gives on who he is. During this passage, Jesus is asked what is the way to God. And Jesus answers simply, “To believe in him who he has sent.” In another passage, Jesus declares that he is only doing that which his Father is doing. ()
This is what we are challenged to do. To stay in step with the Lord and keep things straightforward. Jesus demonstrates that for us, and we will explore this more in the coming weeks.
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (ESV)
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. (ESV)
17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (ESV)
38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. (ESV)
19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. (ESV)