Jesus Son of God: Savior

Theme for this month: Jesus in the Four Gospels

December 17, 2021 (Friday)

Yesterday we looked at Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus and mentioned that several of the conversations of Jesus have been included in the Gospel of John, as well as the other gospels. One significant conversation that has become a text for many, many sermons is that of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well.

Jesus arranged his agenda to include a visit to Samaria, a place not frequented by Jews, because Samaritans were disliked by Jews. It probably seemed strange to his disciples that he would do this. He did it because He had an appointment with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. She was unaware of such an appointment, but it was part of Jesus’ agenda as He traveled.

About noon he stopped near Sychar at Jacob’s well to rest. While there, a woman from the town came to the well to draw water. Jesus, alone because his disciples had gone to buy food, asked her for a drink of water. It was about noon. 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.)

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.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 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?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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 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.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 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.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The woman had come there for water to drink, but Jesus had offered her much more. She went into Sychar and brought everyone back to the well to meet this man who had told her everything she needed to know about what really mattered in her life.

Millions of people these days are going about their lives unaware that there is One who loves them and offers them real life. That life can be found by you today. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.