The Gospel of John, Chapter 4: Living Water

The Gospel of John, Chapter 4

Read Chapter 4 here.

It turns out it is not Jesus himself, but his disciples, who have been doing some baptizing.  It seems the Pharisees view this baptizing as a threat.  Jesus decides to leave Judea and travel to Galilee, via Samaria.  

It’s the middle of the day, so the disciples go into town to buy food, leaving Jesus at a place called Jacob’s well, somewhere in Samaria.  Jesus speaks to a Samaritan woman, even though Jews and Samaritans are not supposed to mix.  

Jesus is tired.  He asks for water from the well, but the woman says, hey, you’re a Jew, and Jews and Samaritans don’t talk to each other.  Jesus offers to the woman “living water”, i.e. eternal life.  Jesus is omniscient - he can tell the woman has had 5 men in her life.  His words sort of imply condemnation, but he clearly finds this woman worthy of further conversation. Jesus seems a little less snarky and a little more compassionate with the woman than he was with Nicodemus.  He then speaks in very high language about worshiping “in spirit and in truth,” (whatever that means)  and he reveals that he himself is the Messiah.

The disciples return with food.  First they have to get over the fact that Jesus is talking to a (gasp) woman.  But they don’t say anything to Jesus about it.  Instead, they urge Jesus to eat something.  Jesus uses food as a metaphor, which confuses the disciples.  Jesus says, “the fields are ripe for harvesting,”  using apocalyptic language about sowing and reaping to refer to eternal life.  The metaphors are flying about now.

Because of the woman’s testimony to her fellow Samaritans, many of them come to believe in Jesus, and he stays in Samaria for two days.  All in all, this is a beautiful story in which Jesus overcomes a major cultural divide. 

Then Jesus & Co. go to Galilee, to the town of Cana, where Jesus had turned the water into wine.  Jesus heals a little boy, the son of an official in Capernaum, without even going to Capernaum.  The gospel author tells us this healing is the second sign.  It is this gospel’s first story about a physical healing.

The theme continues: understanding and accepting testimony versus not getting it and unbelief.  Jesus continues to speak mainly in metaphors. The gospel author continues to portray him as omniscient, but Jesus’ humanity also shows, in his tiredness and thirst, in the story of the Woman at the Well.

Metaphors: living water, food, fields ripe for harvest.

Images and themes: eternal life, belief, healing.

People/Beings:   Jesus, his disciples, a Samaritan woman (The Woman at the Well), the people in the Samaritan city, Galileans, a royal official, a sick little boy, the official’s slaves. 

Places: Samaria - a city called Sychar, Galilee - back to the town of Cana.