Scripture: John 4:27-42
Date: December 11, 2011
Speaker: Sean Higgins
In John 4:27-42 John provides the follow-up to Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman from 4:1-26.
Jesus offered this woman “living water.” He’s offered her true worship of the Father. He’s offered her eternal life. It doesn’t seem as if she gets what He’s talking about but she keeps talking with Him anyway.
The disciples whom Jesus had sent into Sychar to buy food (verse 8 ) were returning and that’s where we pick up the story. This reason John gives us these paragraphs is to expose us to and excite us about God’s global mission of salvation (see verse 42).
There are two reactions and two sorts of questions in this paragraph. Jesus’ disciples silently question His conduct and the Samaritan woman openly questions if He might be the Christ.
The disciples had questions they were too afraid to ask.
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?” (verse 27)
They returned from their errand into town and saw Jesus talking with this woman. They didn’t know about her immoralities but they were bothered enough that she was a woman. They marveled, they were “surprised” (NIV), “astonished” (NRSV), they were disturbed that he was talking with a woman. Rabbis didn’t speak with women in public. They called Jesus, “Rabbi,” in verse 31, and this was questionable behavior for someone like Him.
They wondered What do you seek?, in other words, “What could you want from her?” If they’d been there all along, they would have known that it started with a request for a drink of water. That also answered, at least initially, Why are you talking with her?
Even though they all his disciples wondered, no one said anything out loud. Perhaps they feared rebuke, though, He certainly knew what they were thinking anyway. The point is, they didn’t know what was going on and it’s not surprising they don’t.
The lady, on the other hand, couldn’t keep it to herself.
So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, (verse 28)
Presumably because she saw the disciples coming, she left…and went away into the town. She was in such a hurry that she forgot her water jar, the whole reason she had come to the well in the first place.
But the reason she came to the well at noon was so that she could avoid people. Now she goes to find them.
”Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” (verse 29)
Perhaps she exaggerates by saying that Jesus told me all that I ever did. But she’s not trying to hide anything. Jesus uncovered the ugliest part of her life, the part that consumed and defined her life, so we could say that it was everything that anyone needed to know about her. She invites the men to Come and see Jesus, interestingly enough the same response Jesus gave to two of John the Baptist’s disciples in John 1:39.
While speaking with them she asks, Can this be the Christ? The way she asks it implies that she has not completely made up her mind about His identity (she begins with μήτι, a particle that suggests hesitation). And yet, she’s witnessing to her people about the Messiah. Her witness stood out to these men so much that they went to see for themselves.
They went out of the town and were coming to him. (John 4:30)
I can’t get over the reversal in this woman already. She came to the well as a broken, guarded woman who preferred to keep to herself. Now she’s unhindered, uninhibited, seeking out people. They probably asked her to repeat what Jesus had told her. Maybe most of them knew. Maybe some of them were her previous husbands. Maybe not all of them knew, but now they did. She exposes her broken life because she’d found someone worth worshipping.
Though she forgot her bucket at the well, she did carry water back into Sychar after all, didn’t she? The living water was springing up and overflowing in witness to others.
Between the woman’s invitation and the coming of the townspeople, John includes this section of teaching. Jesus explains to His disciples that His food was to finish His father’s will as He worked in the fields of souls to sow and harvest the fruit of eternal life.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” (verse 31)
The disciples get back and naturally offer food to Jesus; that’s what they’d been doing for the last however long. It may have taken extra effort, too, in order find food that was clean, since Jews were prohibited from consuming anything touched by Samaritans. Jesus kept turning down the food.
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” (verse 32)
As He’s already done a couple times in John’s gospel, Jesus speaks on a second level, not unconnected from the fleshy world, but also not obvious (for example, He speaks about His body as the temple, being born again, drinking living water). His disciples naturally don’t understand.
So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” (verse 33)
They had food on the brain, so of course Jesus must have been referring to food as they were thinking. They turn to each other and ask who else could have brought Him a sandwich. Jesus explodes their cake-mix minds.
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. (verse 34)
This is another teachable moment sponsored by misunderstanding. Food is nourishment, sustenance, what a man needs to live, to survive. Jesus says He is filled, He is satisfied when He is doing His Father’s work. He needed to fulfill His mission like a man needs food. It recalls Deuteronomy 8:3 when Moses told the Israelites that men don’t live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
He’s on mission. He refers to the Father as him who sent me. The Father sent Him to take on flesh on purpose, He had a will for His Son, and Jesus says that to accomplish his work is His food, His meat, His protein. He lives for and lives on the work.
What is His work? Jesus’ work is giving eternal life. That’s the point of verses 35-38. That’s the point of offering the woman living water. That’s the point of His being sent (John 3:15-16). That’s the point of this gospel (John 20:31). Not only was His mission to give life, but it was also His mission to send other sowers and reapers of life. He modifies a couple proverbial points about the harvest.
Modified Proverb #1. Things move quickly when the Son moves.
Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. (verse 35)
Jesus starts with a proverbial statement that the disciples were familiar with, Do you not say. It takes time between the sowing and reaping, four months before you can harvest. It was a well understood principle, the only appropriate gap theory.
Jesus says, not when He’s involved and when it comes to eternal life. He tells them to lift up your eyes. He wasn’t simply telling them to look at the ground, He was telling them to look at the Sycharians who “were coming to him” (verse 30). He had sown, now it was time to reap. It happened just that quickly.
What is being harvested? Eternal life.
Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. (verse 36)
The wages received are the fruit gathered and, based on what He just said, the whole thing is also food. When He worked to bring eternal life, when eternal life broke out, nothing was more satisfying. There is a food in fruitfulness.
Unlike what was often true, in this field, the sower and the reaper both rejoice together. He mentions another proverbial statement in verse 37. Modified Proverb #2.
For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ (verse 37)
This true statement is often a sign of vanity under the sun, or even judgment (see Leviticus 26:16; Deuteronomy 28:30; Amos 9:13). One works and another receives the benefit of the other’s work. Jesus says, not so here. The sower and the reaper may rejoice together. Both are satisfied in their work though they work on different ends.
But that’s not fair.
I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” (verse 38)
We all stand on someone else’s shoulders. The disciples did not labor for what they reaped. The disciples also entered into [the] labor of the prophets, including John the Baptist, and even Jesus Himself. They didn’t come up with it. They didn’t create anything from scratch. They get the joy of someone else’s work.
That’s supposed to increase our humility in at least two ways. First, as we look back, we are here and now enjoying what others have worked for and that’s okay. Second, as we look forward, others will reap what we’ve sown and that’s okay. We enter into their labor, just as we depend on the apostles.
There’s really too much good stuff here about working in the fields of souls for the sake of eternal life.
It’s labor. Sowing and reaping is work. It took Jesus an incarnation and a crucifixion, as well as tiredness and thirst and hunger and stupid questions in between.
Both sowing and reaping are essential. Do you sow? Rejoice! Do you reap? Rejoice!
We don’t deserve the fruit we get from the work. Of course we don’t. We can’t take credit, we depend on too many others in the providential timeline.
We’re still called to work and rejoice in the work. Jesus didn’t tell them, “I sent you to do it all, so that’s why you rejoice.” Or, “I sent you to reap but not to get excited about it because you didn’t do it all.” Work and rejoice.
Working and rejoicing are food. We might be tempted to say that the food part was for Jesus alone. However, just as He was sent, so He sends. As He was sent to sow and reap eternal life, so we sow and reap eternal life. He says that work for Him was food, He says that work is wages and fruit and rejoicing! Soul work doesn’t deplete us, it revives us. If that’s true for Jesus, how much more for us?
He’s not saying that there’s no longer a place for physical water, food, sleep, etc. I think He’s saying that life isn’t only physical food and drink and sleep. You can eat and drink and sleep and work with a dead spirit, with no life. We are satisfied when we’re working in the field of souls, when we worship, when we’re feeding others.
Dispensing living water is satisfying. God makes us conduits. We drink and overflow with living water. When is a conduit full? Only when the in and out is streaming. We’re trying to stop up one of the ends. But that’s disobedience. We’re trying to get the rejoicing without the laboring. We want others to drink the living water but we don’t want the hassle of them drinking from our spring. And we don’t harvest much. We don’t rejoice much, either. God calls us to a life of being spent for others. It’s a humbling life and a full one. That’s the soul food Jesus is talking about.
As a result of the woman’s witness and Jesus’ word, many Samaritans from Sychar believed in Him as the Savior of the world.
Her witness was powerful.
Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” (verse 39)
John returns to the woman’s testimony first mentioned in verse 29. John says that many Samaritans…believed…because of the woman’s testimony. Now, Jews believed in John 2:23-25 and it wasn’t saving faith. This belief, even if not saving yet, led them to Jesus. And unlike in Jerusalem when Jesus refused to commit Himself to the Jews, He stays with them.
So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” (verses 40-42)
What were the disciples thinking now? Wow, the fields are white and ripe for harvest. Eternal life was abounding as many more believed because of his word. Can you imagine what He told them? What personal instruction they received?
The town’s people told the woman that they had heard for themselves and know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. She had asked if He could be the Christ. Interesting that they go further in their confession of faith. They don’t refer to Him as the Taheb—teacher, or Messiah—revolutionary leader. Jesus undoubtedly told them that the Son of man had to be lifted up, that He would take away the sin of the world as the sacrificial lamb. He would take the judgment for sinners, like them, like the woman. The only other use of “Savior of the world” is by John in 1 John 4:14.
Salvation is from the Jews and for all people. Growth all over the place. Ministry and the harvest of eternal life among the Samaritans begins it. Isaiah 61:10-11
John gives us more follow up to Jesus’ encounter with this woman than he did with Nicodemus, though we still don’t know about her response explicitly. That may be because the emphasis is on Jesus’ salvation of the world.
The meat of these three paragraphs is the food of fruitfulness. John could have skipped from verse 30 to 39 and we’d be none the wiser. It was true of Jesus, of His disciples, of all true disciples. We will not be full unless we are eating the food of fruitfulness, unless the spring of living water wells up in us and out of us onto others. We will not rejoice if we aren’t entering the labor of sowing or reaping.
The woman sowed and reaped. Her life and world were different because of Jesus.