CHAPTER 17
Steven C. Hawthorne
Steven C. Hawthorne leads a mission and prayer mobilization ministry called WayMakers. After co-editing the Perspectives course and book in 1981, he launched a series of research expeditions among unreached peoples in Asia and the Middle East.
Early on in Jesus’s work, He took part in John the Baptist’s revival gatherings at the River Jordan in the south. Some of His first followers had served in leadership roles in that movement, some of them actually doing the baptizing (John 4:1–2 NASB). To return to their hometowns in Galilee they decided to take the shortest route, which meant passing through Samaria on their way north. Going through Samaria was a bit tricky because Jews had “no dealings with Samaritans” (4:9 NASB). They must have started late because by the time they came to a certain Samaritan city, it was late in the day and they needed to eat.
Jesus sat by a well, which was a kilometer or so from the Samaritan city. For some reason, all of the disciples went together into the town to buy some food, leaving Jesus alone. When they returned to the well, they were surprised to find Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman. John does not tell us what they said but what they thought of saying: to the woman, “What do You want?” and to Jesus, “Why are You speaking with her?” (4:27 NASB). It was an awkward moment, but the woman made a move. She quickly placed her large water pot on the edge of the well (4:28 NASB) and then scurried off toward the city.
Feeding on Finishing
Then came another surprise for the disciples. As they were hurriedly eating, they noticed that Jesus wasn’t eating a single bite of the food they’d brought to Him. When they urged Him to eat, He said, “I have food to eat that you do not know about” (4:32 NASB). That comment set off a discussion among the disciples: Did He have a secret supply? Had the Samaritan woman given Him something to eat? Had Jesus been miraculously breaking bread again?
None of the above: “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (4:34 NASB). What did Jesus mean by that? How is doing some kind of labor something to eat? What is it that they did not know? They had been busy doing God’s work. They were doing evangelism. They were making disciples. They were even starting to out-baptize John the Baptist (4:1–2 NASB). What more did they need to know about doing God’s work? What they did not know was that God wanted them to serve Him in order to finish His work of the gospel in all the world. It probably had not occurred to them that following Jesus would eventually involve them in completing some greater purpose beyond their country or villages. They were simply helping Jesus to do good things for their own people and among their own people. At that moment, they were in a hurry to get back to their hometowns. Just what did Jesus mean by finishing the work of someone sending Him?
Seeing What God Is Doing
Before they could discuss what Jesus meant by doing the will of a sending God, Jesus pointed toward the Samaritan city and told them, “Lift up your eyes and look” (4:35 NASB). What did they see when they looked? They saw the same Samaritan lady coming toward them, this time with several of the leading men from the town (4:30 NASB). Who were these men? And why was this woman coming back?
Calling Leading Samaritans to Investigate
Remember that Jesus’s followers had not heard Him tell the woman, “Go, call your husband and come here” (4:16 NASB). At that moment, they had no idea of the woman’s family history. There is nothing in the text which suggests that the woman was sinful or promiscuous. Jesus said nothing about her acting in an immoral way. This may be a sermon that some may enjoy preaching, but I have checked: women in Samaria at that time could not (and still today cannot) initiate a divorce. It is more likely that she was barren rather than immoral. She had been divorced by men multiple times, or perhaps widowed more than once. In many cultures in that part of the world, older, single women could attach themselves to a household in a role that is something like a servant, often doing scullery work. And this is exactly what we see her doing.
At that moment, I think that she was simply doing what Jesus had told her to do: “Call your husband and come here” (4:16 NASB). The record says that “the woman . . . went into the city and said to the men . . .” (4:28 NASB). Note that it says specifically that she said something to “the men.” These were probably the men that she knew best: her former husbands. She got them curious by telling them that this Jewish man knew “all the things I have done” (4:29 NASB), which strongly implied that He also knew what her former Samaritan husbands had done. Then she got them curious by asking them to investigate: “Could this be the long-awaited Messiah?” (cf. 4:29). These were men of sufficient influence in Samaritan society that they could invite a group of Jewish men to stay in their homes, which eventually they did.
The Fulfillment of the Great Story
Jesus’s followers learned later what Jesus had said to the woman while they were in the town:
Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. (4:21–22 NASB)
When Jesus declared that God had brought forth salvation “from the Jews,” He was trying to make it clear that God’s salvation was not just for Jews but for all peoples. God’s salvation had been prefigured in the deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. And for centuries since then, God has been unfolding His plan to bring salvation to every people. The scope of salvation is global. It is the Samaritan people who are the first to declare: “We have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world” (4:42 NASB).
When Jesus told the woman that “an hour is coming, and now is,” He was locating her (and His followers) in a long, unfolding story that would soon come to its culmination. For many generations God has been pursuing His purpose to rescue hell-bound rebels and transform them to become faithful, joy-filled worshipers who serve Him in love.
Driving the Entire Mission: God-Seeking Worshipers
The worship that God desires is a relational reality instead of any particular religious or cultural practice: “An hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (4:21 NASB). The God who “seeks” people to become His worshipers is the God who sends His people to “accomplish His work” (4:34 NASB). The finishing of “His work” is something much more than merely doing good deeds for others around us. Instead, the sending God reveals His will and purpose, giving each one of us a part in His global mission that can and must be fulfilled.
The Joy of Co-laboring
Jesus used two proverbial sayings of the day related to farming. One was, “Yet four months and then comes the harvest” (4:35 NASB). In that land, no common grain crop took longer than three months to grow. So this saying was something people would use if they wanted to insist that the present moment was not the right time to act. Instead, Jesus announced that the present moment was harvest time.
The second common saying that Jesus mentioned was this: “One sows, and another reaps” (4:37 NASB). Jesus explained that they were about to harvest a crop that they had not planted: “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor” (4:38 NASB). Centuries before, there had been prophets who had sown seeds of hope that a great king and leader, a Messiah, would come to the Samaritan people. This is why the woman had said to Jesus, “I know that Messiah is coming He will declare all things to us” (4:25 NASB). The disciples were stepping into a work that had been unfolding for many generations. This was the first time that Jesus brought His followers to work among people of a different culture. Up until that time, they had only worked with their own people.
Jesus told the woman that she didn’t know about the living water of salvation. The disciples already knew about this salvation. They were not thirsty for the living water of life from Jesus. But Jesus knew that His followers were still hungry for lives of purpose, serving the sending God in His global mission. Jesus wanted them to know the satisfying joy of working with God to contribute to the fulfillment of His vast purpose to seek and find worshipers from every people on earth.
God has been unfolding His plan to bring salvation to every people. The scope of salvation is global.
In our day, most Christians have tasted the living water that Jesus offered to the woman. They are no longer thirsty for eternal life. But many Christians are like the disciples. They are still hungry but for what they do not know. There has to be something more than participating in church programs and being a nice person. Perhaps discipleship only makes sense if we are living for the same purpose as Jesus: serving the sending God to complete His purpose in all the world. 