Meditation

Hi there,

This week, we begin our season of "Encounters with Jesus" with this famous (and shocking) encounter with the Samaritan woman.

As different as these encounters will be, the conclusion is always the same. No one meets Jesus and remains unchallenged or unchanged.

We all, ultimately, have to answer Jesus' most direct question;

“But what about you?”... “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15)

This passage from John 4 is extraordinary for so many reasons, but what stood out to me this morning, during the 6 minutes and 47 seconds it took to copy out these verses, was how personal John's tone is.

The repetition of "Now..." and "So he..." The phrase "tired as he was..." followed by the qualifier, "It was about noon," calls our attention to the truth that this is a first-person eyewitness account of an encounter that really happened.

Today's text is John 4:1-9

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— ² although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³ So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹ 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.)

Encouragement

Just as this Samaritan woman can't duck Jesus' question or his gaze, neither can we.

And that is always our good.

Andy

I ​published an overview​ of Jesus' words on my substack. If you'd like to learn a little bit more about the origin of the red letter Bible and how many of Jesus' words are captured in each Gospel, then you can read about it ​here​.