From Hopelessness to Hope
(Part Four)

Text John 4:4-42

The woman that Jesus met at the well outside of Sychar in Samaria has come to the realization that she is speaking to a very special person, one who has not only offered her living water but one who has revealed to her the person she truly is (see Archives for previous Studies). He not only exposes her sinful life choices, He gives her hope that her journey in life will improve through her knowledge of Him.

After informing her that the current God-designated place for worship is in Jerusalem, He tells her that a change is coming; not a promised political change offered to gain political support nor an economic change shared to improve her financial circumstances in life. He is informing her of real change; a change in the hearts of people and their relationship to God the Creator.

Jesus reveals to her that, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is a spirit, and His worshippers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” The walls are coming down. Salvation is from the Jews but salvation is for all who accept His Son. (See Galatians 3:26-29) Jerusalem nor Gerizim will be the seat of worship but rather the heart of the believer.

Worship should not be a ritualistic journey to a geographical designation but worship is to be a sincere expression of our worship of our God through His Son and founded upon the truth of His word.

For the woman, the light at the end of the forest path is beginning to shine brightly. Hope is just ahead. “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am He.” He declares to her that He is the promised Messiah, the hope of the world. As in other places He declares and it is said of Him that He is the light of the world, that He is the way, the truth, and the life, that He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. (See John 1:29, John 8:12, John 14:6)

As the disciples approached the well with the food they had recently purchased, the woman left her water jar and rushed to the village to share the great news. Leaving the jar, probably one of her most valuable possessions, behind was perhaps a pledge that she would return, perhaps it was left so He could draw water from the well, or simply because she was so excited about hearing this great news it had become inconsequential to her.

How could she not rush to share the greatest message the world has ever heard?

What if you knew a cure for cancer? Would you take that great news to every cancer victim and potential victim you possibly could? The news that you have cancer is obviously not good news but the news that, even though you have it, there is a cure is wonderful news. It is not good news that outside of Christ you are without hope, aliens from God. (See Ephesians 2:11-22) It is the greatest news that in Him we become members of God’s household, we become reconciled to the Creator.

The woman at the well had great news. She was anxious to share that news. It was the news that the Messiah had come. She was not a theological expert. She had not spent years at the seminary studying all the details of each Scriptural text. She knew that Jesus was hope for her, hope for her friends, and hope for the world. He had come to bring living water that quenches the thirst born of despair.

While this woman is sharing her good news with her neighbors in Sychar, Jesus is giving an object lesson to His disciples. When they urged Him to eat something, He told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” As the woman was ignorant of the living water at the beginning of her conversation with Jesus, these disciples assumed a physical meaning to His comment. They asked each other, “Could someone else have brought Him food?” Jesus gave them the spiritual application to His comment, noting that “[His] food was to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.” He then extended the lesson.

As Jesus looked at the crowds heading in His direction from Sychar, He said to His disciples, “”Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest.’ I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.” It is not the physical harvest of grain that concerns our Lord. His concern is for the harvest of souls into His kingdom and unto eternal life. We read in Matthew 9:37-38, “Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.’”

For we who are Christians, is this our concern? Are we willing like Isaiah to say, “Here am I Lord, send me.” Or are our lives so caught up in the things of this world that we fail to find the joy of sharing His message with others?

The Samaritans that came out to see Jesus that day said that they believed in Him because of the testimony of the woman but after meeting the Master, they said, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Should we not share this hope with others that they too might know that this man, Jesus, is the Savior of the world?