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I am going to stumble through this one a bit…
John 4: 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
We know the scene. Jesus came with His disciples, passing through Samaria. The disciples went away to buy food; Jesus asked this woman for a drink from the well. It was mid-day. How is it that a Jew is asking a drink from a Samaritan? Jews have nothing to do with them. Jesus replied with His living water.
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her to have her husband come. She said she had no husband.
17(b): Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.”
Now it is clear as to why the woman was at the well mid-day. Water is drawn in the morning and in the evening, and there would be several women at the well at these times. She was there mid-day, and alone. She was an outcast, having gone through many husbands – and now, with one not her husband.
The disciples, having returned, marveled that Jesus was talking to a woman, although no one asked Him why He was doing so.
28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
Then, something truly amazing:
39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”
Why would they believe anything this woman said? A woman with such poor standing that she would go to the well when no one else was there? She was an outcast, a woman of poor reputation. Especially, why would men believe her? Yet, they did.
40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 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.”
They did believe because of her, but now they believe because of Him.
What do I take from this episode? A demonstration of God’s power and authority to work even through corruption. I will try to explain. In this town, this woman presented as the lowest of the low, the most corrupt, the outcast. Violating every norm and custom, breaking tradition and law. We wouldn’t think twice about these men in the town believing if Jesus just walked into the town council and spoke.
But He didn’t do this; He spoke though this woman. He demonstrated that He had the power and authority to even overcome her reputation, that even one like her – who no one ever would have reason to believe – would be believed.
There are many such examples in the Old Testament of the Hebrews / Jews / Israelites acting in what looks to us in a corrupt manner. Passing off of a wife as a sister; at the point of starvation, Jacob would not feed Esau unless Esau gave up his birthright; Rebekah and Jacob trick Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing meant for Esau; the Hebrew slaves plundered the Egyptians before leaving Egypt.
When God brought them to the promised land, instead of war and even genocide, He could have merely declared, “I give a land without people for a people without land.” Wouldn’t that have been cleaner, nicer?
Even in the New Testament: Jesus is born from a woman not yet married. Scandalous. Why not have Him born nine months and a day after the wedding, to at least avoid this scandal? God, through the Holy Spirit, could have done just this.
I know there are many understandings of these types of episodes in the people out of whom Jesus would come – corruption, trickery, deceit. But this didn’t have to be their history; God could have preserved their story, preserved their integrity. Just in their dealings, honest in transactions. The Savior coming from people with integrity would have been a much cleaner story.
But this is not what He did. God didn’t even clean up the Scriptures to hide these injustices and transgressions. He could have done so, but He did not.
Perhaps one understanding of this is an offering of one more example of the glory, might, and authority of God. That even out of such a people, God can do His will through them for good.
If none of us is without sin, I suppose God has no choice but to work through sinful people. I believe that is the point of Christianity, to stop focusing on unavoidable sin and to focus on those things that really mater.
ReplyDeleteSin is not unavoidable - 1 Cor. 10:13; John 8:11
DeleteJohn 1:8, Romans 3-10... whether we can stand the temptations, we apparently don't.
DeleteI had never thought that these stories demonstrated Jesus' authority. But they do. People will believe in Him and His message regardless of the method He uses.
ReplyDeleteIt also presents as a challenge. Jesus dares us not to believe. He gives people every excuse not to believe. For anyone to believe the gospel, there must be a real good reason to do so.
Robert Alter ("The Art of Biblical Narrative") gives an interesting perspective on the story of the deceit Rebekah and Jacob employed with Isaac. His commentary on this episode has some connection, I believe, with the Natural Law: "What goes around, comes around." The deceit works substantially because Isaac is nearly blind, and Issac cannot see the difference between Esau and Jacob. The convention that Jacob and his mother break is that of the privilege of the first born regarding inheritance. Next step in the story, fleeing Esaus's murderous intent, Jacob arrives at the household of his uncle, Laban. Falling deeply in love with Laban's daughter Rachel, Jacob agrees with Laban to work for seven years to win her hand. On the night of the wedding, Laban gets Jacob so drunk that he is momentarily blind, and substitutes his less comely daughter Leah for the promised Rachel. Sobering up in the morning, Jacob bitterly complains about the deceit practiced by his uncle. Laban then reminds Jacob of an important convention: the privilege of the first born daughter (Leah) to be the first given in marriage. Jacob's deceit, that is, is shown by the Biblical story to have its own punishment. It is a tale with a moral message: don't do unto others what you would not want them to do unto you, no?
ReplyDeleteEvery time (many) I read this, I thought of King David and the way he treated Uriah the Hittite because of his comely wife, Bathsheba. Yet the Bible calls David a man after God's own heart. What are we to make of this?
ReplyDeleteI wonder, too. The Bible doesn't say so, but was Bathsheba complicit in this sordid affair? Did she take her bath on the roof knowing that David was watching her? Most people, especially women, deny this when the question is posed to them, but I don't discount the possibility. Human nature is what it is.