John 4:9-15
"Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, ‘How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?’ For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the fgift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?’ Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.’" (NKJV)
For those of us who are believers, this passage is quite familiar. The Lord Jesus and His disciples were traveling from Judea to Galilee. The trip would take them through the area of Samaria. Samaria was legally considered to still be Jewish, but the Samaritans were considered heretics by Jewish society. The Samaritans were, during the long captivity into Assyria, the poor that had been left behind by the invaders. They had intermarried with non-Jews during that time, but had also continued to consider themselves worshipers of Yahweh. Because the Temple in Jerusalem had been desecrated, they had built their own "temple" on mount Gerizim. Once the land was restored, the Jews in captivity had returned home, and the Temple had been rebuilt, the Jews living in Judea and Galilee had scorned the Samaritans to the point of refusing to touch them or talk to them.
Now comes the day when the Lord Jesus walks through Samaria. This is one of several encounters that He has in the gospel with "non" Jews. And yet, in all those cases, the Lord’s purpose was to reach out to all people, to model to His disciples that His ultimate purpose was to provide salvation to everyone, not to just God’s chosen people. But more than that, it is the manner in which the Lord Jesus often took to reach people . . . individually. While there were times that the Lord preached sermons to large groups of people, it is in His individual encounters where we see the greatest influence and power to change lives.
After His conversation with this one woman, she returned to her village and spoke to many there. The Lord waited for the result of her sharing her experience with Him. He knew her one-on-one encounter with Him would produce fruit.
"And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all that I ever did." So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His own word. Then they said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world." (v. 39-42).
As Americans, we are used to mass marketing, mass communication, mass schooling, mass entertainment, mass . . . well, everything! We are so used to being dealt with in a group that we often reduce our evangelism and discipleship to mass methods. But the Lord Jesus knew that the most effective way to reach a soul, to change a heart was in caring for the individual! Dealing with people one-on-one. The problem with that method is that it exposes us and requires us to be vulnerable. We have to risk rejection. It’s much easier to ask someone to church or to a stadium revival (mass preaching). It’s much easier to give someone a DVD to watch or a book to read (mass communication). It’s much easier to post to social networking or webpages (mass networking). It’s much harder to reach out, one at a time, to those around us, to actually see the faces and the hearts of those we encounter. And yet, that is exactly what the world is longing for. What made the woman respond to the Lord was that He was willing to go against all social and religious customs of the time and acknowledge her. He was willing to care enough to actually engage her in conversation. And the first thing He said to her was to ask her to help Him. He put Himself in a position of humility and risk in order to show that He cared about her as a person! He met her, not even as an equal, but as someone who needed her! He showed her that she had value to Him and then He began to meet the deep needs of her heart and soul.
There are so many people around us who are hurting and who just need to be seen by us. People who we may even be around regularly but who for us have become invisible . . . the waiters, the receptionists, other employees, children in the neighborhood. Jesus didn’t plan mass meetings, send out flyers, or announce His arrival. He humbly met this woman at the village well, opened Himself up as needing something that she could give, and then began to love on her. That is something that each of us can do. It’s something that we need to do if we want to truly obey our Lord’s command to "go into all the world and make disciples."
© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
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