Week 40 John
The Lord took the road north out of Jerusalem and headed for home.
I check the map in the back of my bible. First-century Palestine is a kind of Samaritan Sandwich. Jerusalem is at the bottom near the Dead Sea, and then about eighty kilometres north is Galilee – two slices of rye. In-between is the ham-and-cheese of Samaria. As far as Jewish people were concerned Samaritans were derelicts, duds, third-raters.
But halfway home the Lord stopped and had a conversation with a Samaritan woman.
While I was reading I was thinking about what the Lord said to Nicodemus yesterday. Whoever believes in the Son-of-Man will get eternal life. I had the sense in chapter three that the mysterious Son-of-Man in verses thirteen-fourteen was actually the Lord himself, and that the mysterious Son-of-Man was the same person as the Son-of-God in verses sixteen-seventeen-eighteen. Does the Lord equal the Son-of-Man equal the Son-of-God? If yes then that’s pretty important.
Still, the Lord was kind of cagey with Nicodemus.
He wasn’t half as cautious with the Samaritan woman. She had said: I know the Messiah will come – the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. And the Lord replied: I am the Messiah!
In Matthew-Mark-Luke the Lord was usually reluctant to say who he was. He was pretty guarded.
But not here. I am the Messiah isn’t exactly low-profile.
And the Samaritan woman believed him.
Note: quotes from John 4:25-6 (NLT)