We find Him weary, hungry, thirsty, sometimes slumbering. So, then, here stands, pathetically set forth before us, our Lord's true participation in two of the distinguishing characteristics of our weak humanity-subjection to physical necessities and dependence on kindly help. And the words which the Master spoke to her are no mere way of introducing a conversation on religious themes but He asked for a draught which He needed, and which He had no other way of getting. We lose much if we do not see in this incident far more than the woman saw, but we lose still more if we do not see what she did see.
He did not need to ask the woman to give, but He chose to do so. He did not need to depend upon the pitcher that the disciples had perhaps unthinkingly carried away with them when they went to buy bread. He could have brought water out of the well. It was the utterance of a felt and painful necessity, which He Himself could not supply without a breach of what He conceived to be His filial dependence. We lose a great deal of the meaning of Christ's request if we suppose that it was merely a way of getting into conversation with the woman, a breaking of the ice.' It was a great deal more than that. She comes down from her little village, up amongst the cliffs on the hillside, across the narrow, hot valley, beneath the sweltering sunshine reflected from the bounding mountains, and she finds, in the midst of the lush vegetation round the ancient well, a solitary, weary Jew, travel-worn, evidently exhausted-for His disciples had gone away to buy food, and He was too wearied to go with them-looking into the well, but having no dipper or vessel by which to get any of its cool treasure. Give Me to drink': I am He.' Try to see the thing for a moment with the woman's eyes.
First, then, I think we see here the mystery of the dependent Christ. Let us ponder on this remarkable juxtaposition, and try to gather the lessons that are plain in it. On the one hand, He owns the lowest necessities on the other, He makes the highest claims.
What a gulf lies between! They are linked together by the intervening sayings, and constitute with these a great ladder, of which the foot is fast on earth, and the top fixed in heaven. The words of our Lord which I have taken for our text now are His first and last utterance in this conversation. However that may be, the process of teaching is all but identical in substance in both cases, though in form so various. For we read in one of water and the Spirit' and in the other of the fountain within, springing into everlasting life. There is another resemblance in both the characteristic gift is that of the Spirit of Life, and, perhaps, in both the symbol is the same. In both we have His method of gradually unveiling the truth to a susceptible soul, beginning with symbol and a hint, gradually enlarging the hint and translating the symbol and finally unveiling Himself as the Giver and the Gift. The diversity of persons necessitates great differences in the form of our Lord's address to each but the resemblances are as striking as the divergencies. The persons are very different: the one a learned Rabbi of reputation, influence, and large theological knowledge of the then fashionable kind the other an alien woman, poor-for she had to do this menial task of water-drawing in the heat of the day-and of questionable character. This Evangelist very significantly sets side by side our Lord's conversations with Nicodemus and with the woman of Samaria. Jesus saith unto her, Give Me to drink Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am He.'-JOHN iv. RPM, Volume 18, Number 10, February 28 to March 5, 2016
Your Kingdom Come: The Doctrine of Eschatology.Kingdom, Covenants & Canon of the Old Testament.Kingdom & Covenant in the New Testament.
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