On Line Bible Study - For the Week February 13-19, 2012

Lesson #523

John 4: ²⁷ Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

³¹ Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” ³³ Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

³⁴ “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

In Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan Woman he leads her through a process of inquiry to a profession of faith. "Water" is the image used here to engage us, beginning with our physical thirst and culminating with the good news that Christ has come to address our deeper need - our spiritual need for God. We long for something that can not be depleted - something to address the part of us that is more than physical. "Water" - coming from a well that never runs dry! The woman's thirst is the hook Jesus uses to lead her to a place of recognition.

With the disciples it's food. Once they get over the shock that he has been speaking with a woman, and a Samaritan at that, the guys home in on what guys usually home in on - their stomach. And now we have - in a much more condensed form - the same conversation repeated that Jesus had with the woman. This time the image is not "Water" but "Food".

"Eat something," the disciples say to Christ. What is the food that truly satisfies? "Fast food" is not a new phenomenon - at least, not in terms of our desire for it and our willingness to settle for it. It doesn't take long in life to realize that no amount of food can satiate our appetite so long as our appetite is for something that doesn't satisfy! This may sound like a meaningless riddle (or a 'tautology' in philosophical terms, or another version of the 'chicken or the egg' question...); in fact, Jesus is cutting right to the heart of the matter. What is it that brings true satisfaction to our lives? It has little to do with calories; in fact, the physical food is only a means to an end, and the 'end' is to do the will of God.

Every one of us has spent a day engaged in some activity which, at day's end, leaves us feeling empty and unsatisfied. It is just as true that every one of us has engaged in some activity which, at day's end, leaves us feeling more fulfilled and energized than ever we thought we would be. That's what Jesus is talking about. That's the food that interests him; that is the food he has come to share.

It may be that these verses in Chapter 4 are intended to telescope the verses we will be reading in Chapter 6 ... But first, we need to spend some time in Chapter 5.