Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

“Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of this water which I will give to him will never be thirsty for eternity, but the water which I will give to him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life…Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.” (John 4:13-14; 26)

Chapter four shows that Jesus wasn’t trying to one-up anyone. When He heard about the conflict between the Pharisees and John the Baptizer’s disciples, He left the area and returned to Galilee. to do this, He had to go through Samaria (the Jews and the Samaritans did NOT get along at all). They got as far as Sychar, when Jesus couldn’t go any farther. He was completely physically exhausted. He sat down to rest at a well while the disciples went into the town to buy Him some food. Meanwhile, at a time when women do not normally come for water, a woman came for water. This particular woman had had four husbands previously and was currently living unmarried with a man. You can easily imagine that she was not popular with the other women of the town and came at odd times to avoid them. Jesus asks fer for water. This is VERY unusual. This would be like a Caucasian Christian going up to a hijab-wearing woman in Afghanistan in a supermarket and asking her to go and buy him a bottle of water. It would be shocking and completely against accepted social norms. That was what Jesus as a male Jew was doing to this unaccompanied Samaritan woman. They start talking about water, which leads to details about her life revealed by Holy Spirit to Jesus, which leads her to deflect Jesus to legalistic religious points, which leads into talk of the Messiah and Jesus’ direct statement to her that He WAS the Messiah (verse 26). She gets so excited she runs into town to spread the news. The people come to talk to Jesus and are so impressed that they ask Him to stay, which He does for two days. Many in the town believed in Him as Messiah because of the woman’s testimony and what they themselves heard from Jesus.

Then Jesus left and travelled to Galilee. He was welcomed there because many had been in Jerusalem for the feast and witnessed what He had done. When Jesus came to Cana again (where He had shown His first sign – John 2:1-11), a noblemen from Capernaum came to Him. This man had obviously been looking for Jesus. His son was sick and he wanted Jesus to come heal his son. Jesus gave him an opportunity to be offended and walk away, but the noblemen would NOT let go of his trust in Jesus. He insisted that Jesus needed to come or his boy would die. Jesus responded to that trust and reassured the man that he could go home. His son was delivered from sickness. When the man got home, he found his son well. When he asked WHEN the child got well, it was the same hour of the day that Jesus had declared the boy well.

Chapter five starts with another festival in Jerusalem (there were four major feasts a year). Jesus was near the pool of Bethesda, near the Sheep Gate (a place where early church tradition says nearby the location of the house of Jesus’ grandparents). That pool was crowded with the infirm and sick. Legend had it that when the water in the pool moved (they believed it was stirred by an angel), the first one into the water after it moved got healed. Now this belief would NOT persist if there wasn’t truth to it, so it probably WAS an angel of the Lord that stirred the water. In any case, that was the belief and why the infirm and sick stayed there. Jesus entered the area and Holy Spirit led Him to one crippled man who had been there a long time.

Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be healed. The man responded that he had no one to help him into the pool. Jesus responded that he should rise, take up his mat and walk. The man did. As the man went walking, he was accosted by some Jews (probably Pharisees) who demanded to know why he was breaking their interpretation of the Sabbath and carrying his mat. He told them the man who healed him told him to do it. They wanted to know who it was, but he couldn’t tell them. Later, Jesus found him in the Temple and told him that he had become whole. Then Jesus warned him not to sin, lest something worse happen to him – by this Jesus clearly sometimes links sin and sickness just as in other places (John 9:3) He pointed out there isn’t always a link; which shows that sin and the demonic CAN be the cause of sickness or disease, but not ALWAYS. Once the man knew it was Jesus, he went and told the Jews who had questioned him that it was Jesus.

These Jews (again, probably Pharisees) challenged Jesus about healing on the Sabbath. Jesus said that the Father (Yahweh) was still working and that Jesus (also Yahweh) was also still working. He equated Himself with God and because of that they sought to kill Him. Jesus responded to this desire by teaching them about the authority the Son of God had. And that the Son of God does not operate apart from the Father. Jesus spoke of the witnesses of this truth there were. The scriptures and the Law spoke of it, though they didn’t believe them. Men like John the Baptizer also spoke of it. There was plenty of evidence, but Jesus was not going to accuse their unbelief to the Father. He knew that because they didn’t believe the words of Moses they claimed to revere so much, they weren’t going to believe anything HE said.

Summary

Key Players: God, Jesus, Disciples, Samaritan Woman, , Jews

Key Verse(s): John 4:25-42; 5:19-30