The next conversation Jesus has is very different from his conversation with Nicodemus. It’s an unplanned meeting, in the middle of the day, with a powerless Samaritan woman rather than a powerful Sanhedrin man. The woman is combative where the man is befuddled, and, in the end, the woman is converted while the man is still dithering.
The setting for the noonday meeting is a sort of tactical retreat. Jesus and his disciples were growing and baptizing more than John the Baptist, and the Pharisees were taking notice. So instead of insisting on his own priority, Jesus led them north to Galilee.
To me, this sounds like Genesis 26, when the Philistines envied Isaac’s success (26:14), and claimed the wells Isaac dug – twice! (26:20, 21). Isaac didn’t fight, but moved away, until the third well was uncontested. Isaac named that well “Rehoboth,” meaning the Lord made an “open space” for him.
In the same way, Jesus moved away into God’s open, unknown space rather than digging in to where he had an audience. Their route north crossed through Samaria, a rival country, who had their own claims of descent from the northern tribes of Israel, and even had their own temple on Mount Gerizim, in opposition to the Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah.
Even today, there’s a Samaritan Museum on Mount Gerizim, run by a Samaritan priest, with its own website at https://samaritanmuseum.com/. The Samaritan language can be seen on the top line of its sign. They have their own holy places, their own history, even their own alphabet. They still stand separate and claim their own truth – no wonder the woman was surprised when Jesus looked past all that and asked her for a drink.
To the Jews, the Samaritans were idolaters and compromisers, while to the Samaritans, the Jews were exiles who never truly returned, still punished by God. But Jesus flipped over those judgments like they were moneychangers’ tables. To the question “my holy mountain or yours?” Jesus replies “neither.”
He doesn’t say that the two sides are equivalent. Salvation and safety come from the Judeans, not the Samaritans. True worship comes from the spirit, through the one group, from above both groups, for all groups.
With both the man Nicodemus in Chapter 3 and the woman in chapter 4, Jesus insists on drawing attention to the invisible, lifting eyes from the things of earth to the things from above. Later, he will say that he himself must be lifted up to accomplish these things. The living water from him washes away both academic and tribal arguments, cleanses to a purity of heart so we can see God.
The one who gives this living water is chosen, anointed, christened with oil to usher in the kingdom. There, by that old well of Jacob’s, David’s son says “I am he: I who am speaking to you.” (John 4:26 DBH)
This rearranging continues, as the woman joyfully runs to her friends, like Mary Magdalene will run in John 20:2. These women change the world with their words, powered by the Word.
And it’s not just the Samaritans, the long-lost sibling tribe of Judea, who come to Jesus. After two days, Jesus finally gets to Galilee, their home turf. A Galilean courtier (a “government man”) pushes through. His son is on the brink of death.
But something seems wrong. Jesus seems to sigh: “Unless you people see signs and prodigies, you most certainly do not have faith.” (4:48 DBH) But the father insists, like the parable of the woman knocking on the judge’s door. Jesus replies, “Go, your son is alive.” (4:50) And at that very instant, the father is given back his son.
This synchronous healing was the “second sign” according to John. These gifts/signs are not for believing distant, abstract propositions, but for trusting a present (if invisible) person. It’s not “believe the tenets of the faith” but “believe IN Jesus.”
Even the best of gifts must be received in the right way to be truly good to the recipient. In this season of gift-giving and receiving it’s easy to focus on the earthly gifts rather than the images of God giving those gifts. “There’s nothing harder than learning how to receive.”*
Because John’s signs are earthly, there’s always the temptation to focus on them, to take them apart, when they are not 3D objects but 1D arrows. Already in John 4, the signs are starting to get in the way. They are not idols but lenses. You look through them, past them, to the one who gave them.
The simultaneous healing of the courtier’s child shows that this Giver of Gifts is beyond time, and invites us to look up, beyond the concept of “up,” to the source of every good and perfect gift. We’ll see five more signs in the first half of John, until they stop with Lazarus. But the gospel continues, as we step into the upper room and to the foot of the cross, ever closer to Jesus himself.
*QUOTE: Over the Rhine, “All I Need is Everything”