Jesus’ choice to travel to Galilee by way of Samaria was prompted by SPIRITUAL NECESSITY AS OPPOSED TO PHYSICAL CONVENIENCE.

To the Jews, Samaria was a despised place occupied by a despised people.

Samaritans were people of a mixed racial background and a mixed-religious belief who were despised by the Jews. Samaritans likewise hated the Jews.

Jesus sat down by Jacob’s well outside the town of Sychar while his disciples went into the town to buy some food.

Jesus engaged a woman who had come to the well to draw water in conversation.

He told her that the water he had to offer was much greater than that which she drew from Jacob’s Well

CHRIST RESPONDS TO HER REQUEST, NOT BY WAY OF A THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATION, BUT BY REVEALING THE SIN IN HER LIFE

· NOT so much to shame her, BUT to illuminate the great need in her life

· The Woman acknowledges the prophetic nature of this revelation BUT is still not ready to receive the gift Christ offers

· So in an effort to side-track Him, she tries to engage Jesus in a theological controversy about the correct location for worship: The temple in Jerusalem (Jewish preference) or Mount Gerizim (Samaritan preference).

Jesus confronts her with the eternal God who was not only worthy of her worship, but desired her worship.

§ A God who knew all about her and wanted a relationship with her

§ This revelation awakened a desire in this woman: A desire to know Go and to be known by Him

SHE WONDERED, WHO IS THIS MAN TALKING TO HER BY THE WELL?

COULD HE BE THE ONE SENT BY GOD?

COULD HE BE THE MESSIAH?

After he had broken through the hardness of the woman’s heart and touched her spirit the disciples returned and the woman hurriedly returned to the town to share the news of a man of God, who might indeed be the Messiah.

Their suggestion that Jesus should eat gave Him the occasion to teach them something of His priorities: His priority, his “meat and drink” was to do the will of God and finish God’s work.

· To the disciples the journey through Samaria was a necessary short cut through a loathsome place inhabited by a despised people, the Samaritans

· The necessity of traveling through Samaria laid not in the geography of the journey, but in the mission of Jesus.

· Jesus’ mission was not limited to one woman, but to the entire village

There was no agricultural crop grown in Israel that was white when it is ripe.

· When Jesus tells the disciples to “lift their eyes”, he literally means for them to lift their eyes and look at the crowd which was approaching.

· A crowd, no doubt, arrayed in flowing white robes.

The text says that Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony(v. 39) and after Jesus stayed two more days with them teaching them, “many more” became believers.

The church has been given a great opportunity to reach those who are avoided and despised. Let us not pass it by because we are too busy or burdened.