When an Alter Becomes a Well
Notes
Transcript
When an Alter Becomes a Well
When an Alter Becomes a Well
5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
Pharisees where trying to incite competition between Jesus and John the Baptist. (Jn 3:25-30)
Jesus had left Judea and started north for Galilee, where he spent over 80% of His ministry time.
He could have taken several routes to arrive at His destination.
However, Orthodox Jews almost always avoided Samaria because of a long-standing, deep seated hatred for the Samaritan people.
Samaritans where a mixed race people - Part Jew and part Gentile.
During the Assyrian captivity of the 10 northern tribes in 727 B.C., Jews and Gentiles had intermarried and naturally produced offspring. Because of their captivity many could not subsequently prove their genealogy.
They were rejected by Orthodox communities.
AT that time Samaritans established their own temple an religious services at Mnt. Gerizem.
This development aroused even greater animosity against the Samaritans, because they appeared to be insulting the temple services at Jerusalem.
The fires of prejudice where so great that Pharisees would actually pray that no Samaritan would be raised in the Resurrection!
A Jew was considered unclean if he had the dust of Samaria on his feet!
In fact when the enemies of Jesus wanted to insult Him and His ministry they called him a Samaritan:
48 Then the Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
The wonderful thing about Jesus is that He was never controlled by the cultural restrictions of the day.
Instead most of His actions where completely countercultural for that era.
He was motivated by His unchanging, overwhelming love and compassion to reach into people’s lives, even when those lives had been wrecked by their own wickedness.
Jesus had a remarkable ability to reach across racial, religious, and socioeconomic lines. This ability made Him and continues to make Him relevant to every generation.
Contrary to what some critics assert Jesus has never had a problem being relevant to the world:
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Jesus arrived at the well at the 6th hour (12 noon)
Not the normal time for women to fetch water, which was either early in the morning or late in the afternoon.
The disciples went into town to buy supplies while Jesus waited at the well.
6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
It was there that He encountered a woman whose life desperately needed a healing touch.
Before getting any deeper into this story, a little-known truth about Jacob’s well must be established.
5 Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan.
6 Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land.
7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
God had promised Abram a land
As he moved into the land
he came to a place called Sichem also known as Sychar.
It was here that God confirmed His promise to Abraham; so Abram built an alter there.
The place is never mentioned in Isaac’s life, but Abrahams grandson Jacob also built an alter there
Then we read that Joseph (Jacob’s son) was buried there in a parcel of ground that Jacob had bought for a hundred pieces of silver.
32 The bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem, in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph.
Thereafter it is mentioned often in the OT.
5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
The alter that Abram had built when he first came into the land had evolved into much more than an alter.
Fresh water had been discovered under the ground and a strong well had been built to serve generations of travelers and people who built dwellings nearby.
everyone knew that it was “Jacob’s Well”.
The alter that Abram built became a well of resource.
The fact that Abram built an alter of worship created an opportunity for a much later generation to be resourced by revelation!
Worship is a mighty resource!
3 But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel.
She invited the whole town to come and it became a source of living water!