White For Harvest

1. The witness of the Samaritan woman, 27-30.

v. 27 The gospel writer points out that the disciples have returned from their trip to purchase food right after Jesus had revealed who He is to the Samaritan woman. They were shocked to see Him speaking with a woman, considering that is is often suggested that it was considered undesirable for a rabbi to speak with a woman. The fact that she was a Samaritan only caused more surprise.

No one asked either the woman or Jesus any questions—though they had questions! Their response was different than that of the woman.

v. 28 The imagery is potent; for we see the abandonment of the woman’s water jar for a wholly different kind of water. Steps from the well of Jacob, she had been introduced to a wholly other different drinking source. Her response to go and tell others in the city evidences that this water is for all people—even Samaritans. She is eager to bear witness before the townspeople whom she previously had reason to avoid.

v. 29 In her eagerness, the Samaritan woman does not merely show the effect Jesus had on her; she also proclaims it. Her witness of Jesus to her city, is like that of the earliest followers of Jesus, using identical language: “Come, see” (cf. 1:39, 46). Her witness was not that of a theologian, but that of a witness to someone whom she did not understand, but who understood her, both deeply and personally.

The question in her mind communicates a hesitation, which has introduced a possibility not previously considered: a Jewish Messiah for the Samaritans. This is the question everyone needed to answer for themselves. So they came.

V. 30 In just two verses we see the positive effect of the woman’s witness. She enters the town, and the people come out of it. In her becoming a witness, she demonstrates that it is not the quality of the witness that ultimately matters but the object of the witness—Jesus.

2. The highest priority, 31-34.

V. 31 Meanwhile, back at the well of Jacob, we see the disciples, who in their faithful search for food have missed the provision Jesus already provided. How are they seeing Jesus? They, like the Samaritan woman, have sought sustenance for their bodies. The disciples think of literal food as quickly as the Samaritan woman thought of literal water. What Jesus has been offering is sustenance for their souls. The woman saw a “prophet”; the disciples saw a “rabbi.”

V. 32 Jesus directly addresses the ignorance of the disciples. They both speak of food but mean something different. Jesus uses a metaphor here which speaks of the sustenance and refreshment He owns and provides in His very person as the source of “living water” and as “the bread of life” (6:35). Jesus is not denying that the Word-become-flesh needs food here, but He is showing the symptoms of one who finds their sustenance in God.

V. 33 Now the disciples are completely confused. They were not privy to Jesus and His dialogue with the Samaritan woman because they were on the search for food. Let’s not be too hard on the disciples here; the Samaritan woman showed the same confusion. in the context of a well, Jesus spoke about water; in the context of a search for food, Jesus speaks about already having food. Jesus speaks about real food to speak about something more real, for He is speaking in “parabolic language” in order to move the minds of His disciples beyond themselves (and their stomachs) to the unseen.

V. 34 This statement of Jesus only made things more complicated. Jesus is not merely thinking about some sort of spiritual food—such as water from rocks or manna from heaven—but about something much greater, and much more nourishing. The term used here for “food”, which is different from the term translated “food” in verse 32, is often used to speak of a nourishment which transcends, something more than the mere physical substance, as best nuanced by the larger context. The prologue to John prepared us to see the unseen and to look beyond the historical to the heavenly.

Note also that Jesus aligns His needs with “the one who sent me.” Jesus claims to do another’s “will” and “work”, terms John uses exclusively for the Father's work of salvation. It is always the work of the Father. Jesus is so dependent on the Father that the Father’s will and work is food to Him, and He is actually hungry for it, actually craving its accomplishment.

Deuteronomy 8:3 NASB95

“He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

Jesus’s “life” was sustained ultimately by God.

3. The urgency of Messiah’s work, 35-38.

V. 35 Turning from His unique food (as the unique Son), Jesus now speaks to the rest of the Father’s children about their food: the will and work of God. The fields are ready to be harvested. There should be no delay. The two-imperative phrase, “Lift up your eyes and look” and a third if we include “behold”, are exhorting a certain kind of vision, the same kind that is hungry, but not for bread alone, or thirsty, but unsatisfied without “living water.” The disciples can not see what Jesus already now “see”: a horde of Samaritans making tracks toward Him. Remember the timing: these are Samaritans satisfied from their recent meal at midday (cf. v. 6), yet are still hungry. This is another exhortation to “come and see” (cf. 1:46). They have come but have not yet seen.

V. 36 These words of Jesus re: the type of sowing and harvesting is unique not only in the lack of detail but also in regard to unity. The sower and the harvester cooperates in unity; their differences coalesce into one grand work, prophesied by Amos in Amos 9:13

Amos 9:13 NASB95

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “When the plowman will overtake the reaper And the treader of grapes him who sows seed; When the mountains will drip sweet wine And all the hills will be dissolved.

This is a picture of a crop so rich that the work of the sower and the harvester overlaps. The result of this harvest is “for eternal life”. What is harvested are people (for example, Samaritans) for whom eternal life is given. God hungers and thirsts for the world He loves (3:16).

V. 37 Jesus now applies His statements more directly to the disciples. Here sowers and harvesters have distinctive roles and purposes. They are both after the same result, but sowing and harvesting are different tasks.

V. 38 The disciples have uniquely entered into this grand “work.” Jesus declares, “I sent you”, placing the disciples into their position by means of the “will” and purpose of God. They, like others before them, have a distinctive role, yet they have joined the great work of God already in action.

Jesus, beside revealing the “will” and “work” of the Father as He reveals the Father, is also revealing the gospel, including His disciples as recipients of its nourishing food and its joyous harvest. While the disciples were walking through a Samaritan village looking for food to feed their “rabbi”, Jesus was already offering food from the eschatological harvest of God to a Samaritan woman. Instead of going to buy food, they should have gone there to provide it—the harvesting of what had already been sown. Jesus has demonstrated what a harvest looks like to the disciples and to us.

4. The witness of the Word for the world, 39-42.

V. 39 concludes putting into material terms what was spoken of abstractly in verses 32-38. The idea communicated in this verse is that many “put their faith in” Jesus. The woman’s “word” facilitated their belief. But the message of the woman was entirely centered on the definitive Word—Jesus Christ. She testified, “He told me everything that I did.” In using this term, she serves to portray the task of the Christian disciple.

V. 40 Her witness turned into a host of Samaritan followers. The estrangement between two groups has entirely dissolved into the requests of students to a teacher. They wanted Him to remain with them; this is a request of disciples to their teacher. The hospitality of the Samaritans the gracious hospitality to Jesus is simply (if unknowingly) a response to the gracious hospitality of the Word-become-flesh who “came to His own” (1:11).

V. 41 “many more” of the Samaritans put their faith in Jesus, who like the Samaritan woman, believed “because of His word.” They heard the first-person message from the Word Himself, who is the first-order witness to the Father, John 1:18

John 1:18 NASB95

No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

V. 42 The “message” mediated by the Samaritan woman to her people and acknowledge by them has now been made fast and firm by the True Word. She was successful as a witness as she spoke of the Word, but the Word is the object of her witness. Her message brought the Samaritans to the word of Jesus, so that faith is ultimately “because of His word.” This is what the Samaritans confess. They declare with two perfect tense verbs in the Greek text to “have heard” and “know” who Jesus is. Their declaration is confident: “This One is truly the Savior of the world.”

Note the scope of this testimony. In a very real sense, Jesus is even more than the Jewish Messiah. John the Baptist testified of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” Now the Samaritans testify that He is “the Savior of the world.” He is not just a messiah for Jews, or Samaritans—He is Messiah for all will receive Him, for He came that the world might be saved through Him. The grand scope of the mission of God and His harvest that Jesus be known with the comprehensive title, “Savior of the world.” This pericope ends with the Jewish Messiah receiving hospitality from a host of Samaritans who sit at His feet in the region of Samaria.