(REFLECTIONS ON John 4:31-42)

At the beginning of John 4, we read of Jesus being wearied from His journey and thus was sitting by the well in Samaria. The place where He should not be, culturally, is the place that He bridged the Jews and Samaritans together, showing that He is the way not for just the Jews, but for the world.

Jesus, being a Jew, came to the Samaritans, as cultural enemies, but delivered the Gospel to them, that they may believe, whether Jew or Samaritan, that the Christ has come, and that Jesus is the Christ.

What begins as just a resting spot while the disciples go to buy food in the town, turns into Jesus’ cross-cultural mission work, showing us that He is Lord of the harvest.

After the disciples returned, they urged Jesus to eat, but Jesus said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” (v.32) Although we are told Jesus sat down by the well because He was weary, and although that perhaps was the human response to the long journey, but even in weariness or hunger, Jesus didn’t seek physical food, but said to the disciples,

34 “…My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.

The disciples went into town for food, concerned about the weariness of their Lord, but Jesus wasn’t worried about the physical body, but rather the gathering of fruit for life eternal. One sows and another reaps, and that is the work Jesus is trying to teach the disciples to participate in despite physical hunger and weariness.

The Samaritan woman that met Jesus by the well sowed the seed as she returned to her village to tell about the Messiah. It is now for His disciples to reap what they did not sow, and that is why Jesus said,

38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

The Lord of the harvest calls us to look beyond our physical needs, our physical weariness, and to join Him in the labor. Others have labored and we have entered into their labor, and that is the calling for all who believe in Jesus and have entered into a relationship with Him.

His work, now becomes our work, and that work should cross culture, tradition, language, social norms, because He is the Lord of the harvest and we have entered into the labor. The disciples went to town to look for food, but Jesus wants us to go into town to seek and save the lost.

Pastor Michael Lu
Enduring Word Bible Commentary: John 4