John 4:1-6

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John”— although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

These first verses of a new chapter provide a clean transition from one significant encounter – with Nicodemus – to another – the Samaritan woman at the well. But while being relatively clear and straightforward, this transition is also a bit curious with regard to the mention of John the Baptist. It may be the ongoing concern to demonstrate that Jesus is superior to John – recalling John’s own words that he must decrease while Jesus increase – or it may simply be a narrative segue between the closing verses of chapter three that focused on John the Baptist to a new part of the story.

A part of this brief transition is the rather interesting side comment that Jesus was not the one baptizing people but rather his disciples were. Again, we don’t quite know what that was about. It may be that later Christians wondered if they had the authority to baptize and John the Evangelist is demonstrating precedent, or it may be a further way to distinguish between the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus – one baptized, one proclaimed the advent of God’s revelation and had his disciples baptize. I don’t honestly know.

But I do know that John (the Evangelist) then provides us with a rationale of why Jesus was in Samaria at all. And that should tell us something.

The rift between Samaria and Judea goes back centuries and is rooted in the different histories of the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel as well as different patterns of worship and the significance of distinct holy places. But to describe matters this way is to risk taming what was a painful history of alienation and enmity. Jews and Samaritans had little to do with each other, looked down upon one another, and would not want to be associated with each other. Hence the surprise of his largely Jewish audience that the “hero” in one of Jesus’ parables was a Samaritan (Luke 10).

Given that John’s audience was Jewish, they would wonder immediately why Jesus would wander into Samaria, and so John gives a perfectly understandable reason, perhaps to calm their apprehension. Of course, what will come next will not only fail to put most Jewish (and later) readers at ease, but may just blow their (and our!) expectations away.

Prayer: Dear God, wherever there is division based on race, religion, ethnicity, or creed, let your peace and goodwill prevail. In Jesus’ name, Amen.