John 4
The woman at the well – Surprised by God
A few days ago I was accosted by a random stranger. He was a nice guy looking for help moving a piano. It was an odd enough encounter to take me out of my normal half-reverie way of walking through the day. I was surprised.
Think about a time you were surprised. Some surprises are good, some are bad, some small, some life-changing. In John chapter 4 a woman was surprised and it changed her life and many lives around her. She was surprised by God.
Jesus, instead of doing the normal Jewish thing, which would be to go around Samaria, walked right in. Maybe the disciples assumed Jesus would keep going until they were out of Samaria but Jesus surprised them by stopping in the middle of the day. Jesus sent them to buy food in a Samaritan town which is the equivalent of asking your pastor to join you for lunch at a bar, it was unusual, challenging, surprising.
Now this woman comes to the well Jesus is sitting on and Jesus surprises her by asking for a drink. For so many reasons she would have been surprised enough just to see a Jewish man sitting there but conversation was unthinkable. Surprised enough already she hears Jesus promise ‘living water’. Is she talking to a crackpot? But no, now he tells her things about her life he could not have known. A ray of light begins to dawn in all this surprising encounter, here is a prophet, someone who speaks things from God. She was just going through another day but now she finds herself deep in theological conversation with a Jewish man. This is beyond her so she responds with the little bit of religion she has. Where is the proper place for worship? Again a surprising response, not here or there but in the heart. Again too hard, she explains that she is waiting for Messiah which is like a pan-millennialist, she believes it will all pan out in the end. Jesus now pulls out the biggest surprise yet, “I who speak to you am he.”
Did this woman expect to meet Messiah at the well that day? Did she ever think that she would introduce salvation to her town?
Our lives grind on with the momentum of the everyday. Are we prepared for God to interrupt us, surprise us? We have advance warning here and in many places in the Bible that God rarely does what we expect, God is always doing something new. It’s funny to say, expect the unexpected, but when God breaks in are we ready to be blown away?
brotherpayne 