Jesus and the Woman at the Well, Part 3: The Harvest
John 4:27-42
Let me begin by reminding you of the remarkable story of Jesus and the woman at the well from John chapter 4.
It was a hot day in Palestine, and the noonday sun beat down on the man’s head. Sweat was pouring off His brow. Jesus had been traveling with His friends since sunrise. Now the sun was directly overhead. They were hurrying to make their way through this part of the country as quickly as possible.
He came to a well with a rock edge built up above the ground in the typical manner of the Middle East. His disciples having gone into town to buy food, Jesus sat alone on the lip of the well and wished to himself, “O, if only I could have a drink of water.”
The well was about one-half mile from town near the point where two trade routes came together. It was called Jacob’s Well, after the patriarch who had first dug it some 2000 years earlier. Weary travelers from throughout Israel knew it as a place where they might drink from the spring flowing some 150 feet below the surface.
At precisely that moment, the woman came along. She came from the Samaritan village of Sychar, nestled between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. It wasn’t the normal time, and it was unusual for a woman to come to a well alone. But this woman was different.
When Jesus saw the woman coming, he asked her, “Will you give me a drink?” The woman was shocked because she was a Samaritan and she recognized that he was a Jew. In that day, the Samaritans and the Jews didn’t have anything to do with each other.
But Jesus struck up a conversation with her anyway. He said, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” That led to a discussion about what he meant by “living water.” When Jesus said, “whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life,” The woman replied, “Sir, give me this living water” At which point Jesus said, “Go call your husband and come here.” His request was a double-edged instruction meant to touch her at the point of her need. Jesus knew (with the supernatural knowledge that comes from being the Son of God) that the woman had no husband, which fact she readily admitted. But she wasn’t prepared for what he was about to say next. “You are right when you say you have no husband. In fact, you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”
Boom! It was a direct hit on her heart. Jesus knew all about her past, had known even before He spoke the first word to her. Now she knows that He knows. With two sentences, the Lord Jesus revealed the sickness in her life. She said, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.”
The conversation then moved to a discussion of true worship. Finally the highpoint of the conversation came when she said, “I know that Messiah is coming. When He comes, He will tell us all things.” Jesus said, “I who speak to you am He.” She was forever changed by the words of Jesus Christ.
How do we know? We know because of her response to Jesus and because of the result that came from her witness: She immediately went to tell others about Jesus who also then believed in Him as the Savior of the world. Her witness resulted in a harvest of souls for the kingdom of heaven.
Listen to how John records the rest of the story starting in verse 27:
27 And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”
28 The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men,
29 “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
30 Then they went out of the city and came to Him.
31 In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
33 Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.
35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!
36 And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.
37 For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’
38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.”
40 So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days.
41 And many more believed because of His own word.
42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
The way John presents the rest of this story about the woman at the well is very interesting. At the beginning of the text He records the woman’s witness in the town of Sychar and their initial response. In the middle he gives us the words of Jesus to His disciples. Then he returns to the outcome of her witness and the effect of Jesus’ words on the Samaritans. So the words of Jesus to His disciples explain what is happening with the woman and the town.
The disciples return (4:27).
In the providence of God’s perfect timing the disciples return just as Jesus finishes His discussion with the woman by declaring that He is the Messiah. They do not come earlier, which would have interrupted the conversation. They do not come later and miss the lesson that Jesus is about to teach them. They arrive just in time to marvel at what they were seeing.
The reason for their amazement is that common convention among the Jews, and especially among the Rabbis, was that a man was not to talk to a woman in public. Yet none of His disciples intervened with the woman (What do you seek?), or to question Jesus (Why do you speak with her?). Maybe they were already learning that Jesus always puts caring for people above traditions and any human biases. He always treated women with respect and compassion and as worthy of His attention.
The woman witnesses to the village (4:28-30).
Verse 28 begins, “The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city.” John does not tell us exactly why she left her waterpot, but I think that she was so excited that she couldn’t wait to tell her village about Jesus. She rushed back to the village to tell everyone who would listen about her amazing encounter with this stranger who had uncovered her past. I think that her exaggeration, that Jesus had told her “all things that I ever did” (v. 29) also reflects her excitement. Jesus had demonstrated His omniscience so that she knew that nothing was hidden from Him. Normally, she might have avoided mentioning to people about her sordid past. But the encounter with Jesus had changed her. Now, she wanted everyone to meet Him, too.
She asks them, “Could this be the Christ?” (v. 29). Her question implies a negative answer: “This is not the Christ, is it?” Her question to them is not a wonder on her part of Jesus being the Messiah, but she deferred to the self-assumed wisdom of the men by letting them come to their own conclusion. It must have stirred their curiosity because verse 30 records that “they went out of the city and came to Him.”
Why was her witness so effective? I think it must be because she was so excited about Jesus and these men who knew her could see the change in her. She was excited about Jesus as the Messiah and she testified about her own experience with Him. No one could miss the obvious change in her and her exuberance about Jesus.
Let me just apply this to us today. God will use your witness if you’ve had a genuine encounter with the Lord Jesus and you’re excited about Him. And if you’re not excited about Him, you might need to figure out why not.
Jesus teaches about the harvest (4:31-38).
Verses 31-38 are a “meanwhile, back at the well” scene that explain to us the what Jesus sees happening with the woman and the village.
The disciples arrive back at the well with lunch for Jesus, but He isn’t interested in eating, He is interested in the harvest of souls. They urge Him to eat, but He tells them (4:32), “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” They don’t get it! The disciples misunderstand just like Nicodemus did in chapter 3 and the Samaritan woman had earlier in this chapter. They could only see what was in front of their eyes. So they wonder among themselves (4:33), “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”
Jesus answers their question in verses 34-38. Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” (v. 34). This is quite a profound statement. Jesus had been physically weary and in need of food and water, but what had refreshed Him was not anything physical, but the doing of His Father’s will.
This is not just the thought of Jesus, but the desire of all who want to be godly. Job said it this way, ” I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth More than my necessary food,” (Job 23:12). David said God’s word was “More to be desired … than gold, Yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb (Psalm 19:10).
The disciples were focused on eating lunch; Jesus was focused on doing the Father’s will and accomplishing the work that the Father had sent Him to do. We don’t know whether Jesus ever got His drink of water or whether He ever ate the lunch that the disciples had brought back. But He saw a whole village of Samaritans come to faith in Him as they discovered that He is the Savior of the world. Food and drink were secondary; His mission of reaching lost people was primary.
The disciples needed to develop a harvest mindset. They needed to understand what God was doing in this situation. I’ve often been just like these clueless disciples, focused on the natural when I should have been awake to what God was doing spiritually around me. Like them, I needed to develop a harvest mindset. A harvest mindset puts the will of God and His work above everything else.
Jesus continues to teach about this harvest mindset in verse 35 when He says, “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!”
The expression ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’ (verse 35) was very likely a colloquial way of saying, “What’s the hurry; there’s plenty of time.” Four months normally elapsed between the end of seed-time and the beginning of harvest. The seed may be planted, but there is no way of getting round the months of waiting. Normally it takes time for the crop to grow, so there is no hurry. Such a casual attitude was not acceptable to our Lord. Jesus is saying to His disciples, “Men, we don’t have months to stall and wait for the harvest. The harvest is here, and it is ready for us.”
We saw from verse 30 that while this conversation between Jesus and His disciples was taking place the crowds were making their way from Sychar to the well. I believe it is this our Lord referred to when He said, “…lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!” (John 4:35).
In this case, the spiritual harvest was instant. Jesus is collapsing sowing and reaping into one event. God can do that sort of thing. Humans can’t. And that is what the messianic age is to be like, according to the prophet Amos:
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman [the sower] shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.” (Amos 9:13)
Jesus is showing his disciples, and us, that these are the beginning of those days. I am the Messiah. I bring the messianic age. It has begun. And He says at the end of verse 36 that He is already reaping fruit for eternal life (with no natural gap of months) “that sower and reaper may rejoice together.” What He is doing here is collapsing sowing and reaping into one event so that the joy is a foretaste of what Amos saw. (Piper)
Jesus concludes in verses 37–38 by drawing the disciples into His work:
37 For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’
38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
In other words, You are going to share in the reaping. But others have labored before you. Who are they? I think the answer is Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Jesus has been sowing with His word and gathering fruit for eternal life as the great reaper. And the woman has been sowing with her word to the townspeople.
To state the obvious, there is no reaping without prior sowing. But we often forget this. We expect to reap without sowing. We wonder why we don’t see people coming to Christ. Often the answer is simple: Because I haven’t been sowing any seed!
But Jesus says to them “‘One sows and another reaps.” And this is often the case. We need to keep in mind that we never labor alone. If you lead someone to Christ, probably you’re reaping where someone else has already sown. It’s rare for someone to come to faith the first time he hears the message. And, if you share the gospel and the person does not respond, don’t get discouraged. Pray that God would water the seed that you’ve sown and bring along someone else who may reap the fruit. As Paul said (1 Cor. 3:6), “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.”
Adoniram Judson labored his entire lifetime in Burma with much hardship, many disappointments, and little visible fruit in terms of converts. But today there are over a million Christians in Burma who trace their roots back to Judson’s labors. Your sowing is not in vain if others reap the fruit. Be faithful in sowing the seed!
Many Samaritans believe (4:39-42)
Initially, it was the woman’s testimony that convinced the Samaritans that Jesus was Messiah.
39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.”
But her words paled in comparison to hearing Jesus’ words. Her testimony was like the light of the moon when compared with the sunlight of direct exposure to Jesus and His teaching. The Samaritans urged Him to remain with them (verse 40). Then verse 41 says,
41 And many more believed because of His own word.
42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
After spending two days with Jesus (a privilege that no Jewish village ever had) the Samaritans came to know that Jesus is indeed more than any other prophet; He is “the Savior of the world.” He is not only the Savior of the Jews, but also of any person of any nationality who believes in Him.
Three important lessons to take home with you today:
- Jesus’ mission was the focus of His life and passion, and what energized Him far more than food. Jesus is the glorious Son of God and Savior of the World whose food is to accomplish God’s purpose, namely, to be food that gives eternal life. He doesn’t need life-giving food; He is life-giving food. Does your relationship with Jesus and His mission energize you?
- His coming is the beginning of the messianic age. The kingdom age is not limited to old patterns of sowing and reaping. A spiritual harvest can happen any time when God prepares people — even seemingly hardened people. We need to look at people as if God is working in them, not as impossible cases. Pray for God-given opportunities in sowing and reaping in your life and around the world.
- The testimony of a life transformed by Jesus is extremely powerful in drawing friends and acquaintances to Christ. God uses men and women (sinful, forgiven men and women) to sow and reap. We will be rewarded for our labors when Christ returns and “reaps the final harvest.”
