John 4:24-26 - The Messiah

4:24

God is spirit. We are forever trying to reduce God to the level of our human understanding. The Samaritans had reduced God to this matter of where He should be worshipped. We might think this is silly, but we so easily do exactly the same. We say He should be worshipped in this way and not that way, hymns rather than songs, this building or that building, this form of service or that form of service. There are two things that matter, the spirit of a man and the truth of the what we do. Are our hearts submitted to God? Do we humble ourselves? Are we repentance? Are we trusting God? Are we loving God? Hymns or songs is largely irrelevant, what matters is do they express the truth about God, are they glorifying to Him?

4:25

Yet again the woman is maybe trying to deflect the issue by bringing up some part-truth. She knows that the Messiah will come, but will she respond when He does, for that moment is at hand. Or is she tentatively hoping that Jesus is the Messiah, is she inviting Him to say more?

Notice the significance of “he will tell us all things”. This is precisely what Jesus is doing about her life, telling her all about herself. When we encounter Jesus He tells us the truth about ourselves. And it is so important that we do not miss the moment when Jesus encounters us.

4:26

Jesus then reveals Himself to the woman. He states quite clearly that He is the Messiah. We all have hopes, things we long for. These can be personal, they can by cultural and communal, and a mixture of the two. Things we long for in our own lives, things we long for for our country or community. Usually we cannot quite express these things clearly, we are not quite sure what we want, but we know there must be something better than what we already have. Jesus used these thoughts in the build up. There was the woman’s personal situation as something of an outcast, no doubt partly her own fault, partly the working of the community. Then there was the Samaritan hope of a Messiah, and their national feelings of being an outcast. Into all this Jesus reveals who He is, someone much greater than all their hopes, more than fulfilling all their needs, but in a radically different way to what they expected.

Note that it was Jesus who made Himself known. He reveals Himself to us.