Heavenly Things

A recent podcast that I listened to suggested that there is a contrast that John wanted us to see between Nicodemus in John 3 and the woman at the well in John 4: “Here, you've got a male Jewish, educated leader and you've got a Gentile female, immoral woman.” In many ways these two people taught by the Savior and their stories are opposites. Nicodemus came by night to Jesus; the Savior went in the daylight to this woman. Nicodemus was a Jew and religious leader; the woman was living in sin and a Samaritan. Nicodemus recognized Jesus as a “teacher come from God,” but the woman eventually came to know and declare that He was the Messiah which she told to her friends: “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” Nicodemus presumably went away quietly pondering His words but still not ready to declare Him openly; the woman immediately went and declared to her people that she had found the Christ. It was, surprisingly, the Gentile woman who recognized most completely who He was and then went as a missionary to declare Him openly. The Jewish religious leader who should have seen Him for the Messiah went and came in the dark and hesitated to commit Himself to the Savior. The message perhaps is two-fold: first, the Savior came to invite all types of people unto Him, and second anyone—even those who have committed great sin—can repent and receive Him if they so choose.

                In both stories we see that Jesus sought to bring His listeners to a higher spiritual understanding. To Nicodemus He taught, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God…. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The Savior tried to help him look past the physical and seek to be one “born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus questioned how a man could be born again, and Jesus lamented that He couldn’t tell him more about “heavenly things.” (John 3:3-12). To the woman at the well He also sought to help her understand spiritual things. When she thought they were just talking about getting physical water to drink, He said, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” When she questioned how He could even get water out of the well He declared, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:10-14). Eventually she began to understand that indeed He had more to offer than water to quench physical thirst. In a parallel story, His disciples came to Him as she left and offered Him some physical food: “In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat.” Seeking again to raise their sights above earthly things He said, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” As one religious instructor once put it in a class I attended, they in essence looked around at each other and said, “Who gave him a sandwich?” They didn’t get that He was talking about something much more profound than lunch. He continued, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together” (John 4:31-36). He wanted them to look past the physical necessities of life and see that what mattered most was to do the will of the Father by taking the gospel to all those around them, including the Samaritans who were then coming to hear Him. Both of these stories invite us to be lifted above the earthly things around us and see Him for who He really is: the Son of God, the Living Water, the Bread of Life.