At Jacob’s Well
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Samaria, fidelity to Him kept their prejudices under control; yet in heart
they were unreconciled. They were slow to learn that their contempt
and hatred must give place to pity and sympathy. But after the Lord’s
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ascension, His lessons came back to them with a new meaning. After
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they recalled the Saviour’s look,
His words, the respect and tenderness of His bearing toward these
despised strangers. When Peter went to preach in Samaria, he brought
the same spirit into his own work. When John was called to Ephesus
and Smyrna, he remembered the experience at Shechem, and was filled
with gratitude to the divine Teacher, who, foreseeing the difficulties
they must meet, had given them help in His own example.
The Saviour is still carrying forward the same work as when He
proffered the water of life to the woman of Samaria. Those who call
themselves His followers may despise and shun the outcast ones; but
no circumstance of birth or nationality, no condition of life, can turn
away His love from the children of men. To every soul, however sinful,
Jesus says, If thou hadst asked of Me, I would have given thee living
water.
The gospel invitation is not to be narrowed down, and presented
only to a select few, who, we suppose, will do us honor if they accept
it. The message is to be given to all. Wherever hearts are open to
receive the truth, Christ is ready to instruct them. He reveals to them
the Father, and the worship acceptable to Him who reads the heart.
For such He uses no parables. To them, as to the woman at the well,
He says, “I that speak unto thee am He.”
When Jesus sat down to rest at Jacob’s well, He had come from
Judea, where His ministry had produced little fruit. He had been
rejected by the priests and rabbis, and even the people who professed
to be His disciples had failed of perceiving His divine character. He
was faint and weary; yet He did not neglect the opportunity of speaking
to one woman, though she was a stranger, an alien from Israel, and
living in open sin.
The Saviour did not wait for congregations to assemble. Often
He began His lessons with only a few gathered about Him, but one
by one the passers-by paused to listen, until a multitude heard with
wonder and awe the words of God through the heaven-sent Teacher.
The worker for Christ should not feel that he cannot speak with the
same earnestness to a few hearers as to a larger company. There may