Walking the Fasting Road from Judea to Galilee

CONSIDER THIS

Why did Jesus have to go through Samaria? 

Let’s back the text up a few verses.

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. (John 4:1–2)

Jesus was going back to Galilee. Apparently, he wants nothing to do with the church industrial complex—ancient or present-day—which seems to be a competition between the Pharisees and the disciples of John primarily concerned with whose movement is growing the fastest and reaching the most people. Jesus is about a different kind of movement altogether. He calls it “The kingdom of God and his righteousness,” “My church,” and “My Father’s house.” 

The text tells us this is why Jesus was going to Galilee, but not why “he had to go through Samaria.” Jews didn’t go through the defiled land of Samaria. They had a well-worn path around Samaria to get back and forth between Judea and Galilee. Despite this, the text clearly tells us, “Now he had to go through Samaria.” Jesus was doing something clearly off the map here, but why? It’s the same reason he did everything else he did. Jesus was working off a completely different map than the Pharisees and the disciples of John or anyone else for that matter. Let’s jump forward to the next chapter of John’s gospel where we will get a picture of what the map of Jesus looked like.

Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. (John 5:19–20a)

Look now a few chapters ahead and behold this:

So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I am he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me. (John 8:28 NLT)

Look yet a few chapters further and behold this:

I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say.” (John 12:49–50)

These are extraordinary glimpses into how the secret life of Jesus’s relationship with his Father leads to demonstrations of public love (which is power) of extravagant consequence. If we would follow Jesus we must pay close attention to how this secret life is cultivated and carried out. It comes through a hidden life of fasting and prayer humbly lived out in plain view. 

Why did Jesus have to go through Samaria? Because his Father told him to go through Samaria. He had a divine appointment with a woman at a well. It turns out he carried hunger all morning and he would carry it right through lunch. How do we know? 

Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 

Jesus was fasting as a means of staying deeply attuned to what his Father was doing and saying. He had a different GPS than everyone else. He was carrying hunger as an intercessory act of love for a woman the rules said he shouldn’t even talk to. It would turn out to be one of the most consequential conversations in world history with a woman who would turn out to be one of the most consequential figures in the New Testament church—all of this because he was paying attention; because he was fasting and praying as he walked the long road from Judea to Galilee and he heard the voice of his Father say words like, “Samaria, woman, well, go.” 

Meanwhile, back at the grocery store, his disciples were getting lunch. Look what transpired upon their return:

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Look what they said instead:

Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”