Your Wells of Sychar
“And he must needs go through Samaria.” John 4:4
In this passage, Jesus travels from Judaea to Galilee, several miles north. History tells us that the established route between the two towns was to the east, along the path of the Jordan River, which takes you straight to the Sea of Galilee. However, Jesus doesn’t take that route. Instead, He chooses to take a more westerly course through Samaria, a place shunned by the Jews as a theological ghetto. Why does Jesus take the usually avoided road, through a desert region, occupied by the despised Samaritans? Why is it that He "must needs go" this way? Because Jesus knew that in Samaria, there was a well called Jacob's (aka Sychar), where at noon, a woman was appointed from eternity to meet with Him. So, He "must needs go."
This encounter is full of everyday things. There was nothing that happened at the meeting at Sychar's well that natural processes could not explain. There was no miracle in going through Samaria, yet, He "must needs" go through. Geographically it was still on His way to Galilee, though longer. There was no miracle in resting at the well, He was exhausted. There was no miracle that Jesus drank, He was thirsty. There was nothing astonishing at all in finding the Samaritan woman drawing water. Still…He "must needs" find her.
For the woman, the time of going to the well was strange. Noon? In the heat of the day? She probably went when she wouldn’t be bothered by the loud whispers of the town’s busybodies. Their wells were the equivalent of our water cooler, after all, where people heard the latest gossip and ‘You didn’t hear this from me's’. We can't imagine how much this woman dreaded the well. Anyway, if we look closely, the whole scene is beautifully stitch together like patchwork. Each separate event, before it happened, was predictable, routine. Jesus went to Galilee, through Samaria, by a well, where he met a woman. However, now the pieces once scattered along the path of the mundane, are stitched together by Divine Providence. Each blasé incident was a handmaiden to a glorious, life-altering event! Something that no single piece could tell us. Weariness, thirst, and a visit formed a supernatural result; they brought salvation to a soul, and the gospel to a city.
Friend, do not refuse to see the Lord in the small things simply because you can't trace the divine thread between them. Was Peter's vision of the food-filled blanket less true because the dream came from hunger? No. The hunger and the dream were both God's messengers to him. Remember by this little visit, that God’s treasure is often hidden in an earthen vessel. He often moves upon His children by patchwork. In our own thirst for water, in a conversation by the way, we meet an unexpected blessing, we meet our Lord. Never say that the little things of life are insignificant. Christ will unite them all in His final mosaic. For the unbeliever, they will only see sin stitched to sin, forming a blackened cloak of judgment against them.
But if you are a child of God, your pieces come gloriously together. Here or in eternity. Many events you thought should be first will be last. And many that seemed last will astonishingly be first. For the believer, dark valleys will become verdant fields. Hours that seemed to be of no value, will become priceless. Moments that appeared to be of little consequence will become monuments. The little things that seemed but ripples in the stream, will be found to be the very currents that led you to Christ and heaven. Never neglect your wells of Sychar, dear soul. For when you seem to be drawing only earthly water, you may be partaking of those living springs from which you “shall never thirst again.”