Part 5 (2/2)

She and her people claimed that Mount Gerizim was the holy place of the Holy Land; while the Jews said that Jerusalem was ”the place where men ought to wors.h.i.+p.” She wanted the Prophet she had so unexpectedly met to decide between them. With calmness, solemnity and earnestness, He made a sublime declaration to her, meant for Jews, Samaritans and all men. It was this: ”Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, shall ye wors.h.i.+p the Father.... The hour cometh, and now is, when the true wors.h.i.+pers shall wors.h.i.+p the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be His wors.h.i.+pers.

G.o.d is a spirit: and they that wors.h.i.+p Him must wors.h.i.+p in spirit and truth.”

But this did not satisfy her. It was all so new and strange, so different from what she and her people believed, that she was not prepared to accept it from an unknown stranger, though he seemed to be a prophet. She thought of One greater than she thought He could be, One who was wiser than any prophet then living, or who ever had lived, One who she believed was to come. So, with a sigh of disappointment, her only reply was, ”I know that Messiah cometh; ... when He is come, He will declare unto us all things.”

How the quickened ear of John must have made his heart thrill at the name Messiah. Until a few weeks before, he too had talked of His coming, but already had heard Him declare many things which no mere prophet had spoken. Is he not prompted to break the silence of a mere listener? Is not his finger already pointed toward Jesus? Are not the words already on his tongue?--”O woman, _this is He_,” when Jesus makes the great confession he made before Pilate, saying to the Samaritaness, ”I that speak unto Thee, am He.”

So it was that He whose coming the angels in their glory announced to the shepherds in Bethlehem, He whom the Baptist proclaimed to mult.i.tudes on the Jordan, He whose glory was manifested to the company in Cana, made Himself known to this low, ignorant, sinful, doubting, perplexed stranger, in words ”to which all future ages would listen, as it were with hushed breath and on their knees.”

These words of Jesus to the woman, ”I am He,” closed their conversation, so unexpected to her when she came with her water-pot, in which she had lost all interest. Her mind and heart had been filled instead. She had drawn from Him richer supplies than Jacob's well could ever contain.

From that hour she thought of it, not so much as Jacob's well as the Messiah's well.

The disciples returning from the city, coming within sight of Jesus, ”marveled that He was speaking with a woman.” The people then and there had a mistaken idea that to do so was very improper. The disciples were the more astonished because she was a Samaritan. But they had such a sense of His goodness, that they did not dare to ask, ”Why talkest Thou with her?”

She was interrupted in her conversation with Jesus, by the coming of the disciples. She left her water-pot at the well. Too full of wonder and grat.i.tude to stop to fill it, or to be hindered in carrying it, she hastened to the city with the good news of what she had seen and heard.

So had Andrew and John each carried the good news to his brother saying, ”We have found the Messiah.” She believed she had found Him. But the good news seemed almost too good to be true, and she wanted the men of the city to learn for themselves. So she put her new belief in the form of a question, ”Is not this the Christ?” A great number obeyed her call, and believed with her that Jesus was the Messiah.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HILL OF SAMARIA _Old Engraving_ Page 84]

Meanwhile the disciples asked Him to eat of the food they had brought.

But His deep interest in the woman, and joy in the great change in her, was so great that for the moment He felt no want of food. So He said to them, ”I have meat to eat that ye know not.” ... ”My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.” Never again did the disciples marvel that their Master talked with a woman, or with a sinner of any kind. We seem to see John, weary and hungry as his Master, but unmindful of bodily discomforts, because of his intense interest in what is pa.s.sing.

His record does not give his own experiences, but we can imagine some of them. His watchful eye detects every movement and expression of his companions,--the calm, earnest, loving, pitying look of Jesus; and the excited, scornful, surprised, joyful, constantly changing looks of the woman. He first marks her pertness of manner; then the respectful ”Sir”; then the reverence for a prophet; and at last the belief and joy in the Messiah.

Whether or not John was witness to all that pa.s.sed at the well, or whether Jesus gave him the minute details, or whether the Samaritaness, during the two days that Jesus and His disciples remained in Sychar, told Him all, his story is one of the most lifelike in the Gospels, teaching the greatest of truths.

If that noon hour at Jacob's well was a memorable one for the woman, it was also for John. For him Christ was the Well of Truth. Of it he was to drink during blessed years. Standing nearest to it of any mortal, receiving more than any other, he was to give of it to mult.i.tudes thirsting for the water of life.

_CHAPTER XIV_

_The Chosen One of the Chosen Three of the Chosen Twelve_

”Walking by the sea of Galilee, He saw two brethren, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And He said unto them, Come ye after Me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left the nets, and followed Him. And going on from thence He saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and He called them. And they straightway left the boat and their father, and followed Him.”--_Matt._ iv. 18-22.

”He was the Supreme Fisher, and this day He was fis.h.i.+ng for them.”--_Stalker._

”When it was day, He called His disciples; and he chose from them twelve, whom also He named apostles, Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip....”--_Luke_ vi. 13, 14

”Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, and John.”--_Matt._ xvii.

1.

”One of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.”--_John_ xiii. 23.

”We know not all thy gifts, But this Christ bids us see, That He who so loved all, Found more to love in thee.”

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