From the time that Jesus turned water into wine, and his disciples saw it and believed that Jesus was in fact from God, miracles accompanied Jesus in his ministry. There were countless miracles of healing, a miracle of walking on water, of feeding thousands of people with a few fish and a a few small loaves of bread, and the miracles of raising a young girl, a young man, and Lazarus from death.

There were many other miracles, as well, but in one place and time Jesus ministered the Word of God to a people for whom no miracles are recorded. It is the place of a small town in Samaria, Jesus had spoken to a woman at the well outside of town. For a few moments he was alone with her; the disciples had gone into town to find food for them all.

Food had become unimportant to Jesus by the time the disciples returned with it, for Jesus had been been revealing his identity to the woman, something he had not done, even to the disciples as they were traveling. Jesus said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about. . . My food is to do the will of Him who sent me to finish His work.” (John 4:32&34)

Wherever Jesus had gone, he had been mobbed by people seeking healing for a myriad of illnesses and demon possession, but in this small village outside of Israel, Jesus spoke of himself, and most powerfully of his Father God. Other towns begged him to stay and heal even more, but this town wanted Jesus to stay and just talk. They wanted to hear the words of God delivered by Jesus to them, and Jesus stayed two more days with his disciples, for this request was part of the very reason he had been sent by God.

This incident in Jesus’ ministry came to Jesus when he was tired from the press of attention of the people he visited, and the demand for miracles from religious leaders. This interlude has been called “The first church”, for the people believed in Jesus simply by way of hearing his message and his relationship to God. In this village Jesus was enabled to see that his ministry on earth, his reason for coming to earth at all, could find fulfillment, not only in displays of divine power, but simply by the Holy Spirit in the vehicle of the words that he uttered regarding God’s relationships to human beings.

The apostle John wrote, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and Word was God. . . In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. (John 1:1) In an obscure village in Samaria, Jesus and his disciples lived the truth of that scripture.

Love in Him,

Prue