Bible Study – Third Sunday in Lent – She said “Come and See”
Share: Your highs (something that made you happy) and lows (something that made you sad) this week with others around you or write them down.
Lent invites us to step off our mental treadmills, take a breath, and look around. Lent invites us to ask: Where are we demanding solutions? Where can we risk staying in tension? Where are we blind just not noticing? What do we thirst for? Where are we bound or stuck? What will we risk doing during these 40 days of Lent to clear a space in which Easter can break through?
Politically incorrect: she was of a gender without voice and a race without acceptance. Yet she may well have been the first evangelist. “Come and see!” she said. They did, and they believed.
Who in your community are the Samaritans: those we avoid because they are different? Notice who gets treated as different in your community.
In today’s story Jesus talks with a woman from Samaria. Jews and Samaritans had very different ways of worshipping, and each thought the other’s way was very wrong. Think about people who get discriminated against in our community and in our schools. Is there a child no one wants to play with? Are there people in our community who have a hard time getting good jobs, decent houses, etc.?
Opening Prayer: “Help us, God, to see people as Jesus sees them. Amen.”
Please open your Bibles to John 4:5-42 and read or read the scriptures below.
John 4:5-42
5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
27 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?”
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
Many Samaritans Believe
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
Reflection Questions: (Answers at the bottom of the page)
- What did you like about this story?
- What questions or thoughts do you have about this story?
- What do they remember about the Samaritan woman?
- How does Jesus see this woman?
- How do the disciples see the woman?
- How did the people in her community respond to her excitement?
Bible Memory Verse: John 4:13-14 “13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Click here for the young learner’s lesson.
Videos (Click on url)
The Woman at the Well (John4: 1-42 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yNyRqxYZms
Book of John Summary: A Complete Animated Overview (Part 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-2e9mMf7E8
Song: The Woman at the Well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl-IqYjpuBo&list=RDYl-IqYjpuBo&start_radio=1
Activities:
Newscaster: Your task is to report this story as a newscast, so you will need to decide who you are going to write about. A newscaster interviews experts, officials or people involved in the news event and provides updates on breaking news. They research and write news stories and fact checks information for accuracy. Write your story from any of the people involved in the Samaritan Story.
Printable: You color or paint the designs on the banner, door hanger and bookmark. Stickers can be added. String or ribbon can be added to the banner to hang and on the bookmark. Click on the following website and the picture of the banner, door hanger and bookmark. Print and be creative with your designs. https://www.biblefunforkids.com/2021/04/Jesus-instructs-Samaritan-woman.html
The Woman at the Well - Crossword: https://sermons4kids.com/activities/the-woman-at-the-well
Samaritan Woman- Word Search: https://sermons4kids.com/activities/samaritan-woman-1
The Woman at the Well – Fill in the Blank: https://sermons4kids.com/activities/the-woman-at-the-well-1
The Woman at the Well - Multiple Choice: https://sermons4kids.com/activities/the-woman-at-the-well-2
The Woman at the Well – Jumble: https://sermons4kids.com/activities/the-woman-at-the-well-3
Prayer: Thank you, God, that you see us as we really are and that you love us. Help us to see ourselves and each other in the same way you see us. Amen.
Answers to the Reflection Questions:
- What did you like about this story?
- What questions or thoughts do you have about this story?
- What do they remember about the Samaritan woman? (She would not have expected Jesus to speak to her for she was (1) a Samaritan, (2) a woman, and (3) a woman outcast even in her own community.)
- How does Jesus see this woman? (A child of God; a person who could receive his message. Possibly even a person who could bring others to believe also.)
- How do the disciples see the woman? (As a foreigner. Someone who is different. They are shocked that Jesus would even speak to her.)
- How did the people in her community respond to her excitement? (They risk going to see for themselves if she is right.)
