# 62 A Divine Mission

Joh 4:4 But He needed to go through Samaria.

There was a woman at a well who needed to know that divorce, adultery, and fornication are sins. A woman who needed to know that the “living water” that can wash away those sins was talking with her one on one! In short, a woman who needed to know Jesus! God’s timing is impeccable!

This woman was a Samaritan, and a brief history of Samaria seems fitting at this point. The Samaritans were a mix of people that ended up occupying the land which was formerly known as Israel’s northern kingdom. The details are found in 2 Kings 17:24-4, let me try and sum it up for you.

Some 700 years before Christ, the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom and as was their practice, they carried off the conquered people into captivity and then resettled the land with people of their own choosing.

They were men from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvath, and they were placed in various cities of the conquered northern kingdom. These people did not fear the One true God, so the Lord sent lions among them and killed some of them.

The Assyrians had this idea of localized or geographical gods, so the king had this plan to send in a Jewish priest to teach the new inhabitants the rituals of the “God” of the land. They didn’t know they were dealing with the God of every land!

The priest set up shop in Bethel and taught the people that they should fear the Lord. The people ended up with a mix of religions, fearing the Lord, but also serving carved images!

This is the country that Jesus “needed to go through!”  He had to straighten out a misguided people who had displaced the Jews of the northern kingdom. A people who claimed Jacob as their ancestor. (Jn 4:12) A people who claimed their Mt Gerezim as the only place to worship God (JN 4:20)  and yet a a people who believed a Messiah was coming, one who would tell them all things. (Jn 4:25)

Having displaced the Jews in the land, the Samaritans were hated by the Jews. Most Jews would rather walk around Samaria than through it because association with a Samaritan was viewed as uncleanness. But Jesus would not walk around Samaria. He “needed to go through it!” He had a divine appointment with a Samaritan woman with very loose morals and a distorted picture of God! A woman who, once saved, would go and tell others!

Jesus was on a divine mission seeking those who would worship Him in Spirit and in truth, (Jn 4:23)

Here He was, ever the Shepherd, seeking the lost. Ever seeking to make the unclean, clean. Perhaps He is seeking you today. He knows your uncleanness, and He has come to tell you, that your uncleanness can be washed away by living water that He brings. He desires to cleanse you and I from the inside out, washing away sins forever by His death on the cross, and promising you and I new resurrected life with Him as you trust in Him as your Lord and Savior.

Surrender to Him and know with the rest of the Samaritans, that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world. Joh 4:42 Then they said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world."