Saturday after Quasimodogeniti

Scripture: St. John 4:39-45 (NKJV)

4:39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of His own word.

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.”

43 Now after the two days He departed from there and went to Galilee. 44 For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they also had gone to the feast.

Devotion

Many of the Samaritans that came out to hear Jesus believed in Him because He told the woman all that she ever did. With this Jesus demonstrates His divine omniscience, much in the same way He had done for Nathaniel in chapter one. For both Nathaniel and the Samaritan woman, the miracle brought them to the beginning of faith that Jesus was the Messiah.

Jesus wanted to move the crowd beyond a faith that believes because of what someone else says to a faith that believes because of what He says. He taught this crowd of Samaritans about original sin and rebirth through water and the Spirit as He had taught Nicodemus in chapter three. After staying with them for two days, “many more believed because of His own word.”

Jesus still wants people’s faith to be in the Word He gives through the Holy Scriptures, which are His very words written by the Apostles and Evangelists. He doesn’t want us to believe in Him just because of what He’s done for other people. He wants us to believe because of what He has done for us. He has taken on our human flesh and weakness, lived a perfectly righteous life, died as our substitute under God’s wrath, and was raised to life to justify all who believe in Him. We believe because He has done these for us and proclaims them to us in His Word.

Prayer: Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we who have celebrated the solemnities of the Lord’s Resurrection may, by the help of Thy grace, bring forth the fruits thereof in our life and conversation; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.