John 4:1-2,4-7,31-34 NASB95
Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John [2] (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), [4] And He had to pass through Samaria. [5] So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; [6] and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. [7] There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”
[31] Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” [32] But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” [33] So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” [34] Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.
In reading this story again, I was struck by what verse six says “So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about noon.” The fact that the Son of God was weary just blows me away about how much God loves us. The triune God has never experienced for a moment what it feels like to be weary from a long journey in the heat of the day. Because of God’s great love for us and unstoppable commitment to save us, He stepped out of eternity into time and became one of us, clothed with our vulnerable and sinful flesh, yet without ever sinning. The God who never knew the feeling of weariness allowed Himself to be weary for us. Jesus didn’t just become weary for us, but clothed in our humanity, He victoriously faced the temptation of self-centeredness that often associates with weary humanity. How many times have we excused impatience, anger, or the unwillingness to be available to someone because we were tired and weary? It’s important to remember that even though Jesus was fully God, He faced every situation as fully man in total dependence on the grace of the Father by the Holy Spirit to overcome. Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, and so when the woman at the well came to where He was, even though He knew this was an opportunity the Father had created, He was certainly tempted, in light of his weariness, to just keep to Himself. Instead, the obedience of Christ was to say yes to his Father’s will, trusting the Holy Spirit with His weariness. The result, of course, was not just that this woman had an encounter with God through Christ, but the entire village of Sychar experienced a move of God.
The grace of God took over in the life of Jesus, at that moment as He walked in childlike faith, in such a way that by the time the disciples had come back with food for the wearied Jesus, our Lord was no longer hungry because His soul was satiated with the grace and will of God.
This isn’t just a great story about Christ in His humanity pressing through weariness in childlike faith to minister to this woman; it is now also a part of your story. You see, Jesus was clothed in your humanity and mine, and though weary, He overcame. Jesus promised us that in this world, we would have tribulation (including weariness), but He told us to take courage, for he had overcome the world. Jesus is saying to us that when we are tempted to give in to the self-centeredness that can be the consequence of weariness of body or soul, He is there in us at that moment saying, “We have faced this before, and I overcame it without sin, and if you’ll just trust me, I will overcome again, now, clothed in your humanity. As we surrender to the obedience of Christ and, in childlike faith, trusting Him for the grace to overcome the temptations that weariness brings, we will find our souls supernaturally satiated, strengthened, and liberated from the gravitational pull of the flesh. It doesn’t mean that we will never get weary. Jesus did, but it does mean that we will no longer have an excuse to sin when we do. Jesus didn’t, and He is our life.