Fruit: Seeing (blog)

"...I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields!  They are ripe for harvest."  (John 4:35) I'm certain that the disciples' eyes were already open when they met back up with Jesus at an old well near the Samaritan town of Sychar, where they had left him to rest while they went into the town center to buy food.  Their teacher obviously meant that they needed to take a closer look around them, but at what? What were the disciples seeing but missing here? They were seeing...the old well, to which the Samaritan people living in the area came continually to quench their thirst...a woman in such a hurry to flee the scene that she had left her water jar behind...and Jesus, who was weary from the journey. I'm guessing that if Jesus himself was tired then the disciples were too. Was Jesus suggesting that weariness had dulled their vision? Or did he mean that they needed to look differently at what they were clearly seeing? Or both? The disciples had seen Jesus talking with the woman right before she fled, which no doubt surprised them as Jewish people didn't associate with Samaritans. But otherwise the men weren't perceiving anything outside of the ordinary there, and certainly nothing that would suggest hope for a harvest. Hadn't Jesus just sent them away to find food? If they didn't realize at that moment that Jesus was talking about a spiritual harvest, they would soon. Something none of them expected there in that place was about to happen. After talking with Jesus, the woman ran back to tell her neighbors about him. They listened to her, "came out of the town and made their way toward" Jesus, and "urged him to stay with them" (v. 4:30, 40). Some of them were already daring to put their hope in Jesus because of the woman's testimony about him: "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" (v. 4:29) Jesus stayed with the people of Sychar for 2 days and many more of them came to believe in him after listening to his words. "We no longer believe just because of what you said," they told the woman, "now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world." (v. 4:42) Jesus recognized that the Samaritan woman and her neighbors were 'ripe' for harvest, ready to believe in him as their Savior, and he wanted his disciples to see this too. Do you believe that Jesus' words, "open your eyes and look" apply to those of us who follow him today as well? I do.  I'm going to pray about this, look more closely myself (at John 4:1-42), and share more next week...