Jesus tired
When I was relatively young, people would quite often say, “Pastor you look tired.”
I didn’t really enjoy that. So one Sunday morning when I was preaching about the stoning of Stephen and how his face was that of an angel, I said, “It would be nice some time, if instead of saying to me, ‘Pastor you look tired,’ someone would say to me, ‘Pastor you look like an angel’.”
Well, after the service, a woman came to me at the door and said, “Pastor you look like a tired angel.”
So I’ve always related to the incident/parable in John 4. ​​
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The Gospel of John doesn’t relate any of the parables of Jesus. Instead, John uses actual incidents from the life of Jesus and treats them as parables. So we come to the incident in John 4.
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“It was about noon and they came to Jacob’s well.
Jesus, tired from the journey,
sat down by the well.”
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Think of it: Jacob was the father of all Israel,
and now Jacob’s greatest son sits at Jacob’s well.​​​
A tired Jesus.
Why was Jesus tired?
Firstly, he had just completed a long journey – from the Jordan River up to modern-day Nablus – a journey that would take us 27 hours to do at a brisk walk. He was physically tired.
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But there was more to it than that. Verse one tells us that the Pharisees had been trying to stir up trouble between Jesus and John the Baptist. He must have been tired to his bones from the strife and criticism coming from the Pharisees.
And, surely, he was tired from all of the giving out that he had been doing. When a woman touched the edge of his garment, we read, “He felt strength going out from him.” Every pastor and caregiver knows what that feels like.
He was weary to his bones.
Sometimes we become soul-weary, and just soldiering on doesn’t solve it. The time comes when we have to sit down by the well.
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And we must be careful that it is the right well. The world offers many “wells” that just do not touch soul-weariness.
Jesus sat down by Jacob’s well.
Jacob was the father of all Israel and he stands for the great spiritual heritage into which Jesus was born – all the Scriptures and stories of God’s dealing with his people. When we are soul-weary we need sit with Jesus at the well, and go back to the roots of our faith, to the Scriptures, to our stories.
Weakness and Weariness
We can make the mistake of equating tiredness with weakness. And we may be wrong.
Tiredness is not just a function of weakness,
it is a function of being human.
They accused Jesus of many things, but they never accused him of being weak. When he drove out the money-changers and overthrew their tables, he must have been out-numbered 100:1. But it never crossed their minds to confront him physically. They were scared of his strength.
But now says he he is tired.
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And this from a man who made statements which could only be interpreted as claims to be the very Son of God. John gives us seven of them:
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I am the bread of life…
I am the light of the world…
I am the door…
I am the good shepherd…
I am the resurrection and the life…
I am the way…
I am the true vine.”
These claims taken together can mean only one thing – he was claiming to be God- immensely strong.
But now he sits down by Jacob's Well and gives us an eighth “I AM.’
“I AM ….TIRED"
​Why? Not because he was weak.
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HE WAS TIRED BECAUSE HE WAS HUMAN.
Here we have the incarnation – he was fully divine and fully human.
He was powerful enough to create the universe, but he knew what it meant to be tired.
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He is able to say to somebody who is so tired that they don’t know how to carry on, “I have the power to see you through. But he can also sit down beside them and say, “I understand – I’ve been tired too.”
And so, tired, he sat down by Jacob’s well.
And then a woman came. She must have been very weary of life’s journey. She has tried so many things to salve the weariness in her soul. She had been with six men, and none of them could solve the problem of her weariness.
Then she came to Jacob’s Well, and met a seventh man – the One who had rested on the seventh day, one who understood what it was to be weary.
And he would introduce her to a well of living water springing up from within her. A Wellspring.
By this he meant the Holy Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive.
And this well within her would finally salve the deep weariness of her soul.