Isaiah 39 is brief. It records a visit of envoys from Babylon. They came to offer best wishes, because they heard Hezekiah had been sick. While they were with Hezekiah, he showed them all his wealth. Isaiah came to ask what the Babylonians had seen? When Hezekiah told Isaiah they had seen everything he owned, Isaiah responded that in the future the Babylonians would come and carry all his wealth to Babylon and that some of the sons that came from Hezekiah would be carried off as eunuchs in Babylon. Hezekiah’s response is selfish: that’s okay. At least it won’t happen in my lifetime. It would be easy to be hard on Hezekiah for such thinking, but most of us would have similar thoughts, at least on the inside, if we heard such news.
Isaiah 40 is one of the most beautiful passages in Isaiah’s entire prophecy. It speaks of God’s comfort for His people Israel. It contains so many quotable statements. In it we are told the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the LORD stands forever. We’re also told that even youths will grow tired and weary, but those who wait on the LORD will renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint. Each day during my daily time of pray, I tell the LORD I am waiting on Him. I wait as a servant waits on his King, as a child waits on his daddy. I often quote this last passage of Isaiah 40 in my prayer. I proclaim that as I wait on the LORD He will renew my strength. He will do that supernaturally, because it is supernatural to mount up on wings as eagles. He will do that in providing perseverance as one who runs and does not grow weary, or who walks and does not faint. In my time of waiting on the LORD, I listen for anything He has to say to me, and I remember that before I do anything, I need to praise the LORD and wait on Him. After all, I serve Him, not the other way around.
As we return to John 4, we remember Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. From a social and cultural standpoint, Jesus did everything “wrong.” He ought not to have spoken to a woman in public, and certainly not a Samaritan woman. Yet, Jesus not only spoke to the woman, He asked her to give Him a drink of water. This was a practical request, and having visited Israel, I know how scarce water is in the region of Samaria. Jesus needed a drink. But Jesus wasn’t asking for water simply, because He was thirsty. He asked so He could share with the woman that He was the one who provides “living water.” Jesus could quench the woman’s thirst, and not merely her physical thirst. He could quench the thirst in her soul. The woman was damaged. She had been married five times, which in that culture was considered horrendous. She was living with a man who was not her husband. Again, this was radically unacceptable. Still, Jesus accepted the woman, and not only accepted her, He revealed to her that He was the Messiah! He hadn’t told that to Nicodemus. He didn’t offer that information when He was at the wedding in Cana. He revealed it to a woman who was as low on the societal scale as possible. Just like Jesus! Jesus never cared about social conformity. Jesus certainly never cared about what other people thought about Him or the people with whom He associated. He only cared about showing His Father’s love to everyone He could. The result of Jesus’ encounter with the woman, was she believed, and not only her, but eventually all the people in her town. They believed first based on her testimony, and then based on their personal interaction with Jesus. The good news for us is we can also believe based on the woman’s testimony and the testimony of so many others we read in the words of John, the other gospel writers, and Paul, along with so many others. One day, we too, will get to be with Jesus. Then our faith will be fully confirmed, but for now we rely on the evidence we see so clearly in the transformations that took place in those who knew Jesus personally from those who walked with Him, to those in our present day.
The other important event of John 4, was Jesus’ healing of the son of an official from Cana. We don’t know whether the man was a synagogue official, or a government official, but whatever it was, putting his faith in Jesus was an act of desperation as much as an act of faith. When Jesus healed the boy, the official and his family believed in Jesus. John reminds us this was the second sign Jesus performed during His ministry. The first was a “nature” sign as Jesus turned water into wine. This was a healing sign, and Jesus did it without even going near the boy. Again, we see Jesus is the Messiah, God’s Son. His actions speak that message clearly.