We should start this morning by noting where we are in John’s Gospel, at the beginning of chapter 5. As many of you will have surmised by now, this comes right after chapter 4, in which only two things happen. Just preceding these events, John recounts a healing in Capernaum, which is up on the NW shore of the Sea of Galilee. Just before that is Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in which he talks about giving “living water.”
Jesus is getting around! Samaria is between Galilee to the north and Jerusalem to the south, and it’s about 100 miles from Jerusalem to Capernaum across hilly terrain. Clearly John isn’t telling us everything. But, as he writes at the end of chapter 20, “…these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Remember that is why we are here; “life in his name.”
This encounter combines elements of those prior two: living water and healing.
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