March 10

He Sat on the Well

Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. — John 4:6

In all the gospel story there are few more tenderly suggestive pictures of Jesus than that which we have in these words. He has been travelling all day in the hot sun, and coming to this resting-place He sits down on a well-curb. He is weary and way-worn with His long journey He is both hungry and thirsty. This is the picture of Jesus for tired people. In other places we have pictures for the tempted, and for the bereft and sorrowing, for the penitent and for mothers and children, and for the blind, the deaf, the lame, and the persecuted. Here, however, is the picture for the weary.

As we look at it we see the human side of Christ’s life. Here is one of His experiences which we can understand. As we see Him healing, teaching, raising the dead, transfigured, He is far above us, and we cannot enter into His feelings. But in His bodily weariness, after His long journey in the heat and dust, He is down amongst us, and we can tell just how He felt. The chief comfort comes to us from the fact that He is able now to sympathize with us when we are tired, because that day, so long since, He was tired.

Do we get all the blessing we might get from the truth of our Lord’s actual human experiences? When we have been working hard all day and are weary and faint, let us remember this picture — Jesus, footsore and dust-covered, sinking down in sheer exhaustion on the stone curb. He has not forgotten even in His glory how He felt that day, and as He sees us in our weariness, His heart feels tenderly for us. He looks down upon us in compassion, and sends to us a benediction of strength and cheer. Let all the people whose work is hard, and who ofttimes are very tired, frame this picture in their memory and keep it always hanging up on the wall of their heart.