Weariness

and rest

Scripture Reading: John 4:1-45

In this wonderful account of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well, we find in verse six that Jesus was weary. It is interesting that all the disciples went into town to buy food and left Jesus alone by the well. We see in this the true humanity of Jesus. And we should note that weariness is not sinfulness. Jesus was sinless and tired.

I encourage you to read the whole account of the Samaritan woman’s conversion and her transformation into an evangelistic force for Christ. But that isn’t my main point of interest in this devotional. When the woman has headed back to town and the disciples have returned from town with food, they encourage Jesus to eat. They know he is tired. Maybe that is the reason he gave them for leaving him alone at the well. But Jesus refuses the food and says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”

Jesus' physical weariness was overcome by spiritual work. By engaging in the work His Father had given Him to do Jesus was energized in ways a solid meal couldn’t do.

In another place, Jesus invited the weary to come to him for rest saying, “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” A yoke is for labor. A burden is a weight. Yet Jesus says that we find rest when we come to Him and are yoked with Him. It isn’t that the Christian life is a life of stagnant inactivity. It is a life of obedient labor. But by God’s grace it is in that labor we find our weariness dissipates. It is in being yoked with Jesus in His work that we find our truest and deepest rest.