John 4:33Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

It is proper, and even necessary, for teachers to entrust care for food to others. Thus, without distraction, they may fulfill the ministry of the word. Therefore He even commanded the disciples to be fed at the expense of those whom they instructed (Lk 10:7).

So also the very drink for that woman was the fulfillment of the will of Him who sent Him. Therefore He said, "I thirst; give Me to drink" (Jn 4:7).

That is, He asked that she cultivate faith within herself. Then He would drink her faith and place her in His own body, for His body is the Church.

He Himself says, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me" (Jn 4:34).

His spirit contemplated the workings of divine truth in the soul of the woman, in the inhabitants of the city, in the land, and in the whole world.

He had in view the worldwide spread of that teaching whose beginnings He was now offering to a poor woman. He already saw before Him the harvest from the seeds He was now casting into the depths of the earth.

Therefore the Lord answered the disciples' astonishment: "I have another food of which you do not know." That which nourishes My spirit makes Me forget bodily food.

"My food is to fulfill the will of Him who sent Me, and I fulfill His work." I sow the seed from which the kingdom of God must spread through all mankind.

Then, in a parabolic comparison, He showed them what He meant by the work of God begun among the Samaritans.

Perhaps He was looking, on one side, at farmers scattered through the fields, occupied with sowing, or at the grain sprouting in the fields. On the other side He saw the crowds coming out to Him from the city at the woman's summons.

The Lord said: you say that the harvest will not be earlier than four months from now. In nature this is so. But now, in spiritual matters, it is otherwise.

When the time has come, the seed is only just being sown, and the harvest has already begun. Lift up your eyes, He said, pointing to the approaching crowds of Samaritans, and see how these fields are already ready for harvest.

At the same time, seeing in spirit that He would leave the earth before the full harvest began, He knew that He would have to entrust its completion to His disciples.

The Lord prophetically foretold that this present harvest lay before them. He would enjoy it together with them, for the sower and the reaper would rejoice. They would reap what had been sown.

Thus the Lord already hinted to them at His departure from them and at His near death. This was preceded by the still nearer death of His Forerunner.

It had quickly kindled her with faith in Him. This word, passed on by her to her fellow citizens, had moved them to come to Him.

Seeing the crowd of townspeople coming toward Him, He rejoiced that the seed He had cast was already beginning to bear fruit. Therefore, when the disciples urged Him to satisfy His hunger, He answered that His food was to do the will of Him who sent Him.

Then, pointing to the Samaritans coming toward Him, He said, "You say that the harvest will come in four months. But I say to you: look at this field drawing near to us, how it has become white and ripe for harvest.

"I will send you to reap what has been sown by Me. You who reap will receive a reward, because you will gather fruit for eternal life.

"You will rejoice as you gather the harvest, though you yourselves did not sow. Yet the One who sows the word of God will rejoice with you, because what He sowed has borne fruit."

When grain is sown in the earth, most often the one who reaps, that is, gathers the fruit, is the same one who sowed. He sowed for himself.

But in the sowing of the word, the spiritual harvest almost always belongs to others. The one who sowed rejoices that others have gathered the fruit of his sowing, because he sowed not for himself, but for others.

Therefore, with regard to the spiritual field, it is entirely true that one sows and another reaps.

These crowds are drawing near to Him. He continues, "Do you not say, 'There are still four months, and then comes the harvest'? But I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are white and ready for harvest."

"Do you not say?" These words themselves show that Jesus is citing common speech. In the language of the people He expresses to the disciples His joy that whole crowds of Shechemites are coming to Him, some believing, others ready to believe.

Only recently He sowed spiritual seeds in the heart of the Samaritan woman. Now the field is already ripe: the inhabitants of Sychar, with changed hearts.

The Savior often elsewhere compared the gospel to seed, and the conversion of souls to harvest: Mt 9:37ff.; Mt 13:3ff.; Mk 4:26ff.; Lk 8:5ff. In Palestine wheat was sown in November and early December.

By February the grain is already as high as it is among us in May. In the month of Nisan, which corresponds to our April, the firstfruits of barley were offered.

Christ Jesus took the image for His thought from the green field surrounding Him. This is important for determining the times in the Savior's life. From this it is evident that from Pascha, in April, until early February Jesus remained in the land of Judea (Jn 3:22; Jn 4:3).

When the disciples had gone into the city to buy food, they saw their divine Teacher wearied and weakened from the journey, thirsty and hungry. Therefore, in their zeal, they hasten to offer Him food.

But the Lord Jesus is God, and at the same time man. He is the ideal toward which every ordinary mortal must strive, though of course never attaining it.

Yet in this striving, man draws near to God and fulfills His holy will.

In the form and being of man, the Lord Jesus shows in Himself the highest image of human nature. In this nature, thought subdues the body and rules over bodily weaknesses and needs.

Drawing His disciples from earthly cares to heavenly things, He indicates to them that "man shall not live by bread alone" (Mt 4:4).

He explains and reveals to them that mystery of man's spiritual life which creates martyrs, ascetics, and all those who leave earthly things in order to follow the Lord. The Lord is the Truth (Jn 14:6).

Compare also Athanasius the Great, cited above concerning Jn 4:21-24.

In all these, who surrender their earthly desires and earthly body to the Lord, bodily weakness is joined to astonishing greatness of spirit.

This spirit is strong not by its own power, but by the power of God. It is strong when it does the will of God and gives up its earthly life and enjoyments, in order to magnify and glorify God's name.

In this case, as in many others, "His disciples did not understand this at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered" (Jn 12:16).

The beloved disciple recorded all this "that you may believe... and that believing you may have life in His name" (Jn 20:31).

Here we see how the God-man, wearied and weakened according to His humanity, causes the spirit to triumph over the flesh in man.

"My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work."

The weakness of human strength disappears. The demand of nature to strengthen itself with food recedes into second place before the greatness of the work.

To this work "the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5) gives Himself, in order to fulfill the work of the God-man and the will of God.

Human thought and the loving human heart fulfill the thought of God. Here in Samaria, God's thought draws crowds of foreigners to God.

For soon, very soon, they will replace before God the people once chosen. God's thought, embodied in the Lord's human thought, builds the Church of Christ.

So too does God's love, burning in the God-man's love for all mankind. It opens to all humanity, in faith in the Lord Jesus, endless prospects of perfection.

And who will dare deny that Christian society has taken possession of the world precisely because it is Christian?

The final aim of the God-man, who fulfills God's thought, is the eternal happiness of the human soul.