When Jesus tells us that He is the door, He implies many different things. He describes the door of a sheep pin, a four-sided stone enclosure with about a five foot gap in one end. The shepherd, after gathering the sheep, literally sleeps in the gap, keeping the sheep in and predators out. The shepherd is the gate. This is the picture that Jesus paints with His words. 

To us, who don’t live in a pastoral society, there is another meaning that was implicit 2,000 years ago and is just as valid today. There is but one door into the Kingdom of Heaven, and that door is Jesus. 

Jesus had just fed 5000 men. The total, including women and children could have easily been 20,000 people. The next day, many of those people come looking for Jesus. They wish to make Him king. 

Their minds are set on the physical, as opposed to the spiritual. They think only about how Jesus can make their lives easier, more comfortable. They forget that He had just told some of them that He would not receive the honor of men; they refuse to hear it. 

“…you seek Me, not because you saw the signs,” Jesus tells them, “but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

Jesus listens to their reactions. Make Him king and He can feed the entire nation. He refuses? He’s not going to feed us today? What, no food? Why won’t He? If He fed us yesterday, then why not today? I’d do it. If I had His power, I’d feed everyone, everyday. 

How can we do the mighty works of God, like you do? 

“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

They don’t get it. They continue to press Him for another miracle. They want bread, and Jesus offers them the bread of life. 

How often do we go to Jesus for a miracle, and He offers us Himself. It is nearly impossible for us to comprehend the words of Jesus in this passage. We live in a physical world, in physical bodies, that need to eat regularly, that need to drink constantly.  

Whereas we see only the physical, Jesus responds with the spiritual. Jesus is to our spirits what bread is to our bodies. We cannot survive without Him. 

Our goal in life should never be the blessings of Jesus. Our goal in life should never be to prosper through Him. Our goal should simply be… Jesus. 

My goal is God Himself,

Not joy, nor peace. 

Nor even blessing,

But Himself, my God. 

‘Tis His to lead me there’s

Not mine, but His –

At any cost, dear Lord,

By any road.

– hymn by Frances Brook

Jesus looks up at the sun, straight overhead, and squints his eyes. It’s midday, almost time. He’s tired, but not particularly thirsty. Still, He will ask her for a drink when she arrives. He sits on the edge of Jacob’s Well and peeks into the well. He’s pleased to find it has water. Had it been midsummer, He would have likely found it dry. He smiles and laughs at Himself. Of course, it has water. His Father has flawlessly prepared everything. 

“Give me a drink,” He says with a smile when the woman arrives. It’s his way of striking up a conversation. 

The look on her face when He speaks is priceless. He’s caught her off guard, which means she will speak candidly. That’s what He wants. Be open and honest with me, and I will touch your heart. 

“What do you want with me? You’re a Jew and I’m a Samaritan.” She seems incredulous. 

He is patient with her, but not direct; He speaks to her in a parable, for He wants her to ponder His words carefully. “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

He searches her heart and reveals it to her, for no one can truly know her own heart. He presents her with the opportunity to fill the emptiness inside her, to truly fill the void in her life, and that it’s something she has tried to do for years. To thirst no more; what wonderment. What blessedness. 

He reveals to her her sin, but not in a condemning way. He knows that she has already condemned herself. He knows that she also feels the condemnation of the Law. He also knows that she has felt that way her entire life. A second-class citizen, a phony, a woman of ill-repute. She has heard it all. Because she knows that her life displeases God, He offers her hope as an alternative to condemnation. 

“…the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Jesus sees that she is beginning to comprehend. “I know that the Messiah is coming, and that He shall reveal to us all things.”

Jesus looks deep into her eyes to be sure He has her full attention. What He tells her shall change her life forever. Very slowly and carefully he tells her,

“I… who speak to you… Am He.”