Two thousand years ago, when a Jewish Person needed to travel from Judea to Galilee, he would avoid the most obvious route through Samaria, because as John plainly put it, “Jews had no dealings with Samaritans”. So they would take the long way around. But one Jewish Man and His disciples made a scandalous habit of going right through the middle of it.
Around noon one day, in the Samaritan town of Sychar, Jesus stopped by Jacob’s Well to rest, weary from the journey. While the disciples went to town for supplies, Jesus struck up a deep conversation with a woman, also a scandalous thing to do. Eventually, the woman left her jar, went back into town and told the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Messiah?” Jesus spent two days in that town and left such an impression on the people that they admitted to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
Someone’s “name” indicates their reputation and everything that person stands for. People either make good names or bad names for themselves. If you speak on behalf of someone, you speak in their name. A royal courier speaks in the name of the King. In government, a representative is supposed to speak in the name of the people. Throughout history, mankind has consistently hung its hopes on the names of inspiring leaders and government systems, expecting them to bring peace to our never-ending wars, health to our deadly diseases, and unity to our epidemic divisions. But there is only ONE NAME under heaven by which we can be saved. Only Jesus can bring Light to our darkness. Only Jesus can bring Life to our death. Only Jesus is strong enough to save.
Just like that Samaritan village, when we spend some time with Jesus, we will also become convinced that only He could be the Savior of the world.
