How precious it is to us that this Gospel, which has the loftiest
things to say about the manifest divinity of our Lord, and the glory
that dwelt in Him, is always careful to emphasise also the manifest
limitations and weaknesses of the Manhood. John never forgets either
term of his great sentence in which all the gospel is condensed, 'the
Word became flesh.' Ever he shows us 'the Word'; ever 'the flesh.' Thus
it is he only who records the saying on the Cross, 'I thirst.' It is he
who tells us how Jesus Christ, not merely for the sake of getting a
convenient opening of a conversation, or to conciliate prejudices, but
because He needed what He asked, said to the woman of Samaria, 'Give Me
to drink.' So the weariness of the Master stands forth for us as
pathetic proof that it was no shadowy investiture with an apparent
Manhood to which He stooped, but a real participation in our
limitations and weaknesses, so that work to Him was fatigue, even
though in Him dwelt the manifest glory of that divine nature which
'fainteth not, neither is weary.'
Not only does this pathetic incident teach us for our firmer faith, and
more sympathetic and closer apprehension, the reality of the Manhood of
Jesus Christ, but it supplies likewise some imperfect measure of His
love, and reveals to us one condition of His power. Ah! if He had not
Himself known weariness He never could have said, 'Come unto Me, all ye
that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' It was
because Himself 'took our infirmities,' and amongst these the weakness
of tired muscles and exhausted frame, that 'He giveth power to the
faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.' The
Creator must have no share in the infirmities of the creature. It must
be His unwearied power that calls them all by their names; and because
He is great in might 'not one' of the creatures of His hand can 'fail.'
But the Redeemer must participate in that from which He redeems; and
the condition of His strength being 'made perfect in our weakness' is
that our weakness shall have cast a shadow upon the glory of His
strength. The measure of His love is seen in that, long before Calvary,
He entered into the humiliation and sufferings and sorrows of humanity;
a condition of His power is seen in that, forasmuch as the 'children
were partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part
of the same,' not only that 'through death He might deliver' from
death, but that in life He might redeem from the ills and sorrows of
life.
Nor does that exhausted Figure, reclining on Jacob's Well, preach to us
only what _He_ was. It proclaims to us likewise what _we_ should be.
For if His work was carried on to the edge of His capacity, and if He
shrank not from service because it involved toil, what about the
professing followers of Jesus Christ, who think that they are exempted
from any form of service because they can plead that it will weary
them? What about those who say that they tread in His footsteps, and
have never known what it was to yield up one comfort, one moment of
leisure, one thrill of enjoyment, or to encounter one sacrifice, one
act of self-denial, one aching of weariness for the sake of the Lord
who bore all for them? The wearied Christ proclaims His manhood,
proclaims His divinity and His love, and rebukes us who consent to
'walk in the way of His commandments' only on condition that it can be
done without dust or heat; and who are ready to run the race that is
set before us, only if we can come to the goal without perspiration or
turning a hair. 'Jesus, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the
well.'