[XI. Sowing and Reaping]
Our Lord Jesus Christ was sitting on Jacob's Well, waiting for the return of the disciples, who had gone to the nearest village to buy food.
It was mid-day, and the Syrian sun had been beating down on the wearied Lord of all the earth.
At the bottom of the steps, travellers tell us, leading down to "Jacob's Well," there is a small excavation or shelter between some overhanging stones, and here the dear Lord may have found a little shade while He waited.
A woman had come down these steps to draw water, and the Lord had spoken of the Living Water which He would give her if she asked Him; and then, after they had been talking a little while, she had left Jesus sitting there, and had hurried into the town to tell her neighbours that she had found the Messiah—the Christ.
While she was gone, the disciples returned and quickly offered food to their Lord.
But His reply astonished them. He said: "I have food to eat that you do not know of. My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work!"
While they had been away, wearied and hungry as He was, He had brought a sinful soul to realize her sin, and to find in Him her Saviour!
And then He said to them: "Are there not four months before the harvest? But lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest.
"He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit to life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together."