Traveling through Samaria, Jesus encounters a woman at Jacob's well, offering her living water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life, and revealing His knowledge of her five former husbands and current partner, leading her to perceive He is a prophet. Jesus' teaching that true worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth transcending both Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim, combined with His explicit identification as the Messiah, transforms the woman into an evangelist whose testimony draws the town to believe. After the disciples return and Jesus speaks of harvest fields white for reaping, the Samaritans confess Jesus as the Savior of the world, and Jesus returns to Galilee where He heals the royal official's son from a distance, His second sign.
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Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel and later became the name for the entire region between Judea and Galilee. After the Assyrian conquest, the population became mixed, and the Samaritans developed their own form of worship. Jews and Samaritans had deep hostility. Jesus broke social barriers by speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well and telling the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Cana of Galilee was a village where Jesus performed his first miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding feast. It was also the hometown of Nathanael (Bartholomew). Jesus later healed a royal official's son from a distance while in Cana.
Capernaum was a fishing village on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee that became the center of Jesus' Galilean ministry. Jesus called it "his own city" and performed many miracles there, including healing Peter's mother-in-law and the centurion's servant. The ruins of a synagogue where Jesus taught can still be seen today.
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The Word became flesh, dwelling among us.
Seven miraculous signs revealing Jesus' glory.
