“So Jesus, wearied as He was from His journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.” (John 4:6)
“It was for thee that Jesus was wearied with His journey. We find Jesus to be strength, and we find Jesus to be weak. We find a strong and a weak Jesus.
Strong, because ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: the same was in the beginning with God.’ (John 1:1-2) Wouldest thou see how this Son of God is strong? “All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.’ (John 1:3) And without labor, too, were they made. Then what can be stronger than He, by whom all things were made without labor?
Wouldest thou know Him weak? ‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.’ (John 1:14)
The strength of Christ created thee, the weakness of Christ created thee anew.
The strength of Christ caused that to be which was not.
The weakness of Christ caused that what was should not perish.
He fashioned us by His strength, He sought us by His weakness.”
-Augustine of Hippo, “Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel according to St. John,” in St. Augustin: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. John Gibb and James Innes, vol. 7, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), 7: 100.
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