Message:  

Passage: John 4:1-30

Series:The Book of John: Bearing Witness

Date: 11.7.2018

Have you the feeling that true satisfaction, lasting joy, evades you? It’s the feeling that there is something missing, as if life isn’t measuring up to what it’s supposed to be. And should we ever land a season of bliss, which happens in short spurts from time to time, we do everything in our power to recreate that short season. Be it a job, a relationship, a group of friends, a season of prosperity, we strive to resurrect and re-enact that which brought us comfort. But it’s hard traveling to do so, it would seem that the stars have to align and the planets pause their orbiting in order for this season happen again. Friends, this is called nostalgia. We talked of this when we read the book, The Prodigal God, by Tim Keller. Because we naturally are longing for this feeling of home and can’t find it, we wander from thing to thing looking for fulfillment. Whether the world is aware of it or not, I believe most of humanity lives and operates in this wandering, this groping for true life that sustains joy.

The Bible speaks so poignantly to the human condition. Our passage today in the book of John speaks directly to the source of all our longing. It diagnoses our condition and why we can’t find it. And it offers not only the cure, but the joy, comfort, fulfillment, the life we long for.

I want to give you context before we read this morning. We are in the book of John, chapter 4. Today we read the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well. This was a scandalous encounter in that day. There is history between the people of Samaria and the people of Israel. The people of Samaria were considered half-breeds of the Jews. The separation happened in 605 BC when Nebuchadnezzar captured Israel, and thus begun the Babylonian Captivity of the people of God. Some jews were left in Samaria. They continued in their worship using the Pentateuch only, but their worship was ill-informed, and according to the Jews, mixed with the practices of Gentiles. Furthermore, they didn’t return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, but continued where they were, in their own tradition of worship. The Jews didn’t accept the Samaritans. The Samaritans had developed a temple of worship on Mt Gerizim, a place where Abraham had offered sacrifices to God. The Jews attest the Jerusalem is the city of God. Furthermore, this was a strongly patriarchal society. To converse with a woman was not appropriate, let alone a women of Samaria. In fact, the prevailing thought of the day was that women of Samaria were perpetually unclean. Jews knew this, and Samaritans knew this. There was mutual animosity between the two, and yet we find an encounter between Jesus, the sovereign Son of God and a woman of Samaria. He’s weary from his travels, yet even now he is seeking souls, the lost, the downcast, the outcast, those who are perpetually longing.[stand and read ] John 4:1–30

[1] Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John [2] (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), [3] he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. [4] And he had to pass through Samaria. [5] So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. [6] Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

[7] A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” [8] (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) [9] The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) [10] Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” [11] The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? [12] Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” [13] Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” [15] The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

[16] Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” [17] The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; [18] for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” [19] The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. [20] Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” [21] Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. [22] You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. [23] But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. [24] God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” [25] The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” [26] Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

[27] Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” [28] So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, [29] “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” [30] They went out of the town and were coming to him. (ESV)

We are going to look at our passage today under the following headings: 

Our Desperate Thirst 

The Living Water

Called to the Light

Seeking The Bride

The Groom Has Arrived (sanctifies through truth, sets captives free, prepares for himself a bride adorned, gives water of life, Rev 21)Our Desperate Thirst 

Briefly, verse 1-5 inform us about the nature of this encounter. Jesus left Judea. It states that he left because the Pharisees had learned that he was gaining in popularity. Throughout the gospels we read how Jesus would mysteriously disappear in the crowds because they wanted to kill him for his words, making himself out to be God. In Luke 4, they literally took him to the edge of the cliff to throw him off. Friends, Jesus is God, and is sovereign. Remember, he had plainly told his mother, “My hour has not yet come.” Was Jesus afraid? No. But he knew His hour, and here Jesus might be managing the dynamic of Jerusalem, knowing what is in the heart of man, and knowing his hour had not arrived to be delivered to Rome to die. 

What we know of Jesus is that he came to seek and save the lost. This is what he is about, and Jesus has taken us from the “righteous” Pharisee, who didn’t know he was dead in his sin, to the desperately thirsty, who would frequent the same well, believing it would satisfy.

It seems apparent to me through the word that we don’t even know how desperately thirsty we are. In this encounter, we understand that the women is going to the well at noon— the heat of the day, and alone. Both are for the same reason. Women would typically go to the well, or anywhere, in groups. It was both part of the culture, but it also represented community, and acceptance. Friends, there is joy in community, is there not? We were made for relationship.This woman is alone. Furthermore, she comes at noon, when all the women of Samaria have already retrieved their water. She’s been to this well many times; she knows when to go, and when not to go. She’s heard the snickering, the laughs, and felt the disregard. The boundaries of society have been drawn. She’s on the outside, she’s accepted this as her allotted role in the community. It is what it is… she thinks to herself. 

And then, those societal boundaries are crossed. (Intro/extrovert?) Like a person who pays no attention to social cues, and blurts out what should be their inner-dialogue to the world, Jesus says to her, verse 7, “Give me a drink…”

The woman who was ignored, cast out, longing for acceptance, for community, doesn’t even know how to react when she finds it. V9. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” This was a major boundary crossing! But this is what she longed for, true community, for true LIFE - this is what her soul was thirsty for, and it’s the life that has evaded her, no matter how hard she has toiled, no matter which well she had found, she had not been able to draw continual life. What she needed was not just water, but life. She needed living water.

Living Water

So often, we think we know what we need, don’t we? We’re quite sure of it - give me this and I’ll be fine! 

Jesus response: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Friends, what do we need for life- a sustaining element we can’t live without? [coffee // water]

Let me determine what you need. You don’t know. You’re so thirsty, you’re drinking salt-water. It looks like it will bring you life, but instead it will dry you out. It looks like a promising life, but it will drain you dry, to the point of death; it will not sustain you.

And Jesus offered living water. Friends, the Samaritans had the Torah, but they didn’t have the prophets, who went with Israel into Babylonian captivity. Rightly, Jesus said, “If you knew…” because the people of Samaria didn’t know!  They didn’t know the prophets, like Jeremiah 2:13: There God declares: ‘My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.’ Or that the prophets looked forward to a time when ‘living water will flow out from Jerusalem’ (Zc. 14:8; cf. Ezk. 47:9). Or that, as we saw in Ezekiel 36:25–27, water was a symbol that promises cleansing. 

Specifically, Jesus offered living water. The water he gives will cleanse her. According to the Mishnah, touching an unclean person made you unclean. Not so with Jesus. He touches the lepers, and they are healed. He touches the dead, and they rise. He touches the sinful, and they are cleansed. He brings us from death to life, from sorrow to joy. Do you see how John is building this theme of water?From John the Baptist and baptism, to purification pots in John 2 in which Jesus turned water into wine, to Nicodemus being born of water and the Spirit, to purification and the Bride. John symbolically foreshadowed that it is by the washing through Jesus’ blood that one is made clean. 

He offers her what she doesn’t even know she needs; living water that will cleanse her, give her life, and sustain her. She doesn’t get it. Look at the dialogue with me in verse 10-15.

10 - offer, (If you knew…)

11-12 - woman: you crazy? Do you think you’re something great? Do you think you’re better than me because you’re a jew? Our Fathers… Are you greater than Jacob?

Look at verse 13

13-14 - “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again. The water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus’ gentle response and offering. She doesn’t yet know it, but he speaks to her needs, her fears, her longing to be clean, and free of shame, and this for eternity.

Her response is somewhat comical. She was likely being sarcastic, but even in her response, her hurt bled out. “Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water!”

Now Jesus goes right to the well she’s been drawing from; the reason she’s dry, and needs refilled, the reason she’s ashamed, the reason she’s here at noon, when the other women are gone, the reason she’s alone and outcast. She believes she’s hiding from her sin, but it’s rightly exposed as if in the noon day son. Jesus calls her to the light.

Called to the Light

“Go call your husband, and come here.”

Notice - he calls her, and her husband. He calls her, and that which she is missing. He tears off the bandage and opens the wound.

“I have no husband.” Ouch. That hurt. She must have been thinking of ways to divert the conversation away, to redirect. Maybe he’ll have mercy if he sees that I’m alone, not married. Surely he won’t press in to this wound, even for a someone who doesn’t recognize the Samaratin / Jewish boundary, this is intensely personal…

Jesus: “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband.’ You have had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband. What you said is true.”

 

Sometimes mercy doesn’t look like mercy. Mercy, when dealing in matters of sin and the heart, looks more like surgery than it does closing the bandage. Mercy would not be letting the wound fester, grow, and destroy the soul. Mercy is eradicating the cancer. Mercy is not to let someone die, but to bring them to life! Jesus is pursuing this Samaritan woman as His bride…

She deflects, “Sir I perceive you are a prophet. Our Fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

Ok. Maybe you have some divine knowledge. Let’s talk about God. Remember, Jacob is OUR Father— we are descendants of Jacob too! We belong! We are legitimate children of God! Let’s talk about worship, something or anything other than me. Surely there are more important things than my sin and shame.

Jesus’ response: “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews…

Remember, Jesus told the pharisees that the temple of God would be destroyed, and he would raise it up in 3 days. Jesus was referring to himself as the temple of God, who was indwelled with the Spirit! Jesus, the second Adam!  So he corrects her, but also includes her. She talked of their father Abraham, and Isaac, Jacob… Jesus spoke of God the Father. He lifted the level of their conversation, and she’s beginning to understand. Jesus is rightly identifying that salvation is coming, and from the Jews, but it’s coming to all people. There is not a mountain to worship on, but a Sprit to worship through! There is a true  people of God, to whom she can belong!

But the hour is coming and is here now when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the father is seeking such people to worship him.”

Notice, Jesus says spirit and truth! Does this sound familiar? He told the pharisee, oh righteous Nick, you must be born of water and Spirit. Now, he offers this Samaritan harlot living water. But that water is accompanied by truth. You cannot drink the living water in the darkness of your sin. When you are born again, you come to the light. Your deeds are exposed, and you leave them where they are. This is the people God is seeking to give life to, those who recognize their utter inability without him, and then come to him as the source of all life.

Worship has to do with sin. Worship has to do with life. Worship has to do with where you find your joy, comfort, satisfaction. Jesus was calling the woman to leave behind the well she’d been going to for joy. She’s been to five different wells, men, relationships. They might satisfy for a time, but they run dry. The water becomes stale. They are broken cisterns. Anything that isn’t God himself. They appear to give life, but instead they drain you, leave lonely, yearning and longing. Never fulfilled. And ultimately kill your soul.

The samaritan woman, she begins to understand.

“I know the Messiah is coming… he will tell us all things.”

She knew enough of the Torah to know there was to come a prophet like Moses. There was one to come who would explain all things, and reveal God to His people. They were seeking for him. 

Jesus responds in a way that turns the tables again. He is the one who seeks, He is the one who finds. The Samaritan women is the perfect picture of the Bride of Christ. The Old Testament prophet, Hosea, was told by God to take for himself a prostitute as his bride. This was the picture God wanted Israel to see of how he loves and pursues her, though she pursued her joy in other men, other relationships, other pleasures. Jesus is the Groom who pursues his Bride, offers her living water to cleanse her from within, gives her the Spirit, calls her to truth, sanctifies her by His word. Jesus said to her…

“I who speak to you am he…”

Friends…

The Groom Has Arrived 

Verse 27 reinforced how out of place it seemed for Jesus to be speaking with a women of Samaria, let alone an adulterous. But I want to emphasize the response of the Bride when she realized the groom had arrived…

V28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into the town and said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

From hiding in shame to proclaiming to people. From covering her sin to openly admitting “All she had ever done.” 

It’s no coincidence that John tells us she left the jar… to come to the groom is to abandon your previous lovers, the things that you sought for comfort, the sin that you held so closely. The Jar is heavy. Come to Jesus. He will give living water.