John 4:4-26 * February 20, 2005 * Lent 2 * Pastor Leyrer

Dear Friends in Christ,

We can live without a lot of things. But we can’t live without water. Without water, we die. Simple as that.

Water refreshes us, replenishes us, cleanses us, and strengthens us. Ask someone who has been dehydrated and they’ll tell you how important water is. Water is not incidental to life; it is indispensable and essential to life. Without a consistent ongoing source of water we simply cannot survive.

The need for water is at the center of the conversation Jesus has in our text for today. As the conversation moves on, Jesus takes it to a higher level. He moves from the physical to the spiritual and from the temporal to the eternal as He declares Himself to be:

LIVING (LIFE-GIVING) WATER

1. Gospel water to be enjoyed 2. Gospel water to be shared

Jesus had been spending time in Judea (the southern part of the Holy Land) where His popularity among the masses was growing. This had not escaped the notice of the religious leaders of the day, and they were not at all happy about it. They felt their authority was being challenged and they were losing their grip on the people.

Knowing such resentment could easily evolve into a premature crisis, and because the time for His suffering and death had not yet come, Jesus left Judea and began to head for the north country of Galilee. The incident in our text took place shortly into this journey.

Now He had to go through Samaria. Samaria was a country sandwiched between the Jewish north and the Jewish south. Even though Samaritans had some Jewish blood in them, the Jews considered them half-breeds at best and despised them. What the Hatfields were to the McCoys, these two ethnic groups were to each other. One way their mutual animosity played itself out: Jewish pilgrims who traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem were often refused lodging by the Samaritans. As a result (and also because of they did not wish to be “defiled”), many Jews would go far out of their way just to avoid Samaria altogether.

So when we are told that Jesus had to go through Samaria, this doesn’t mean there was no other route. It is rather a missiological statement. What it conveys is that doing so was a part of our Lord’s mission as the Savior of all people, regardless of ethnicity.

So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son, Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. Jesus comes to a place that had some Old Testament significance to it and rests. We are told it was about the sixth hour. This can be understood in one of two ways: Roman time would make this 6 PM, the normal time for drawing water; Jewish time would make this 12 noon, an unusual, but not unheard of, time for drawing water – or a time to do it when you didn’t want anyone else to be around (which could be the case here).

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews did not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus initiates a conversation by asking a question. The Samaritan woman is understandably surprised. That a Jewish male would condescend to speak to a Samaritan female was rare. That he would suggest something as intimate as sharing a common drinking utensil, like a water cup, was unheard of. So He certainly got her attention. And now he takes the conversation to a higher level.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Jesus is speaking about Himself and the living water of salvation that He has to offer her, but she doesn’t understand. Thinking He is still talking about drinking water (“living water” was spring water as opposed to stagnant, cistern water), she responds: “Sir,” the woman said, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

The reply: Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Note how Jesus contrasts physical water with the living water He brings. Physical water cannot prevent one from being thirsty again, whereas living water quenches thirst forever.

Now aware of the fact Jesus is talking about some special kind of water, The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” She is very interested in hearing what Jesus has to say. She desires living water, but before it can be hers, there must be a thirst for it. And this spiritual thirst will not be awakened in her unless there is a sense of need for a Savior, a sense of consciousness of sin. So Jesus now confronts her regarding her lifestyle.

He told her, “Call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is quite true.” Jesus exposes her life right before her very eyes. It was a strikingly modern one, but one that in any age is contrary to God’s will. At present she was living in open disobedience to God’s design, and she knew it.

Painfully aware that she was talking to someone special, she continues: “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” By calling Jesus a prophet she is now fully engaged along spiritual lines. Next, perhaps to change the topic or maybe because she had a real interest in the subject, she raises a long-standing religious question between the Jewish and Samaritan people.

Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." The point Jesus makes is that when it comes to worship, it is not the where, but the who and the how that is important. Who is to be worshiped? The God who brings salvation and who is from the Jews. Jesus is talking about Himself as the Savior of the world, and who, along with the Father and Holy Spirit is the One true God. How is He to be worshiped? In spirit and truth; that is, through inward reverence and devotion as opposed to just outward actions.

Our text ends with a wishful thought and a startling revelation: The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” How does this story end? Later in the chapter we learn that this woman testified to many other Samaritans about what had happened. The result was that many of her countrymen came to faith. The happy assumption we are left with is that this woman became a true believer in Jesus as her Savior. And undoubtedly a missionary for life.

How does this text speak to us today? In any number of ways, but we’ll limit ourselves to two observations. First observation: Within every human heart is a thirst, a yearning, which only God can fill, and God fills it with Jesus. In other words, Jesus Christ is the living water that quenches spiritual thirst. To know Jesus, therefore, is to enjoy peace and satisfaction.

Think of how this applies to us. Like the woman at the well, we have no secrets from God. Like her, all of us have a past, and, as the Apostle Paul tells us, all of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s expectations. But the message of the Gospel is that though our sins are like scarlet, in the eyes of God we are white as snow, purified through the work of Jesus Christ. Through the cleansing and refreshing waters of baptism God implanted the Gospel message in our hearts, forgave our sins and brought us into His eternal kingdom. Sustained through Word and Sacrament, the Gospel message that Christ lived for us, Christ died for us and Christ rose for us wells up within us to eternal life. The world will offer its vain substitutes, but Jesus Christ alone quenches our spiritual thirst.

Malcolm Muggeridge was a man who understood this. Some of you may have heard of him. He was an Englishman who gained a reputation as a writer and a thinker. Later in his life the Lord brought him into Christianity. Having experienced life from both sides, he offered this perspective in an interview (cited in J. Gladstone, Living with Style):

I may, I suppose, regard myself, or pass for being, a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets – that’s fame. I can fairly easily earn enough to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Inland Revenue – that’s success. Furnished with money and a little fame even the elderly, if they care to, may partake of trendy diversions – that’s pleasure. It might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time – that’s fulfillment. Yet I say to you, and I beg you to believe me, multiply these tiny triumphs by a million, add them all together, and they are nothing – less than nothing, a positive impediment – measured against one draught of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are.

The first thing this text must do for us is to simply move us to thanksgiving. Let us thank God for Jesus Christ. Let us, likewise, thank God the Holy Spirit who has brought us to faith and quenched this thirst in our lives. Then let us make a conscious decision to move beyond the impediments in our life – the stresses, strains and strivings – and enjoy Him.

If the first lesson is to enjoy the living Gospel water of Jesus Christ, the second lesson is to share it with others, just as Christ shared it with the woman at the well.

Why? Because we have what people need and want. Peace with God, peace in our hearts, the knowledge that our sins are forgiven and the fact that we know where we are going is something everybody wants and everybody craves. So, we really needn’t be afraid to talk to others about spiritual things, because, like the woman at the well, it is on their minds. And it’s not as if the opportunities are not there. In our text, Jesus’ mission field at that moment was Samaria. Sychar, to be specific. What is the modern day equivalent of Sychar? Or, to put it another way, where is our Sychar?

That’s the question each of us must ask ourselves. But a caution is in order: Don’t over think this.

Our church body has recently been talking about the importance of North American outreach. This reminds us that the greatest mission field we face is not some faraway and distant land. For many of us it may be across the street. Or at work. Or in our extended family. Or in a changing neighborhood. It might be someone who looks different than us, dresses different than us, speaks different than us. Whether people try to find fulfillment in body piercing or tattoos or alternate lifestyles, we have what people are so desperately seeking. And as Christ was there to speak with a woman who expected not to be given a second glance, perhaps we have opportunities all around us if we just stop to look. Not as Christian conquerors looking for evangelism scalps to display, but as people who have been refreshed by living water and now wish to simply share our drink…

Therefore, may the living water of Jesus Christ – which, alone, quenches our spiritual thirst – bring us joy, peace, comfort and boldness. Let us enjoy and let us share. May God grant this for Jesus’ sake. Amen.