Attempting to satisfy the deepest thirst from the wrong source...

This week, we are looking at an event from history that is recorded for us in an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of John. Yesterday, we looked on as John explained that once Jesus knew that the Pharisee’s, who were the self righteous religious people, became aware that Jesus had become more popular than John the Baptizer, Jesus left Judea and went to Galilee.

 

However, Jesus had to pass through Samaria. Many Jewish people viewed the Samaritans as “half breeds” and wanted nothing to do with them. Upon arriving at a city in Samaria, Jesus, tired from the long trip, decided to rest at a well. However, a Samaritan woman who was an outsider who was far from God and was far from others approached the well where Jesus was resting in order to get some water.

Jesus, however, responded to this ostracized outsider by asking her for a drink, which launched into a conversation between the Samaritan woman and Jesus that began with hostility and animosity.  Today, we see John reveal how Jesus responded to the animosity of the Samaritan woman in John 4:10:

 

 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." She said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? "You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle”?

 

Instead of responding to the animosity of the Samaritan woman by ignoring her, Jesus chooses to engage her. To understand the nature of this engagement, we first need to understand something about water. In the first century, there was two ways by which one obtained water. Either you obtained water from a well or you obtained water from a river or stream. Now, water that is in a well does not flow but is stagnant. However, water from a flowing river or stream was viewed as being living or active. That water, as a general rule, was also better water to drink.

 

Now, with that in mind, Jesus explained to the Samaritan woman that if she knew about the free gift that God wanted to offer her, and if she really knew who she was talking to that was asking her for a drink, she would not be responding with animosity. Instead, if she really knew who she was talking to, she would be the one taking the initiative to engage him for the water that He would provide her.

 

You see, while the water from the well that the Samaritan woman was pursuing could maintain life, the water from that well could not produce life. However, Jesus was offering the Samaritan women water that was living and active and could produce the life that she so desperately needed and was lacking. Jesus was echoing what the prophet Jeremiah said some 600 years earlier in Jeremiah 2:13:

 

"For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water.

 

The Samaritan woman however, was not focused on receiving the water that would produce life. Instead, she was solely focused on meeting her immediate personal needs to maintain life. The Samaritan woman basically says to Jesus “well who do you think you are? Are you saying that you are greater than our ancestor Jacob, because he gave us this well? I do not see any water in your hands and I do not see a river nearby. And anyways weren’t you just asking me for a drink a minute ago? So, who do you think you are and where do you think you are going to get this great water from, anyways?”  We see Jesus response in John 4:13:

 

Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw."

 

Jesus basically says to the Samaritan woman “everyone who comes to drink this water will have to come back again later, because this water only maintains life. This water may temporarily reduce thirst, but this water never removes the thirst. However, the water I have, this water removes even the deepest thirst. The water that I have becomes a source of water that produces life”.

 

And once again, we see the Samaritan woman miss the point. Instead, the Samaritan woman responded with a focus on her pressing immediate needs. The Samaritan woman was focused on attempting to satisfy her deepest thirst from the wrong source, from the wrong object. We see Jesus reveal this reality in the Samaritan woman’s life in verse 16:

 

 He said to her, "Go, call your husband and come here." The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have correctly said, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly."

 

Instead of being frustrated at the Samaritan woman’s faulty focus, Jesus lovingly revealed her faulty focus. And it is here that we see why the Samaritan woman was at the well at high noon. Here we see why the Samaritan woman was ostracized and isolated from the community that she lived in. And here we see why the Samaritan woman was an outsider who was far from God and far from others. You see, the Samaritan women had not been divorced one time. The Samaritan women had not been divorced two times. Instead, the Samaritan women had been divorced five times. And now, the Samaritan woman was living with a man who was not her husband.

 

You see, the Samaritan woman was focused on satisfying her deepest thirst from the well of relationships with a man. The Samaritan woman lived a life that viewed a relationship with a man as being of ultimate value. And as a result, the Samaritan woman lived her life as a response of worship by placing as the object of her worship the man that she was in a relationship with. However, the men who she was in relationship with always seemed to fall short of being the right object for the worship.

 

So the Samaritan woman went from relationship to relationship, hoping that she would eventually find the right man who would prove to be the right object of worship that would satisfy her deepest thirst.   However, those repeated relationships were empty wells that held no water and could not satisfy that thirst. And now the Samaritan woman had a story. A story of being a home wrecker; a story of being an adulterer; a story that left her far from God and far from others, ostracized and isolated; a story that you might relate to.

 

Maybe you have been trying to satisfy the deepest thirst in your life with position, power, pleasure, or pride, only to find that you may reduce the thirst for a while, but the thirst only returns. Maybe you have been living in a way that is focused on finding the right object to value supremely. Maybe every object that you have tried to value supremely always seemed to fall short of satisfying the deepest thirst in your life.

 

Now you might be thinking to yourself “well Dave that does not sound like Jesus is being very loving here. I mean it seems that Jesus just called her out as a sinner. How can you say that Jesus was loving here”. If those questions are running through your mind, I just want to let you know that they are great questions to be asking. And my response to those questions is this: The reason I can say that Jesus was loving here is based on how the Samaritan woman responded to what Jesus said. We see her response in verse 19:

 

 The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

 

You see, the Samaritan woman did not respond to Jesus by being offended and bailing on the conversation. Instead, the Samaritan woman did what we all tend to do when we find ourselves vulnerable after being exposed for who we truly are. The Samaritan woman attempted to change the subject.

 

Exposed for attempting to satisfy her deepest thirst from the wrong well, exposed for placing as the object of her worship the man that she was in a relationship with, the Samaritan woman attempted to change the subject to a theological debate on worship. The Samaritan woman basically says “You seem to be a man who knows God and God’s will, so I have a theological question for you: my ancestors believed that true worship occurred on that mountain over there, but you people burned down our temple and told us that Jerusalem is where true worship occurs. So who is right?”

 

However, while the Samaritan woman was attempting to change the subject, she was actually going to the subject that Jesus wanted to deal with in her life. What the Samaritan women kept missing in her conversation with Jesus was the core issue in her life, which was what object she was ultimately going to worship in her life.

 

Friday, we will see this reality revealed in Jesus response to her…