This week, we are looking
at a section of an account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible
called the gospel of John. Yesterday, we
saw John give us a front row seat to a most unlikely
encounter with a Samaritan woman was
who was ostracized and isolated as an outsider who was far from God and was far
from others. Jesus, however, responded to this ostracized outsider by asking
her for a drink.
The hatred between Jews and
Samaritans was such that they did not even speak to one another, let alone
offer to drink from one another’s cups. The Samaritan woman basically says to
Jesus “aren’t you Jewish people too good for us, so why are you even talking to
me”. Today, we see Jesus response 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
tells 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 is 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 verse 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 responds with a
focus on her pressing immediate needs. Just as the prophet Jeremiah had proclaimed,
the Samaritan woman was focused on attempting to satisfy her deepest thirst
from the wrong source. 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 reveals 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 not 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. 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 this morning. Maybe you have been trying to
satisfy the deepest thirst in your life with position, power, or pleasure, only
to find that you may reduce the thirst for a while, but the thirst only
returns.
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 you are here this morning and 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, the Samaritan woman changes 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?”
Now imagine yourself as Jesus.
Place yourselves in His shoes. How would you respond to this woman’s attempt to
change the subject? Would you call her out: “hey don’t try to change the
subject! Let’s talk about your life that’s off the rails. Let’s talk about your
sin that has ostracized and isolated you from everyone else”. Would you let her
change the subject or would you keep the spotlight focused on her?
Friday, we will see how Jesus
responded…
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