John 4:1-18 - The Source of Living Waters (Rev. Erik Veerman)

John 4:1-18 - The Source of Living Waters

Please turn in your Bibles to John chapter 4, verses 1-18. You can find that on page 1056 of the pew Bibles.

This is the well-known interaction between Jesus and the woman at the well. Their conversation is a little long, so we'll take this in two sermons. Today is part 1. Next week is Easter, and I'm planning a different sermon text. But in two weeks we'll get to part 2.

As I read, think about the differences between Nicodemus and the woman at the well. Jesus had met Nicodemus earlier in chapter 3. Remember, he was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish council and a teacher of Israel.  And now in chapter 4, Jesus meets a very different person in a very different setting.

Reading John 4:1-18

Prayer

In my high school and college days, I enjoyed  multi-day wilderness trips. You know, you hike a few miles, then camp, then hike another few miles, and camp again, and you do that for several days. For some reason, it doesn't really sound fun anymore!

I'll never forget the very first trip I went on. It started out pretty rough. It was very hot. We were mostly hiking in the shade, but we had 30-40 pound backpacks and so we were sweating. What made it worse is that we got lost on the first day. We didn't really know what we were doing, and then we got turned around. And then, we ran out of water. We had brought extra water because of the heat, but we drank it all by mid-day - we didn’t know what rationing meant. Furthermore, the streams and lakes had an unusually high level of parasites that summer, and so we couldn't drink from them.

And because we got lost, we didn't make it to our destination. Our planned destination had fresh water, but we were still some miles away when it got dark. So, we had to camp in the middle of a dense forest without water. I've never been more thirsty in my life.

We all know what it feels like to thirst.

Jesus had been thirsty from his travels. He was fully human just as much as he was fully divine. He shared in our common experiences like hunger and thirst and weariness.

But as we read, this story is about much more than just satisfying our physical thirst. No, Jesus uses the common experience of thirsting and drinking to convey a deeper truth - spiritual thirst and spiritual refreshment.

This Samaritan woman didn’t even know she was spiritually thirsty, but she would soon come to realize how thirsty she was... and where to find the source of life-giving water.

As we look at this text, we'll consider it in three basic points: The setting, the scene, and the summons.

1. The Setting - what is the cultural and religious background

2. The Scene - what happened in this conversation

3. The Summons - how are we summoned to respond.

By the way, my first outline had a bunch of "s" in my subpoints… like spring, satisfy, Sychar, sixth, sinner, source, surprising, soul, and savior. But it was a little too much, so I decided to spare you from that!

1. The Setting

Ok, #1, the setting. Before we work through this captivating narrative, it's important to understand some of the religious and cultural dynamics at play.

First, the Samaritans were deeply despised by the Jews. They were outcasts and they were considered unclean. There were a couple of reasons for this.

·      #1 - Samaria was where the northern tribes of Israel had been. Back when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, some of the Assyrians settled in the land. And over time the Assyrians and the Israelites from the northern tribes intermarried. That was a problem because their religions got mixed together. The Samaritans claimed the same forefathers as the Jews in Judah, but their religious practice and beliefs had been corrupted. We'll consider this more in part 2 of this dialogue. I simply bring it up because the Samaritans were considered not worthy to associate with. In fact, in order to get from Jerusalem to Galilee, the fastest route was to go through Samaria. But, some Jews would go to great lengths to literally travel around Samaria to get to Galilee. It was that bad.

·      #2 - This hatred of the Samaritans did not go away after Jesus walked the earth. In fact, it got worse. The Jewish historian Josephus records that around 51 AD, some Jewish pilgrims passing through Samaria were murdered. In response, several Samaritan villages were attacked by Jews. This killing went back and forth until the Romans had to step in. John wrote this Gospel account after those conflicts.

What I'm saying is that throughout the first century Jews deeply mistrusted or even despised the Samaritans.

One of the commentators that I like is Gary Burge. He describes the book of John like scenes in a play. It's helpful to think of it that way. A couple of weeks ago, the curtains opened and it was dark. Nicodemus had come to Jesus at night. Nicodemus, who was an upstanding member of the Jewish elite was searching for answers. And he learned that he needed to be born again. He needed the cleansing ministry that Jesus was offering. But then the curtain closes while he's still searching.

Now the curtain opens again, but this time it's the middle of the day. The 6th hour is about noon and the sun is shining. And there is Jesus again, but instead of Nicodemus, instead of this esteemed member of the Sanhedrin and a teacher of Israel, Jesus is speaking with an unclean Samaritan woman. Can you hear the gasps in the audience?

And it gets worse as the narrative unfolds. Not only was she a Samaritan, but we find out that she has had 5 husbands and was now living with a guy to whom she was not even married.

What a contrast to Nicodemus.

·      He was a squeaky-clean Pharisee on the outside… who had yet to see his need for the transforming power of Christ for his darkened sinful heart.

·      And then this woman, a spiritual and relational mess on the outside, yet, who would come to see her need and drink from the life-giving water of Christ.

By the way, I am not saying that Nicodemus never came to believe in Jesus. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that by the end of the book, it appears that his heart had changed.

And in regard to the Samaritan woman, we learn later in this chapter that she not only came to believe, but through her testimony, many other Samaritans believed. It was all very revealing.

You know, we're just a few chapters into John's Gospel, and several paradigms were being broken. John's Jewish audience had false perceptions about the Messiah. They also didn’t understand the true reasons for their religious practices. So, their paradigms needed to be shattered.

·      The tables in the temple needed to be overturned. They needed to understand that Jesus fulfilled the temple promises.

·      They also needed to understand that Jesus did not come to re-establish Israel's geo-political dominance. Rather, as chapter 3 says, he came that the world may be saved through him.

·      Furthermore, they needed to know that being a Jewish leader did not mean you would enter the kingdom of God. Keeping the rules or knowing the law does not get you into the kingdom. No, you need to be born again of the cleansing ministry of Christ and in his Spirit.

They needed to learn all this.

And here in chapter 4 - They are learning that the cleansing ministry of Jesus is also for Samaritans. And not only that, but Jesus came to save sinners, like this woman. Really, they were all sinners, like us.… but many in the Jewish community didn’t understand that.

What I'm saying is that if you were a Jew in the first century and you were hearing this for the first time, your religious foundations were being shaken. They needed to be shaken.

So that's the setting… the cultural and religious backdrop.

2. The Scene

Which brings us to #2 - the scene. Let's consider what happened.

In the first century, travelling by foot from Jerusalem directly to Galilee would have taken 3-4 day. Jesus and his disciples travelled up the main road through Samaria… passing one village after another.

And they came to Sychar. We learn that it was historically significant. It's where Jacob and his family had lived before moving to Egypt. Jacob was their forefather whom God would rename as Israel. He had 12 sons, whose families would become the twelve tribes of Israel.

So, Jacob's well had been there for centuries. The well was near the field that Jacob had given his favorite son Joseph. This is Joseph who was given the multi-colored coat by his father and who was soon thereafter sold by his brothers as a slave.

It was noon. The sun was beating down. Jesus and his disciples had more ground to travel but they needed rest and food and water. Jesus stayed at the well while his disciples went to find food.

And as he sat there, a Samaritan woman approached. A common household chore for women at the time was filling the water jars. So it was not unusual for a woman to come to the well. However, what was unusual was the time of day. Usually filling water pots happened in the early morning or late afternoon when it was cooler. But given this woman's situation, either she was not welcome at other times, or she felt ashamed. And so, she came at mid-day.

And to her surprise, a Jewish man was there. Now, the customary thing to do would have been to quickly fill her water jars and head home.

But this man asked her a question. He asked her for a drink.

By the way, Jacob's well was deep. You can actually visit the well today. It's about 135 ft to the bottom. That's pretty deep! Jesus didn't have anything to lower down and draw up water and he was thirsty. So, it was a reasonable request.

But given the cultural dynamics, even such a request was unheard of. And it took her off-guard. Verse 9: "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?"

Now, think about this: What would we expect Jesus to say in response? Or what would John's readers expect? They were already in shock by the situation. But Jesus was thirsty, after all. The natural response would have been for Jesus to say something like, "We've travelled a long way so far. It's hot out. Those with me are in town buying food. But we've run out of water, and I'm thirsty. I have no way of drawing water from the well. Even though I am a Jew, will you help?"

That's the expectation, but Jesus instead changed the conversation.

That's what he does, isn't it? He disrupts the norms. He dismantles presuppositions. He pivots conversations. He asks penetrating questions and then he drives to the heart of the matter.

He said to 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.”

Of course, this made no sense to her at first. Jesus didn’t have a way to get to the water. Furthermore, he referenced living water. Living water was the term used for fresh moving water like streams or springs. This was a well. Water fills the bottom of a well by seeping in through the earth from the water table and then it sits there.

How can you get this water? This well is deep? You have nothing to draw it out. Where will you get the living water you offer?

Then something happened inside of her. She sensed that she was in the presence of someone important. After all, Jesus had said so! His first comment was to ask if she knew the gift of God? And then immediately Jesus said to her, if you knew who it was who was asking…

She didn’t know.

But she didn’t ask Jesus who he was. No, instead, she asked, "Are you greater than our father Jacob?" This well had been Jacob's well. He and his family and his animals drank from it. Was there something special about the water in it? Is that what you're referring to?

Jesus responded, "anyone who drinks from this water," referring to Jacob's well, "will be thirsty again."

And then in verses 13 and 14 Jesus said something life transforming. I want you look down and read it again. Verse 13: "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.”

The living water that Jesus was offering to give… was not physical water. No, it was something wholly different. And this water would yield in her, eternal life.

Jesus was offering to her the gift of living water — faith in him, repentance from sin, and new life — all of which God alone can give. And this gift that Jesus was offering to her would come at a great cost. It would come through the giving of his life. This fountain of eternal life, this living water, would be purchased by his blood.

She didn't yet understand this, and Jesus had yet to offer up his life… but he was drawing her to himself.

"Sir, give me this water." Now at that time, she still thought that whatever water he was referring to would satisfy her physical thirst. She didn’t yet understand her spiritual need.

And this is where Jesus, yet again, redirects the conversation. "Go, call your husband, and come here." Jesus already knew her situation. He already knew that she had been married five times and was now living with a man who was not her husband. But Jesus wanted to reveal her need for this living water. She had been searching for something to satisfy her soul, something to give her life and meaning, but she had been searching in the wrong places.

Let me say this. We are not given the details about her relationships. But we do know a little. We know that a wife at that time was not allowed to divorce her husband. So, she had been left by 5 men. Is it possible that she broke the wedding vows? Yes. Is it possible that these 5 husbands just decided to abandon her? Yes. Sometimes people assign all the blame to her, but likely it was a combination of broken vows and messy relationships. But whatever happened in her marriages, she was now living with another man… but had not consecrated their relationship by marriage. She was living in sin and had a history of messy relationships. It was a pattern of failure and sin.

It appears that she had been pursuing relationships and intimacy within those relationships in hopes that they would give her long term satisfaction. But nothing was satisfying her longings. It was just getting worse.

Jesus was saying to her: the spiritual water I give will satisfy you for eternity. It will be a never-ending fountain welling up to eternal life.

I want this water of which you speak.

Well, Jesus continued to talk to her. We'll cover that in a couple of weeks. And we'll even hear later that she testified to others that Jesus was the Savior of the world. What a tremendous thing. She drank of that "life-giving stream," as we sang earlier.

#3 The Summons

That's the scene. Which brings us now to #3 - The summons. What are we summoned to do? What does this mean for us?

Two things come to mind. Two applications.

#1 - When John's Jewish audience heard this, they had to come to grips with something. Their Samaritan neighbors needed the life-giving water of Christ just as much as they did. Beloved, your Muslim and Hindu neighbors need the life-giving waters of Christ. If your heart is turned against them… if you see them as the enemy rather than seeing them as people also made in the image of God and who also need the Gospel, then your heart-attitude needs changing.

Remember, salvation is a gift. Did you notice that in verse 10? The living water of Christ is a gift from God. The gift that we have been given is a gift that Jesus offers to all.

May we remember that and love our neighbors. And the greatest way that we can love our neighbors is to share the love of Christ with them.

#2 - Every single person in the world is searching for satisfaction. Every one of us. We all have a spiritual and relational thirst within us that needs to be satisfied. We've been created as relational beings. We yearn for relationships, and we long to be fulfilled. But apart from Christ, we are searching in the wrong places.

The problem occurs when we look for fulfillment in the things of this world or through relationships in this world. Sometimes we pursue the things of this world as if they can save us. Sometimes it's the idols of our culture like comfort or the love of money or our careers or our things or even our homes that replace God in our lives. Those are good things… but when we look to them to ultimately satisfy, then we have turned them into idols.

Other times, we pursue saviors who are not saviors at all… that can include political heroes or cultural heroes. That can include your spouse, or your children, or perhaps even your pastor. I don’t think that I'm anyone's idol… but celebrity pastor can sometimes become an idol.

Other times in our search for satisfaction, we are drawn into sinful relationships… like adulterous relationships, or fornication like the Samaritan woman. Or we can search for satisfaction in our sinful desires for others or other things.

But whether it is heart sin or actual sin, it is all stolen waters as proverbs 9 puts it.  It cannot save you and will not satisfy you.

But Jesus offers living water. He offers you the life-giving water of salvation in him. And as he said, it will spring up to eternal life. The thirst of your soul will be satisfied in him forever.

If you don't have this life-giving water, it is yours to receive as a gift from Christ. Come and drink.

In case you didn't notice, I survived my first wilderness trip. But I'll say, it was a long first night. You know how it feels when you're thirsty. It's like having cotton balls in your mouth. That's what it felt like the whole night. We woke up and were still thirsty…and still had a few miles to hike. But we finally made it to fresh water! It was one of those hand pump wells, you know with the long handles. We pumped the handle for a bit and then the water started flowing. It was cold and fresh and satisfying. We drank and drank until we could drink no more. It was so refreshing.

The life-giving water of Christ is the only source that will satisfy the thirst of your soul. May you drink and find your satisfaction in him for eternity.