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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Gospel reading about the woman at the well with Jesus. You may be seated. I hope that the text gave you a revelation that this woman was a sassy woman. But even more so, the Lord loves sassy sinners, of whom I count myself, and I hope of whom you count yourself. The reason I say this about this woman is that Jesus asks for a drink. That’s all he says: “Give me a drink.” Her response isn’t, “Sure.” Her response is, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” She sees herself first and foremost as a Samaritan and assumes that Jesus sees himself first and foremost as a Jew. Because who did the Samaritans be spurned by but the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the others who viewed themselves as Jews first? So she, in defense, views herself as a Samaritan first. The two do not get along.
In a sense, the woman is basically saying, “Why should I give you a drink?” That’s sassy. Sassy. Jesus doesn’t deal with her sassiness because it’s almost as if she wants to argue. Jesus isn’t going to argue with her. He then goes straight to this point: “If you knew the gift of God,” that implies that she doesn’t. “And who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,'” that also implies that she doesn’t. “You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
What Jesus means by the term living water, he means the Holy Spirit. He means the Holy Spirit. How do we know this? The same writer of John, who wrote this in chapter 4, three chapters later in chapter 7, records Jesus saying this about getting something to drink and that it means the Holy Spirit. Jesus states this statement in the middle of the temple. The temple is supposed to be the place of God, and now he is saying, “Here’s the place of God.” Notice what Jesus says: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scriptures shall say, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” That’s Jesus’ words in the temple three chapters later.
John then explains, “Now this Jesus said about the Spirit,” meaning crucified, died, and buried, and rose again. That’s why we know when Jesus said, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that speaks to you, you would have asked Him for living water, and He would have given it to you.” Remember, she sees herself only as she views herself. She views herself as a Samaritan. She sees herself only coming to that well for water, and she sees this man as being nothing more than another one of those Jews. Because she thinks living water means something from this well, or maybe something else, but she says, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get this?”
And then she gets sassy again. “Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks from this water over here at this well, they’re going to be thirsty again.” It’s not about H2O in this well. He goes, “…whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever.” The water that I will give him, so it’s water that can only come from the Son, Jesus. The Spirit is coming from Jesus. “The water I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” True faith is given.
But the woman says, “Give me it. Then I don’t have to come here and draw water again.” She still doesn’t see it. He’s trying to say, “I’m the location of where you’re going to get living water. No one else.” Paul said it a different way, didn’t he? Paul said, “No one says Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” Jesus is saying the same thing: “No one can have living water except from me. And if you do, you have it welling up to eternal life.” He’s referring to faith.
Well, if that hasn’t got you confused enough, Jesus starts in another angle to work with this woman. He leaves the water motif for a moment. Now he goes to a marriage motif: “Go, call your husband and come here.” Why? Some would say, “Well, it’s because he’s talking to a woman and he shouldn’t be talking to her unless her husband’s there.” Could be. He’s just finished talking to her about him giving her living water that wells up to eternal life. He’s probably talking a little bit more in analogy and metaphor form.
The woman says, “I have no husband.” Bingo! You’re not married to me. I’m the husband of all people, for I died for my beloved bride, the church. I’m the husband. And I go out looking not for pristine virgins. I go out looking for Gomers and women like you. That’s who I seek after to find and make them my wife. Because what she says is, “I have no husband.” Jesus says, “You’re right in saying you have no husband. You’ve had five, and the one you’re living with now is not your husband. What you’ve said is true.”
The woman, rather than dealing with that, doesn’t hear it. But Jesus is trying to say to her, “You’ve got to realize you’re seeing yourself as a whore, and you’ve got to see that I came to die for such people as you.” You’re seeing yourself as a woman who has been married five times, which is why you’re even coming to this well at the sixth hour, which is at noon. It’s a small town. You don’t go out and get water with all the other women who go out first thing in the morning because if you did, there would be all of this going on. Because she’s different. She’s got five husbands, and the one she’s living with is not her own. Or maybe she was a prostitute and she didn’t wake up until late in the day. Either way, her being there and Jesus finding her is paramount for you and me to understand.
He seeks after those whose stuff isn’t cleaned up. He seeks after those who haven’t got their stuff together yet. He doesn’t look for those who are already worshiping Him and dying in purity and in truth. He’s looking for those that he can enable to worship him in spirit and in truth. She doesn’t listen. She says, “I perceive you’re a prophet.” She completely sidesteps the point that Jesus is trying to make.
She is trying to get at the identity of who Jesus is. She’s getting closer, but she’s not there. But here’s more important: she doesn’t yet want to see herself as Jesus sees her. Now we can’t psychoanalyze what and how she thinks of herself, but we can say this: If a woman has been living this kind of life, she has to view herself a certain way. Better yet, does she view herself differently than a woman who’s only been married to one man and everything seems to go along swimmingly in her life? Does she view herself differently than this woman views herself? Maybe, maybe not. But there’s a lot more odds of this woman viewing herself as being somewhat different and unacceptable to the Jews. So she stands and sits on her Samaritanism, no different than the Pharisees and Sadducees stood and sat on their Judaism and didn’t want to believe in Jesus.
But Jesus is moving her to see herself as he views her: someone for whom he seeks love. Oh, the seeking part. Well, let’s look at that. “I, sir, I perceive you’re a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus, a little bit later, says “neither here nor in Jerusalem.” That’s not what matters. “I’m the location of whom and where you worship me.” So he says, “The hour is coming and now is here. When true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him in spirit and truth.”
You and I look at that. The Father is seeking those to worship Him. We think, “Oh, He’s looking for people who are a little bit different than the rest of society.” That’s Satan’s lie of self-righteousness. He is not looking for you, who you or I may view ourselves as different than society. He’s looking for sinners, is what he’s looking for. And she is the penultimate example of one, as it’s made very clear in this text. And he doesn’t turn his back on her. He keeps trying to pull her in.
When he says, “The hour is coming,” he’s referring to the hour at hand, his death, for her, to make her his beloved bride. Bride. She’s never had a man stay with her. He’s going to show her he’ll stay with her. She’s never had a man be true to her. He’s going to show her he’s true to her. The Father is seeking such people. And when Jesus dies, what flows out of his heart that John records in his Gospel of John? Blood and water. This theme of water in the Gospel of John ought not to be lost on you and me. It is powerful of what it’s referring to.
These lines of connection. Remember the conversation with Nicodemus? “You must be born again of water and the Spirit.” What flows out of Jesus’ side? Water. What is he offering this woman? Living water. Yes, it’s a metaphor. It’s referring to the Holy Spirit working faith. Finally, the, as it were, trump card. The woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming, He who was called Christ. When He comes, He will tell us all things.” Jesus has her. That’s exactly where He wanted her to be because now He says, “You’re right. I am Messiah. I am Christ.”
Amen. What are his words? “I who speak to you am he.” Now this is the interesting part because it’s like the end of the conversation. Then the disciples come. She goes back to town. We have no idea what the disciples and he talk about while they’re waiting for her to come back. They don’t ask questions because it says, no one said, “What do you seek?” to the woman or “Why are you talking with her?” to Jesus. She goes back to town. The known philandering woman goes back to town and asks and tells, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be Messiah?”
Can this be Christ? Whom did God use? The very one that everybody in town would go, “Oh, that’s her.” Yeah, that’s whom he used. Oh, that’s her. He did not spend three hours prepping her for evangelism work. He didn’t offer an evangelism workshop to her to go into town to do it. God just used her. And brothers and sisters, God just uses you too. He uses you. He uses everything about you that you don’t like in order to bring about God’s grace being prevalent in your life, which is what He likes. Everything about her that she could despise, He used to bring people to Him.
And so they come. And so they come. A bunch come. And then it talks about even many more come. They ask Jesus to stay with them, and He does for two days. He doesn’t stay there for two days to enjoy their hospitality. He stays there two days to catechize them, to teach them. He wants to make sure these Samaritans see themselves as He sees them. He sees them as his beloved bride. He sees them as first and foremost his children, not second-hand citizens like the vast majority of the Jews saw them.
He wants them to know that he sees them as his own. This is the only place in Scripture where there is a large Samaritan conversion, and it’s recorded for us here in the Gospel of John and nowhere else. Secondly, it’s the only place in all of Scripture that God is referred to as, that means Jesus I’m talking about, Jesus is referred to as the Savior of the world. You can’t find anyone else calling Him the Savior of the world except these Samaritans. Profound.
Now we know he’s called the Savior of the world because we know the angel spoke to Joseph and said he is to be called Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. But no one in their interaction with Jesus ever calls him the Savior of the world except these Samaritans. And God sought them out and found them. And God used of all people this woman at the well. We don’t even know her name. We only know a little bit about her.
And we do know that we probably wouldn’t spend a lot of time talking to her in our daily routine because we typically don’t have friends who are like that in our lives, do we? But we do. We just don’t know what’s underneath the veneer. We do have people who are just like that. We just don’t get to know all the sordid details in their lives. And God uses them and uses you in each of your lives as God uses you in those people’s lives that He brings into your life. And He wants you to see them as He sees this woman.
Some of the people you invite, they’re not going to come. Some of the people you invite will come and then they won’t come back. Some of the people you will invite will come, and they will stay and they will join. Your job isn’t to make them join. Your job isn’t to make them come. Your job, as it was with this woman, He did not send her out with a directive, “Go and tell.” Notice that. She, by the Holy Spirit welling up within her, the living water welling up within her, is driven by the Spirit to go talk.
And she doesn’t explain to the people why they should come, just that he told me everything I ever did. Well, they’re going to go, “Whoa, then he does know about you and your lifestyle, doesn’t he?” But wait a second, if he knows about your lifestyle, why did he speak to you, number one, and why did he seem to you to be someone who loved you in a way that you have not been loved? That kind of got their curiosity up, didn’t it? And that’s what drew them by the Spirit.
Now they, when they arrive, say, “We believe for ourselves because we have heard for ourselves what He is and what He has done, even though you told us first and got us here.” That’s the same thing with you. You get Him here, the Spirit does His work through the Word. They believe and should be believers, not because of you being here, but because of their Lord who has called them here. Yes, your role is important. You are to have a relationship with them. That is vital.
This woman had a relationship with these people, much better after the fact, obviously, than before, didn’t she? But Jesus never said to her, “Hey, you know what? Before you ever come and worship me, you better get married. You better get this life squared away and all righteous and holy so that I can make you my child.” He didn’t say that, did he? He took her warts and all, just like he takes you warts and all. He seeks those kinds of people. He fixes things.
You know, as time went on, her life and her marriage changed. Granted, either she remained unmarried or she did finally marry, we don’t know. It changed because the Spirit changed her. But He did not say to her, “Well, you need to get a few things fixed up before you come into my world.” He crashes into her world in the middle of her and rescues her as He does you each and every time.
We have drank deeply from the well that flows from Jesus’ side by our baptism. And we will also drink deeply from the blood that flowed from His side in the Holy Supper of His Son because we are the kind of people that Jesus and the Father seek through the Holy Spirit. Unrighteous sinners, as Paul said, “For while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
In the name of Jesus, amen. For the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
