"Give Me Living Water" -- John 4:1-42

Introduction

I had gone to the local grocery store in Lorena. It was a Sunday night just before closing. There weren’t many people there—just the cashier, a customer being checked out and a young woman and me waiting next in line. I’m sure there were other employees nearby, but I don’t remember how many.

As I stood in line, I kept giving furtive glances to the young woman. She looked vaguely familiar, as if I should know her but I wasn’t sure how or why. She had nice makeup on and was dressed casually in an athletic jacket with pants to match. She didn’t have many items and she kept to herself as she waited next in line.

Finally, I mustered the courage and said, “Excuse me. I don’t normally do this, but you look really familiar. Do we know each other?” It was then that she told me she was the weekend news anchor for one of our local TV stations. Their station was located down the road from Lorena and she had come up to grab something for her meal while she waited for the 10 o’clock news program. She, the cashier and I chatted for a few moments more, then she checked out, paid and left. I never saw her again, but a chance encounter with a stranger allowed me new insights into what news anchors do between broadcasts.

In the passage we are looking at today, a young woman comes to well to draw water. It’s a day like any other day, or so she thought. While at the well, she met a man and, after talking with Him for a few moments, her life was never the same. By the time she finished talking with the man, she had found new insights. She had found living water—she had found Jesus.

Central Truth: This passage shows us the steps that lead us to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

The woman at the well:

1. Becomes intrigued (4-16)

I am grateful for indoor plumbing, for running water at the turn of a faucet. I know there are some of you that didn’t always have that luxury. My mother used to have to draw water from a pump, but that was long ago. I can only imagine what it must have been to walk to a well outside of town to draw the day’s use of water. To carry the bucket or buckets to the well, to lower the buckets, pull them up again and then lug them back home, hoping all the way not to slosh too much out as you made the trek home.

The passage we look at today opens with Jesus sitting a well—Jacob’s Well—outside the Samaritan town of Sychar. It’s noon and Jesus is alone, having sent His disciples into the town to get food. Verse 6 tells us Jesus was tired from the journey, and was resting beside the well.

As Jesus was resting, a woman comes to the well. This in and of itself doesn’t present a problem. The problem arises when Jesus asks her for a drink. Here are the problems. First, she’s a woman. Jewish men weren’t supposed to speak to women in public. In fact, there were some Pharisees that believed Jewish men shouldn’t even speak to their own wives in public. Jesus speaking to a woman in public could be seen as scandalous.

Second, the woman was a Samaritan. There was a great enmity between Jews and Samaritans. The Jews viewed the Samaritans as a mongrel breed of people who had abandoned the true worship of God. The Samaritans were a result of intermarrying with other people brought to the region from the Assyrian conquests. The Samaritans only accepted the first five books of the Bible as valid, neglecting the history, poetry and prophets of the remainder of the Old Testament. And they worshiped at a temple built on Mount Gerizim. There was no love lost between the Jews and the Samaritans.

Finally, Jesus was speaking to a woman of questionable morals, as we discover in v. 18. All of these issues would have prevented most men from speaking to the woman who came to the well at noon. But Jesus is no ordinary man, and He strikes up a conversation—“Will you give Me a drink?”

I love dialogue. On the occasions I write short stories, I often find myself using dialogue as the means of telling the story. I like the give-and-take, the surprises that dialogue can take. It is the dialogue in this story that fascinates me. Here is a discussion between a Jewish man and a Samaritan woman in the middle of the day beside a well. The dialogue begins with the request for water, but soon turns into something complete the differet.

At first, the woman is puzzled that a Jewish man would deign to speak to her, and she raises the issue with Him. Jesus’ response is to begin to open her eyes to the fact that He is no ordinary Jewish man, but is the source of living water.

This is not the answer she was expecting. She must have wondered who she was talking to and why He was talking this way. Yet, she continued the dialogue: “How can You give me living water? You don’t even have a bucket.”

Jesus’ response is to let her know that the water He offers is not physical in nature, but the gift of the Holy Spirit through belief in Jesus. “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” (vs. 13-14).

This is too good to be true! What is this guy, some kind of plumber? Can He make it so that she can have indoor plumbing? Whatever His magic, she’s all in. I can still a bit of bemusement in her voice as she says, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water” (v. 15).

This is a typical problem in speaking with Jesus. All too often, we are focused on our physical needs and blind to the spiritual needs that weigh us down. Jesus sees beyond the physical and points us to the spiritual. While we’re concentrating on a cool glass of water with ice, Jesus is speaking about a rich relationship with God the Father as a refreshing and eternal blessing.

1. Tries to change the subject (17-26)

Jesus gets the woman’s attention with His next words: “Go get your husband.” The woman is taken aback at this. What does a husband have to do with anything? What is Jesus suggesting? She tells Him the truth: “I have no husband.”

If Jesus’ comment about her husband has taken her aback, His next words must have stunned 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” (vs. 17-18).

I don’t like being put on the spot, of being embarrassed with inconvenient questions, especially when the questions are hitting a little too close to home. I imagine I’m not alone, either. My defense is to try to joke or to change the subject. That’s what the woman did.

Up until now, they had been talking about water and not having to come to the well each day. She may have thought Jesus was being amusing or interesting, but that had gone out the window with His last declaration. This was a man who knew her, knew her better than she cared to be known, especially by a stranger. So she changed the subject.

“Sir, I can see that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem” (vs. 19-20). She made her observation, then asked the question that she hoped would lead away from her and back to safe territory.

Jesus’ response in vs. 21-24 draws her further into the very reason He began to talk with her in the first place. He wanted her to know what a spiritual awakening could mean for her. He tells her that the time is rapidly approaching when the place where we worship God won’t matter. He tells her the Samaritan faith is based on ignorance, while Jewish worship is based on knowledge, since through the Jewish faith will we find salvation. Next, Jesus tells her worship is found in spirit and truth, worship that is pleasing to God the Father. “God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (v.24).

The worship in spirit is one that is guided by the Holy Spirit of God, that Spirit that indwells the followers of Jesus Christ. It is that Spirit that leads us into truth and shows us the One who is The Truth.

Wanting to wrap up the conversation, get her water and go home, the woman makes what she hopes to be the summary statement of the now very strange conversation. “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us” (v. 25). In other words, she tells this man with whom she has been speaking that, while it is possible to discuss these matters endlessly, no one can really give the final answer until the Messiah comes.

Imagine her surprise, her bewilderment, her wonder, when Jesus tells her, “I who speak to you am He” (vs. 26).

Her reaction is similar to what ours often is when God reveals Himself to us, either through the Bible, through prayer, even in the words of a godly friend. We think we know what we believe and what we know, when confronted with a new awareness, a new understanding. We stand in awe, in wonder, in surprise as we realize the revelation has transformed our lives anew.

1. Shares her Good News (28-30; 39-42)

As the conversation reaches its climax, the disciples return. The woman, no longer interested in getting water from the well, uses this as an excuse and rushes back to her home and tells her fellow citizens that she had met a man who told her everything she ever did. “Could this be the Christ?” (v. 29b). The next verse states that the entire town went out to see for themselves.

Imagine the temptation Satan must have been throwing in front of her: “You can’t tell the people what you’ve heard—they won’t believe you. You’re not someone that anyone would believe. Look at you. They think so little of you that you can’t get your water at the beginning of the day like most of the women in the village; you have to come at noon. You’ve been handed around so many men that the respectable people of the village want nothing to do with you; others won’t care. You’re wasting your time, woman.”

Yet she persisted. She didn’t think about her reputation or about her standing in the community. All she knew is that Jesus had given her living water, and she wanted others to come meet Him, too.

As a result of her testimony, many in the village came to believe in Jesus. They asked Him to remain with them a little longer, and Jesus stayed in that Samaritan village for two days. As a result of this two day stay, many more became believers.

The last words of this passage are telling. “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this Man is the Savior of the world” (v. 42). Our relationship with Jesus must be personal, must be one-on-one. We cannot live the Christian life vicariously through someone else, no matter how godly or admirable that person may be. We have to know Him ourselves, personally, intimately, and we do that by our own personal faith in Him, being indwelt by the Holy Spirit to recall His words and be guided into the Truth.

Conclusion

It all began with a daily chore—get water from the well. It ended with a two-day revival in a Samaritan village. As a result of Jesus, Sychar was never the same again. Jesus spoke to a woman. She came to see Him for the Savior that He is, and the living water—the Holy Spirit—came to all who believed. We learn from this passage that God’s word can come to us in the midst of the daily chores, the mundane things, if we will only take the time to hear His voice.