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FEBRUARY 24, 2008
So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered 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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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 woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” (ESV).
John 4:5-26
In many places in the world today, wells are important. Not only are they places where people came to draw precious water, they are also a kind of social center where people gather and exchange information and ideas.
This was especially true in biblical times. Dr. Peter Scaer suggests that wells were significant not only as a social center, but also as a place of courtship. He notes that it was at a well that Moses met his wife Zipporah, and where Abraham’s servant found Isaac’s wife, Rebekah. Moreover, he says that “it was at a well that Jacob first gazed upon Rachel’s lovely eyes, causing his own to weep with joy.”
It is interesting that Jesus, in our text, encountered the Samaritan woman at a well. It is even more interesting that the well just happened to be Jacob’s well. Scaer, therefore, proposes what, at first, seems scandalous, namely, that Jesus is actually courting this woman. He is not courting her in an earthly, romantic sense, but in a heavenly, spiritual sense. That is to say, he suggests that Jesus, the heavenly bridegroom, wants to bring her to faith in him and, thus, make her a member of his Church, his heavenly bride. Jesus wants to win her for himself in the highest sense of the word.
How, then, shall he pursue her? With flattering speech? No! With a suggestive glance? Of course not! By inviting her out? Never! He woos her with his own well-crafted words, awakening in her a great spiritual thirst.
See the drama, then, as it unfolds before our very eyes: One day Jesus came to Jacob’s well in the Samaritan village of Sychar. At midday a townswoman also came to the well. No doubt she had drawn water here hundreds of times before with nothing extraordinary ever happening. But this time something momentous was about to happen. The Lord opens the conversation by saying, “Will you give me a drink?” (Here, we make a theological observation: We note that God comes to the sinner, not the sinner to God. He seeks her; she does not seek him). His intention in asking for a drink went deeper than satisfying his own natural thirst. He also wanted to make her soul thirsty for salvation and forgiveness.
Jesus begins to draw her to himself with these masterful words: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Now Jesus has her complete attention! If you were in her shoes, wouldn’t you be just a little bit curious as to what Jesus meant by the phrases “gift of God” and “living water?” I know I would.
But even more than that, wouldn’t you wonder who this man was who claimed to be able to give these astonishing things? This, it seems to me, is Christ’s precise intention. The term “gift of God” emphasizes that this gift, whatever it is, comes from the gracious hand of God and cannot be earned. The term “living water” suggests that this water is vital to sustain life. It is a reference to zoē, spiritual and eternal life. In short, Jesus is offering her salvation and everything that comes with it. O what kind of man must he be who can deliver these eternal goods!
But she doesn’t understand. She still thinks of living water as something to quench her bodily thirst. She is still focused on the water of Jacob’s well. So she says to him, “Sir, you have no bucket to draw with and the well is deep. Where, then, do you get this living water?” And then she adds, “You are not greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle, are you?” Please note that she thinks that Jacob is greater than Jesus. So, she raises five objections to Christ’s offer to give her this living water:
Thus, we see that she can’t shake herself of the earthly. There are many like her in every generation.
But Jesus leads her to see her spiritual need. He says to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ... Ouch! Those words stung. No doubt, they stiffened and shocked her. I think William Barclay is right when he says, “. . . she grew white as one who had seen a sudden apparition; and so indeed she had, for she had suddenly caught sight of herself.” Yes, she finally saw what Jesus saw. She had to face her immorality. It was no use covering it up, so she came forth with the ugly truth, saying, “I have no husband.” His reply indicated that he knew everything about her, for he declared “You Are correct in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband.” She could no longer hide her sin. She was an adulterer and a fornicator. She knew it and he knew it. Surely heaven had no place for the likes of her! (Oh, yes it does!).
This poor woman’s life had been filled with sin and failure. She was thirsty for a love that would last. She had been married to five different men, but each marriage ended in divorce. It was one broken relationship after another. And now she had a sixth man, a live-in boyfriend. She was willing to live in sin, willing to drink from the sewer, so to speak, in the hopes of finding real love.
Sin is the longest running of human emergencies. There are many today who call themselves Christians but who share a bed with a live-in boyfriend or girlfriend. There are many who call themselves Christians who see no conflict between being sexually active and God’s command to refrain from all such behavior outside of marriage. They are not merely making a bad choice; they are unrepentantly sinning! So long as they are impenitent, the curse of God rests on them!
One of the greatest sins of our age is acedia. Acedia is sloth (or laziness), but not of the physical variety. It finds its place in our hearts. It is that sin which urges us to do what is easy and not what is right. The slothful heart wants to be free from all spiritual demands. It hates things that demand real spiritual work, namely repentance, i.e., tearing itself away from sin.
For many this work is too hard. Some of them regularly sit in church pews, but they turn a deaf ear to the annoying preacher who calls them to repentance. They will sacrifice anything, even themselves, to have things their way! The easy way! The fun way!
To live without repentance is like being aboard the spiritual ship “Titanic.” We board it in firm confidence that we will reach our destination. But we have just boarded a ship destined for a premature grave.
Jesus awakened the sense of sin in the Samaritan woman with the words, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” So also he moves us to repentance with the words, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spew you out of my mouth.” Awakened, then, to the danger of half-hearted discipleship, Jesus holds out to us the same promise he gave the woman at the well, saying, “Whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” The Samaritan woman trusted this promise, and, hence, she came to possess, at that very instant, living water, zoē, eternal life and forgiveness. Yes, there is a place in heaven for the like of her! And as the Holy Spirit moves us to repentance, we, too, are forgiven anew.
O what a mighty thing faith is. See what the newly forgiven woman does. She leaves the well, forgets her water pot (the one she had brought to carry the water back to her home), moves quickly to the city, assembles the townspeople (yes, the same ones who had condemned her promiscuity!), and speaks boldly to them. She makes a complete confession, not only of her sins, but of her faith as well, saying to her townspeople, “Come, see a man who told me all things that I ever did. This is not the Christ, is it?” What she meant was, “I think he is the Christ, and so will you when you meet him.”
As it turned out, Jesus stayed with these Samaritans for two days. And what did they think of Jesus? In one of the most beautiful confessions recorded in Scripture, they said to the woman they once thought ill of, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is, indeed, the Savior of the world!”
The Samaritan woman would never forget her encounter with Jesus at Jacob’s well. At last her thirst was quenched, for she met someone who loved her unconditionally. There was joy in her heart over the salvation she had gained. And there was joy in Jesus’ heart over the lost that was found.
Dear friends, would you like to know the joy that this woman experienced at the well? You can. You can because the same Jesus who spoke to her will speak to you. He will speak to you from a well, not from Jacob’s well, but from the well of his Word. It is there that he tells us that he loves us with an everlasting love, that nothing can separate us from his love, and that our joy will be made full in him. Go to his Word, beloved, for the song of forgiving love flowing from its pages was composed just for you! Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Endnotes
See Dr. Peter J. Scaer, from a paper delivered at the 2002 Concordia Theological Seminary Symposia entitled “Jesus and the Woman at the Well: Where Mission Meets Worship,” pp. 4-5. See website at http://www.ctsfw.edu/events/symposia/papers/sym2002scaerp.pdf.
St. Paul uses the phrase “gift of God” twice. In Romans 6:23 he says, “The gift of God is eternal life [zoē] in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In Ephesians 2:8-9, he says, ““For by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”
The particular Greek construction that begins a question with the particle mā (as here), expects a negative answer.
William Barclay, The Gospel of John, vol. 1, rev. ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975), p. 156. Italics are Barclay’s. The full quotation is helpful: “This woman stiffened as if a sudden pain had caught her; she recoiled as if hit by a sudden shock; she grew white as one who had seen a sudden apparition; and so indeed she had, for she had suddenly caught sight of herself.”
See, for example, 1 Corinthians 16:22.
See John 4:42. This is the only passage in the Gospels where Jesus is acknowledged specifically as “the Savior of the world.” It is even more significant that it comes from Samaritan people. One of the surprises of the Gospels is that the Gentiles often embrace Jesus and the kingdom more fully and accurately than the Jews. Indeed, the Jews often met Jesus’ claims and preaching with hostility. Evangelicalism is precisely wrong when they look for the future conversion of the Jews (from a notably erroneous reading of Roman 11:26). The preceding context of the natural and the wild olive branches makes it clear that “all Israel” means all believers. See Romans 2:28-29, Romans 9:6-7, Galatians 3:29, Galatians 6:16, and Philippians 3:3.)
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