A single verse in Scripture best describes what we see when we look around in the world, and very often what we see when we look in the mirror…is Jeremiah 2:13
My people have committed two sins: “They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
All people are driven by thirst…this is built into us as part of our design…I’m not talking about physical design and our need for H20, but spiritual design and the fact that are made by God for God.
Every problem in the world goes back to the truth of this verse…starting in garden with the first sin and moving forward to May 5, 2024 and all the brokenness we see in the world.
And very often, the discontent, lack of joy and purpose, we see in see in our lives.
Notice, God said…”My people”.
We can often turn from living water, to broken wells…even if we have experienced the living water of the Lord Jesus personally.
John 4
When Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John (though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), he left Judea and went again to Galilee.
Aaron spoke of how John the Baptist’s life banner was “He must increase, I must decrease.”
Most human drama is the result of people making life about themselves…we are offended, we are wounded, we don’t feel seen, we don’t feel heard, we feel undermined, or misunderstood.
All this may be true…and I am not underestimating the hurt some of this involves…but when we become an offense waiting to happen…when we live focused on self, not others…we are miserable…as is everyone around us.
When we make life about ourselves…we can ruin our lives…or at the very least, we will fail to thrive.
John knew his life was about Jesus.
Here we see Jesus for whom all things were made…the glorious one, who IS worthy of all worship…the one who should make life about himself…because he is life.
Leaving Judea to avoid the potential polarizing attempts to pit his ministry against John the Baptist’s.
Jesus will never run from anything; he only always moves towards the will of his Father.
He is not running from conflict…but he will not allow petty human nonsense to detract from the eternally serious business of his life.
Neither by the way, should we
Aaron spoke last week about John’s parenthetical notes (a version of a modern footnote).
John writes that Jesus didn’t actually baptize anyone.
In an AF wing the commander is responsible for all that happens in that wing.
That’s why, when I was a Chaplain, the chaplain program was not mine, it was the Commanders chaplain program.
I ran his program.
Jesus was in charge, even the things done by those under his command, were done in his name..
Let’s read on, in what has long been for me, one of the most fascinating and heart penetrating passages in the Bible.
He had to travel through Samaria; so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar (si car) near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. “Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.
“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.” “Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well,of water springing up in him for eternal life.” “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.” “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.” “I don’t have a husband,” she answered. “You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ”
Jesus said. “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”
The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.” Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
To understand this passage, we need to cross the historical/cultural bridge from our time to John’s, then we can come back across that bridge to make application to our own time and place.
Samaria(North) at the time of Jesus was united with Judea(South) under a single Roman governor but the Jews and Samaritans saw their regions as being very different in both it’s history and religion.
Much like Tibet today…it is not a separate country than China, but it is very distinct historically and religiously than the larger Chinese culture that surrounds it.
Or maybe like East and West Wichita…some see them as a distinct social, cultural entities…but for the most part, I don’t think East siders and West Siders distrust each other…but who knows.
Centuries earlier the Assyrians had captured the Northern part of the then divided kingdom of Israel and they deported all the Israelites with influence and then settled the land with foreigners who intermarried with the remaining Jews.
When the Jews returned from exile, many years later, they viewed the Samaritans as racial half-breeds and religious heretics.
The Samaritans built their own rival temple (later destroyed), they had their own version of Scripture…sort of, they only accepted the first five books of the OT as being authoritative.
The other historical factor that is important to this passage is that Samaritan women were thought to be perpetually unclean by the Jews.
This woman has, for that time and place, two strikes against her…she is a Samaritan, and she is a woman.
That’s enough history to get the point of the passage.
What we have in this historical event…is the epic wrapped in the mundane.
Jesus, the eternal, cosmos creating Word become flesh…takes off a three day walk to his destination.
He sat down by a well because, John wrote that he was worn out from his walking.
Do you get a sense of how “normal,” of how non-spectacular this all was.
Jesus performed signs and wonders, he was the eternal Son born of a virgin, heralded by angels, predicted for centuries by prophets.
And he is, walking.
No magic carpet, no Star Trek transporter…not even a camel…just hours and days of walking.
What happens when humans walk a long time? They get tired.
Let’s not miss this.
If you found yourself transported back to the first century and were walking with Jesus what would you expect to experience?
Magic, supernatural stuff everywhere, Hogwarts, Lord of the Rings stuff?…if so, you would be disappointed.
As you walked beside Jesus…you would smell his b.o., he would stop and remove a stone from his sandal, he would get tired, and thirsty and hungry…very normal stuff.
My point of this is that we would miss it then and so often we miss it now.
That looks and feels very normal…and yet there is nothing normal at all about Jesus…people then failed to see the epic in the normal, or the normal in the epic stuff…hard to get this balance right.
We do the same.
Your life is mostly mundane…and to chase the epic is foolish…it will take you off a cliff.
But your life is in fact…quite epic…to miss that is tragic…it will make you dull and take away vision from your life.
We need both passion and pace…this is a hard balance to keep.
If you are a Christian, you are called according to God’s eternal purposes…called to do the work he has prepared for you to do.
You are going to outlive your life…eternity is your destiny.
But meanwhile…we have to walk, and we get tired, and we have to sit down.
Jesus, worn out, sits by a well, his disciples had gone into town to buy food.
Why didn’t Jesus just make some food? Why bother sending the boys to town?
He could feed 5000, it couldn’t be that much trouble for him to feed his guys.
Because he wasn’t a wizard, he was the Lord…his signs were to signify his Lordship, not to randomly bypass normal life processes.
So, his guys walk to town to buy food with money that they had earned, food that had been planted and harvested sold in shops so normal people could make a living.
No magic…normal stuff…but eternal stuff is happening in all this normality.
Because meanwhile…A woman of Samaria came to draw water…John’s original readers understood the significance of this description, “Samaritan Woman”…now so do we.
Jesus asked her for a drink.
Pay attention he is tired, worn out…but he rouses himself to minister to her.
Against cultural and religious norms…he engages her for her good.
And against his own human physical tiredness…he dies to self, to bless her.
She was shocked…a Jewish man asking a Samaritan woman for a drink. This was not done.
What she doesn’t know is that far from becoming unclean by contact with her…Jesus sanctifies all that he touches.
If you touched a leper, you became unclean…but when Jesus touched a leper, the leaper became clean.
If you come in contact with a Samaritan woman, you would become unclean…not Jesus, it works the other way around for him.
He touches the unclean and it becomes clean.
Jesus, this respected Rabbi, talks freely with this Samaritan woman, who we will find out had made quite a mess of her life.
The woman puzzled; wonders how he could ask her for a drink…she knew the cultural/religious lines that divided them.
Jesus said, “If you knew who I am you would ask me for a drink of living water.”
The OT background for Jesus’ words is Jeremiah 2:13…we started with it.
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
People have rejected the fresh supply of God’s faithful love and abundant life…for stagnant, broken cisterns.
The water is eternal life, given by the Spirit, that only Jesus, the Messiah can provide.
She, like Nicodemus, misses his point…she sees only the material, and misses the spiritual.
By the way, Christians get the best of both worlds…we get the material and spiritual.
Those who reject spiritual realities…fail to understand and fully enjoy even the physical realities.
Andrew Peterson says this very well in his song, “Don’t you want to thank someone?”
But when you see the morning sun
Burning through a silver mist
Don’t you want to thank someone?
And when you see the spring has come
And it warms you like a mother’s kiss
Don’t you want to thank someone for this?
We know who made the physical and why it has been made, and we know it is not all that there is.
We get the best of both.
The woman says to Jesus…”You don’t have a bucket, the well is deep…even Jacob, had to dig the well and needed a bucket…you aren’t greater than he is are you?”
The form of her question implies that she thinks the answer is “no!”
This is wondering if this guy is a poser, a fake.
The fact is, as John has shown us, Jesus is greater that Temple, greater than the Exodus, and now he is greater than Jacob himself.
Everything before Jesus pointed to him.
Though her question is skeptical, the Lord answers it…but in a way that continues to baffle her.
“Everyone who drinks from this well will get thirsty again”
How well she knows this, as she ponders the frequent trips she has to make…day after day to get water.
Jesus goes on…
“The water I give will permanently quench human thirst.”
Again, thinking on a pure natural plane she says…
“I’d love to not have to keep coming back to this well day after day…I’m in, give me this water.”
What follows next takes us back to earlier where John said that Jesus knew what was in the heart of people.
It sounds abrupt and strange…but it is directly tied to the conversation about human thirst and broken wells.
Jesus replies to her request for water with “Go get your husband”
“I don’t have one” she answers…probably with her head now bowed down looking at the ground in shame.
“I know, you have had five and the man you are living with is not your husband.”
So, is Jesus shaming her? Is he being unkind?
No, she must understand the real source of her thirst and how it has driven her to dig broken wells if she has any hope of experiencing the life-giving water that Jesus is offering.
As we read the gospels we should be struck by two things in the way Jesus deals with people.
- He can talk to and connect with anyone. Rulers, generals, business people, the sick and suffering, prostitutes, and this Samaritan women
- He always goes straight to their greatest heart need.
People must see their need if they hope to experience his life-giving provision.
In every world view, from which all human values and ethics are derived the same basic questions are in play.
We have gone over these many times…but I want to point out how they are in John’s gospel.
Who is God? What is ultimate reality.
-In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Who are we?
-All things were made through him
What is our problem & What is the solution?
-Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
If you get Ultimate Reality wrong you get it all wrong.
If you get who we are as humans wrong you get it all wrong.
If you get our problem wrong and you get the solution wrong…and you get it all wrong.
John is laying out a worldview that matches what is actually true and real.
Jesus goes to the heart of the matter because he has come to change our hearts…not to make people feel better…but to actually transform us.
it is never unkind to tell people their real problem since we also know the solution.
There are unkind ways to do it…but doing it, isn’t unkind.
“Wounds of a friend are faithful, an enemy multiplies kisses.” Prov. 27:6
Jesus was called a friend of sinners, but how did he show this friendship?
Not merely by hanging out with them…not by telling them they are okay in their life choices
But by consistently pointing out their sin…and the solution…turn from sin and follow me.
What is the woman’s response to the Lord’s searching spotlight on her heart?
She brings up a point of religious controversy.
“You are clearly a prophet…Which is the right mountain to worship on? The one of the Jews or the one of the Samaritans?”
Maybe she was deflecting…but maybe she was testing him…asking a point of theological nuance.
His response, of course, went to the heart of things.
The hour (time) is coming when neither mountain will matter…the sacred mountain of the Jews or the sacred mountain of the Samaritans.
All of it (Old Testament, temple, prophecies) pointed forward to Jesus…he is the point of all of it.
He did answer part of her question…”Salvation is from the Jews” meaning, God’s revelation of salvation came through them.
But…and this is the crucial conditional “but”
“The Hour is coming, and in fact is now here…when true worshipers will worship God in spirit and truth for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”
This sounds like a contradiction, “The hour is coming and is now here.”
Which is it, future or present tense?
Yes.
The “hour” the “time” for John is the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus…it is coming.
But the period of true worship, though not fully here is already present in the person of the Lord Jesus.
The hour of “it is finished” on the cross is not yet, but the Savior of the world is already there among them.
So, the hour is coming and is now here…already…but not fully yet.
When the work of Jesus on the cross is complete and he has raised from the dead…true worshippers will have nothing to do with the age-old disputes about the Jerusalem temple mount and Mount Gerizim of the Samaritans.
Geography and nationality will mean nothing…what will matter is true worship of the true God…Spirit and truth.
These are not two distinct characteristics that can be separated into parts.
To worship God (to live in saving relationship with him) requires God’s revelation of himself (truth) and God’s Spirit giving us new life.
Look at what John writes in Revelation 21:2.
“And I saw no temple in the city (new heaven and earth), for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”
The physical temple pointed to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Put yourself in this woman’s sandals.
It’s hard to imagine that she is able to absorb much of this.
A Jewish man, who clearly has authority starts talking to you.
This has never happened, and it is beyond imagination that it would be happening now.
She is flooded.
Then he sees into her life…in fact, he points out either great tragedy or relational devastation (she is a either a five-time widow, or a lot of husbands have divorced her) and her points out her current sin (she is living with a man)
Flooded even more.
She probably didn’t get much of what was happening, but she was getting enough.
She asks one more question (a question in a statement form).
“When the Messiah comes, he will explain everything to us.”
“Are you him?”
“Yes, That would be me” Jesus answers.
Now, her mind is probably fully blown…but that doesn’t mean the Spirit isn’t at work, because he is.
She is hearing truth and the Spirit is drawing her heart to Jesus.
You DO have to understand the truth of the Gospel in order to be saved…but you don’t to be a theologian.
Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.
I am a sinner, in need of a Savior.
Jesus died on the cross for my sins.
The gospel is accessible enough for a child to walk in and deep enough to drown any arrogant scholar.
Just then, the disciples arrive with food…and they are amazed that he is talking with a woman.
John expresses their unspoken dilemma…
They could ask her “what do you want” then they would break the rule of what was surprising to them…Jesus is talking to this woman.
They could ask Jesus, “Why are you talking with her” but they probably knew they would get a rebuke for that question.
So, they just stood there in surprise.
I can imagine they were talking about this among themselves later…”Why didn’t you ask her or Jesus what was up?”
“Why didn’t you ask, I wasn’t going to!”
John tells us that the woman left her water jar, went to town, and told the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
We don’t want to assume too much from John’s details here, it could be that he is just showing historical accuracy in telling us she left her water jar.
But we also don’t want to assume too little from this detail.
He could be pointing out a profound symbolism in the fact that she leaves the old water jar in her eagerness to go tell her friends and family about her encounter with Jesus…and his living water.
She has come to that well day after day for water, thousands of times…probably about a half a mile walk…then she lowers the bucket about 100 feet…pulls up a couple of gallons of water…about 16 pounds.
Then lugs it back to town.
What do you imagine she is doing during this mindless work day after day?
We call it mindless work because our minds can think of other things while we do it…she has lots of time to ponder her deep sadness, her brokenness, her despair….her thirst that is more than physical
She has a lot of time to think about how day after day she has to go get water…she probably has a bunch of kids…maybe grandkids…day after day she goes back for more…again and again.
Mundane…nothing epic about it.
Day after day, husband after husband, man after man…she dumps relationships into her broken well and she is soon dry again.
Don’t miss the connection between 5 husbands, and another man…and the well she comes back to over and over…and the thirst that returns over and over.
On this day…probably for the first time ever…she leaves the water jar and returns home without it…because she is thinking about something other than her own emptiness…something more than h20 and something more than another man to try and quench her dry soul.
She had just encountered Jesus…he looked her in the eyes and told her that he was the long-awaited Messiah.
It is not a stretch to imagine why John told us she left her water jar.
Jesus didn’t show her, her broken empty well to be unkind…but so that she would abandon it and experience living water.
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Jer. 2:13
This is a precise and concise description of what is wrong in the world and what is wrong in our hearts.
This describes the flow of the OT, starting in the Garden and going all the way through to the end.
This describes, what we see in the news every day and in our classrooms and offices and homes.
This describes what we see in our own hearts and lives.
We turn from the life that only God gives and dig in the dust of our own selfish desires trying to find life…we dig broken wells that can’t hold water.
The application for today is from the words of Jesus:
“If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”
So, we ask again…”Jesus, give me a drink.
“Forgive me for turning from the life that is only in you and forgive me for digging my own wells, broken wells that can’t hold water.”
If you have not been born again…ask Jesus for this living water, turn from your sin and turn to him.
If you have been born again…you have relationship with God but you can break fellowship with him if you have turned away from him to broken wells to give you life.
Repent and ask Jesus to again refresh you with living water.
Turn from self and sin and turn to him…love him, obey him…thrive in relationship with him.
When the Holy Spirit puts his finger on your sin…it is a kindness.
Our sin, is a broken well…repent of it.
“Jesus, please forgive me and give me a drink, I am thirsty, I have tried to dig my own well again.”