A Thirsty Woman

John 4:1-42                              A Thirsty Woman

2/15/15            D. Marion Clark

Introduction

We cannot claim that we live in an age of scandals, as though they were not prevalent in other times. But with the advent of the media technology, the internet, and, in particular, social media, scandals are much easier to uncover. How Jesus would fare today? His simple act of asking for water was a scandal in his day, a scandal he evidently was will to risk.

Text

⁴ And he had to pass through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ 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.

⁷ A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹ 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.)

We have just observed a horrifying, scandalizing scene. Put in today’s context, this scene would have made the headlines of every news outlet, and Jesus’ credibility would have been shot down immediately, so that his ministry and following would have come to ruin. What did Jesus do wrong?

He spoke to a woman. He spoke to a woman in a public place, a place where he and the woman, whom he did not know, were alone. Jesus is breaking an inviolable taboo of Middle-eastern culture.  That explains his disciples’ reaction when they return later in the story:  Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” (v. 27).  His very behavior of sitting at the well is scandalous, because he ought to have backed away at least twenty feet so that the woman could safely approach.

He spoke to a Samaritan woman. The woman herself questioned Jesus about this. John adds the brief comment that “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” Nor Samaritans with Jews, for that matter. On another occasion, Jesus had tried to enter a Samaritan town and was refused entry because he was heading to Jerusalem. James and John suggested a response – rain down fire on them! The enmity between Jew and Samaritan was an ancient one dating back to the days of exile. Gentiles had been resettled in the territory of Samaria, mixing with Jews and resulting in “mixed blood” along with mixed religion, so that the hostility was imbedded with ethnic and religious resentment.

This leads us to ask why Jesus was even traveling through Samaria. Even though Samaria territory lay between Judea in the south and Galilee in the north, Jews typically traveled around Samaria to avoid uncleanness and hostility. It is hard to believe that Jesus’ disciples had recommended this route or even agreed without protest. Our text says that Jesus had to pass through Samaria, but there is no reason given why. Why, for that matter did all of the disciples go into town? It is likely that they carried with them a traveling jug to draw water out of wells. Why would they have taken that with them? More likely, Jesus felt that he had to in enter Samaria at this time and in this manner in order to accomplish his Father’s will. To put it bluntly, this scene has all the makings of a setup by Jesus.

To add to all of the taboos broken, Jesus speaks to a morally loose Samaritan woman. As Jesus says to her, “you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband” (v. 18). In the context Jesus is revealing his supernatural power, but for critics he is revealing that he knows the kind of woman he is interacting with. On another occasion, Jesus is at the home of a Pharisee for dinner; a prostitute breaks in and falls at his feet, literally kissing his feet. The Pharisee concludes that Jesus cannot be a prophet of God, for if he were he certainly would not allow such an immoral person to touch him. Scandal, scandal! Investigative reporters would have had a field day with Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

So, here he is around noon time offending a Samaritan woman by asking for a drink of water. The woman is not a bashful woman. She immediately confronts Jesus with having the audacity to speak to her and to actually ask for help by giving him water. And she plays right into his hands.

¹⁰ 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.”

Now we know what Jesus is up to – the saving of a sinner. He places before this immoral woman who he is and what he gives. Who is he? He is the “gift of God.” Samaritans considered the Torah, that is, the Book of the Law, as the gift of God. Jews considered the Book of the Law and the Prophets as the gift of God. Jesus presents himself, the Word of God in the flesh, as the gift of God. “For God so loved the world (Jew, Gentile, even Samaritan) that he gave his only Son.”

What does Jesus give? He gives “living water.” The woman may not have understood what Jesus was alluding to about his identity, but she would have understood his reference to living water, or thought she did. To a Middle-easterner, there two kinds of water: there was underground water drawn from a well and there was living water that came from a spring or river. Living water was fresher, purer than well water. She thinks Jesus is claiming to have access to such water, which she views as an idle boast.

 ¹¹ 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? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

“Who do you think you are, stranger? Do you take me for a fool? There is no spring near this place. And, by the way, I might be a lowly woman, but I also know my Bible, and I know my biblical heritage. Not only do you have nothing to give, but you are the one who is sinning by making yourself greater than the father of our nation.” She put Jesus in his place!

 ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ 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.”

In response Jesus plays his hand. He is not here to talk about liquid. He is not offering to do a magician trick of making water come springing out of the ground. He is offering eternal life. It is not the physical body that is his concern but her soul. More dangerous than physical thirst is spiritual thirst; more satisfying than quenching physical thirst is to quench spiritual thirst. More lasting than any liquid water – whatever source it comes from – is the spiritual water that Jesus gives, which quenches thirst forever and provides eternal life. Jesus, the gift of God, stands before this woman now with such water to give.

 ¹⁵ 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.”

No doubt the woman was not expecting such an answer, and she probably still does not grasp what it is that Jesus is offering. Is she humoring him, as one might a crazy man? Is she in a confused way trying to take him seriously, like Peter with his bumbling remarks? Is she outright mocking him with sarcasm? Whatever the case, what Jesus says next wakes her up to the fact that he is one to be taken seriously.

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.”

This is what would have been expected for Jesus to say all along. He ought to be speaking with the husband not the wife. She gives the expected answer for a woman who is trying to hide her circumstance. Now, he will catch her attention and respect.

 Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

We will find out in a moment how much of an effect that Jesus’ knowledge has on her. Her next words are clearly an effort to change the subject, but perhaps she is also testing him. She knows what Jesus was conveying with his embarrassing words – namely, that he is a prophet of God. If so, then one test is to see how he answers theological questions, much in the way that religious teachers tested Jesus.

 ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ 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. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ 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.”

Again, Jesus’ answer to what was an unresolvable issue between Jews and Samaritans impacts her. Her response reveals that the subject has gotten too deep for her, but it also reveals that she shares the hope of the Messiah. There is no reason to doubt her sincerity. A “sinner” can hope in God and hope in his promises.

 ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

We can feel the power of that statement, and we can be reasonably sure that the immoral Samaritan woman felt it as well.

²⁸ So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

The question is not really a question. It is a way of bidding her hearers to consider what she has come to believe.

Lessons

This passage is filled with application lessons on a number of subjects – women in society and the church, worship, evangelism, to name a few. I am going to focus on two: how Jesus treats everybody and the primary lesson, which is who Jesus is and what he offers.

1. How Jesus treats everybody

A criticism of Jesus was that he would associate with just anybody, even notorious sinners. Jesus explained why:

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13).

We uphold the concept of equality and the innate dignity of every human being. Jesus knew that every sinner nevertheless has within them the image of God. But more to the point, he knew that everyone, as noble and good that they might seem, is nevertheless a fallen sinner. Everyone is sick and needs a physician, not an examiner who rules them unfit. Everyone is a sinner and needs calling into the kingdom of God, not a bouncer who keeps them out. Everyone is burdened and heavy-laden, and needs someone to lift the yoke, not lay more burden. Everyone is thirsty and needs living water.

Jesus associates with sinners because he is merciful; because he is a physician; because he is kind and compassionate. To save sinners is the reason he came into this world. He beheld a world racked with sin, and it moved him, as it moved his Father who sent him, to save sinners from such misery.

That is why he put scandal aside to ask a woman, who was a sinner in the eyes of both Jew and Samaritan, for a drink of water. He used the circumstance of his physical thirst to save her from her spiritual thirst. And he did it for no other reason than out of mercy. That same mercy let him to save such sinners as you and I. Will we not then regard lost sinners with the same mercy? Will we not befriend them? Will we not make ourselves vulnerable and show ourselves as needing what our neighboring sinners have to offer, so that we might offer to them the living water of our Savior?

It can get messy; it can even cause scandal. But then, it is mercy, not the sacrifice of offerings and money, that our Father desires.

2. Jesus can quench our thirst and we are all thirsty

Now, the primary lesson. Jesus possesses the living water which quenches the thirst that everybody possesses. And he offers it to you.

He offers it to you who have already tasted of it and have forgotten how satisfying it is. You once knew, but you have allowed the dryness in your life to make you feel thirsty again. You are like one who once felt the joy of romantic love, but who then allowed the decline of romantic feelings to make them feel that the love itself is gone, even though it has always remained and even become more secure. In the same way, because you do not feel the love of God with great ardor, you have allowed yourself to feel that God is distant.

Then taste again the living water of Jesus Christ, your Savior. Taste his love; taste the mercy he has shown you and continues to show you. Look to the cross from which springs living water. Refresh yourself in the water of forgiveness and of redemption.

And then, Jesus offers living water to you who have never tasted it. You have sought refreshing water from many fountains – romantic love, pleasures of the flesh, fame, fortune, whatever it is that you regard success. You have looked for it in travel and new adventures. You have looked for it in entertainment and even in good causes. Sometimes it has seemed like you found the water that quenches thirst. In the end, you remain as thirsty as ever. You have ended up like the Samaritan woman, drudging down and then back up a hill with water that lasts for a day. Perhaps you have become hard like her; perhaps you have a string of broken relationships and broken dreams.

There is one who stands before you. If you would understand who he is; if you would understand his mercy and love for you; if you would understand what power he possesses, you would ask him to give you streams of living water.

Why not ask now? He says to you, as he said to others many years ago: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”