A Woman With A Past Series

A Woman With A Past

Fifth in a series: “Conversations With Christ”

John 4:4-19

The text this morning is lengthy, but it important that week look at it in it’s entirety to get the full impact of this conversation a women had with Jesus.

So, get close to a Bible and let’s look at it together.

4 Now he had to go through Samaria.

5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"

8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

10 Jesus answered her, "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."

11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?

12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,

14 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."

15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

I have been to this exact spot on the map…the Well of Jacob. Located in the modern city of Nablus in the West Bank of Israel…Palestinian territory. It is the site of much bloodshed over the years and in the news just in the past few weeks.

I was there in 1975. That year things were quiet and Western tourists were allowed in the area. Every trip since, we have been prohibited to enter the city for fear

of our bus being attacked by rock throwers.

The problems that exist between Jews and Arabs there today are very similar to the problems that existed in this same place 2000 years ago between the Jews and the Samaritans.

In Jesus’ days. Travel in Samaria was not recommended. Not for political reasons or even for fear of bodily harm.

The reasons were strictly religious and ethnic. Prejudicial hatred of the vilest kind.

Racial or ethnic discrimination is bad enough…but when you wrap it in religion it becomes even more hideous.

To put in plainly Jews hated Samaritans and Samaritans hated Jews. They would walk miles and miles out of their way not to encounter each other. (MAP)

Yet, here we find Jesus in Samaria, drinking Samaritan water and talking to a Samaritan woman, a Samaritan woman who is living with a man she is not married to.

Talk about politically correct!

These are the kinds of things I absolutely love bout Jesus!

In verse 10, Jesus ignores her reference to the division that exists between their people.

Jesus throws her a bit of a curve as He looks into her heart.

Remember, we have learned in this series that Jesus seldom answers our questions as we would like him to…He goes straight to what is in our heart

· In this segment of the conversation Jesus begins to bridge the chasm that exists between

o The temporal and the eternal

o The immediate and the big picture

o The material and the spiritual

It is this perspective that He desires for each one of us as well.

We are often to short-sighted.

As they sit by a hole in the earth where life has been centered for her people for over 3,000 years…the issue here is water…survival…

· He offers her something called “living water”

· He offers her a “spring of water welling up inside her offering eternal life.”

She must have thought, “What’s with this dude?”

But what is Jesus up to here?

He begins to take this lady from her every-day problems – physical thirst

And her every-day perspectives – The issues between the Jews and Samaritans

To…

Her craving for the satisfaction of her inner, spiritual thirsts…and the energy needed in trying to satisfy those longings.

Now, He has her attention…they are down to the lowest common-denominator of the human experience…survival!