Finding Meaning In A Meaningless Life"

“Finding Meaning in a Meaningless Life”

May 19, 2013

John 4:2-26

The Pharisees heard that Jesus was winning and baptizing more disciples than John. 2 But in fact Jesus was not baptizing. His disciples were. 3 When the Lord found out about all this, he left Judea. He went back to Galilee again.

4 Jesus had to go through Samaria. 5 He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar. It was near the piece of land Jacob had given his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from the journey. So he sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 A woman from Samaria came to get some 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. I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” She said this because Jews don’t have anything to do with Samaritans.

10 Jesus answered her, “You do not know what God’s gift is. And you do not know who is asking you for a drink. If you did, you would have asked him. He would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you don’t have anything to get water with. The well is deep. Where can you get this living water?

12 “Our father Jacob gave us the well. He drank from it himself. So did his sons and his flocks and herds. Are you more important than he is?”

13 Jesus answered, “All who drink this water will be thirsty again. 14 But anyone who drinks the water I give him will never be thirsty. In fact, the water I give him will become a spring of water in him. It will flow up into eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water. Then I will never be thirsty. And I won’t have to keep coming here to get water.”

16 He told her, “Go. Get your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands. And the man you have now is not your husband. What you have just said is very true.”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our people have worshiped on this mountain for a long time. But you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 Jesus said, “Believe me, woman. A time is coming when you will not worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know. Salvation comes from the Jews.

23 “But a new time is coming. In fact, it is already here. True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. They are the kind of worshipers the Father is looking for.

24 “God is spirit. His worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming.” (He is called Christ.) “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus said, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”

The wisest man who ever lived said,

““Meaningless! Everything is meaningless! Everything is completely meaningless! Nothing has any meaning.” Ecclesiastes 1:2

We all have probably felt that way at one time or another. We start off in life with these high hopes; with these unrealistic expectations. We chaff under our parents rule and long for the day when we are finally on our own. It doesn’t take too many days on our own before we realize life was not all we expected it to be with our new found freedom. We come to realize we didn’t have it so bad. Now we are faced with living life. Paying rent; finding and holding down a job; keeping up the car and keeping it filled with gas. Life is just a little more than we expected. It’s not quite as much fun as we expected.

The Mr. or Ms. Right – didn’t turn out quite the way we thought. After the newness wore off their faults came shining through. Bad breath, passed gas, messed up hair – WOW! It wasn’t like we expected.

And freedom. Where’s the freedom? We are a slave to our jobs. We don’t have time to play and have fun like we expected. Who has time for fishing or hunting trips?

And so we begin to do one of two things. Maybe first we try to dull the pain; blunt the sharp edge of life. We begin to drink a little bit – just to take the edge off. But before long we find we have to drink more and more or pop more and more pills. We have to smoke more and more just to get a little piece of mind. Before long we find we NEED the fix or whatever out drug of choice is. We deny we are alcoholics or addicts or junkies – we think we can control it. We can quit anytime we want – we just don’t want to. Or we WANT to – just not right now.