Introduction
Sermon #9 in a Series on the Gospel of John
An albatross (known as a sign of good luck) arrived in the nick of time to lead the ship out of the destructive ice field:
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hail’d it in God’s name.
But the Ancient Mariner, for reasons unknown, shot the lucky bird. He shipmates then spoke of the dread which they read in his face:
“God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?” — With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
As a result of this evil act, the ship is becalmed and as thirst threatens to kill the crew, they utter the famous lines:
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, uses the fact that though 75% of the surface of the earth is water, only 1% is fresh, unfrozen, and suitable for drinking. Because of the 3% concentration of dissolved salts, drinking seawater dehydrates the body as it tries to remove the salt. Therefore, in the midst of a vast ocean, “water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”
It is called “The Universal Solvent” – it dissolves more substances than any other liquid. The average adult could live 30 days without food, but only 5 without water. Roughly 70 percent of your body is water. A chicken contains about 75% water, a potato 80%, a tomato 95%.
We do not think about water much, because it is cheap and plentiful here; but in the majority of the rural population in third world countries, woman and children still spend hours each day collecting water from distant sources. They do so because water is necessary to live. It is used by your body to regulate temperature, flush waste, and process food. All of your organs use water in their function.
How apropos, then, for Jesus to chose this most common and essential element of life to explain Life. There is nothing else on earth that we must go and get and ingest which is as essential to life as water. Yet everyone who drinks will be thirsty again.
There is, also, another thirst which begs to be satisfied. And just as with drinking saltwater, seeking to satiate this thirst with “polluted” sources will poison you. Jesus speaks in John 4 of the thirst of the soul.
We can hear this story in (at least) three ways.
One is as an evangelist. An article in the Wall Street Journal last week described the new, militantly evangelistic push in European atheism. People who hate God are going on the offensive. No longer content with passive disbelief, they are adopting methods used by Christianity and Islam – a fervent desire to make converts. We may criticize their philosophy as internally inconsistent, but they are accurate in noting that Christianity is a missionary faith. We will study the specifics at a future date (Lord willing), but glance for a moment at verse 39: “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony….” Her experience with Jesus made her into an evangelist for Jesus – she told others about the Messiah. So too, all here who know Jesus, will want to give testimony. (This, by the way, is a fruit of true faith and, therefore, a test of conversion.) Jesus’ method of “offering living water to dry and thirsty souls” must be our model for faithful and effective witnessing. And since the elders have targeted evangelism and local outreach as our first priority for growth, improvement and change in the coming years, we should be especially attentive.
Another way to hear this interaction is as one who never before has personally tasted the water of which Jesus speaks. Surely some of us remain, like this woman, blind to the spiritual realities Jesus describes. We need to say to the Lord: “Sir, give me this water.”
The third group is those who find themselves newly dry. In times past, living water has gushed from our lives. For varied reasons, however, the fountain is cut off. This passage and the weeks following can reconnect us to the source.
Bernard of Clairvaux wrote, “If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. For a canal delivers water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus communicates, without loss to itself, its superabundant water. In the Church at the present day, we have many canals, few reservoirs.” Here is a spring to fill your reservoir to overflowing.
To fetch this water of life for your soul, please notice four key principles from this text.
1. We Must Meet Jesus To Have Our Thirst Defined
Many of you will remember the clever advertising slogan: “Wow, I could have had a ___.” Campbell Soup Company claims that your thirst has been blunted with something less than ideal. Thinking – before you grab a pop – thinking of how delicious and satisfying would be a V8-juice will define and refine your thirst.
I am not suggesting a new, trendy bumper sticker: “Wow, I could have had Jesus.” No! I am saying that this is precisely where the Lord begins his call to this woman. She has a thirst, a very real and physical need for water. That is why she is at the well. But an even greater desire squeezes her heart dry – she thirsts for a changed life, a life of meaning and satisfaction. Let me show you.
John 4.6c: “It was about the sixth hour.” High noon. No one goes to the well at noon. If that were not obvious, it is made clear in texts like Genesis 24.11, which describes “the time of the evening when women go out to draw water.”
Look also John 4.7a: “There came a woman of Samaria to draw water.” She is alone. Women never came to the well alone; such was too risky to a pure woman’s reputation.
The third clue is back in John 4.6a: “Jacob’s well was there.” Leon Morris comments: “Another strange feature in the present narrative is that the woman should have come to this well at all. There was plentiful water nearer her home. It may be that the water at Jacob’s well was thought to be of better quality. More likely there was some superstitious veneration for a place hallowed by associations with the patriarch. But the woman had a bad reputation, and the explanation may be very simple – she chose the time and the place to avoid other women” (258).
None of those details, alone, would demand a certain conclusion; together they describe an outcast, a social stigma, a woman rejected by “good” folk. Craig Keener: “The time of day (and, hence, the intensity of heat), would probably cue the audience that this was not the time when most of the women would come to draw – hence leading the reader to consider why this woman came to the well alone…. That the woman came alone would underline the likelihood what she was not welcome among the other women” (593).
The Apostle John further highlights this woman’s profound isolation from the rest of society by recording her story immediately after Jesus’ conversations with Nicodemus. He was a devoutly religious Jew; she was an immoral Samaritan. He was a learned theologian; she was an uneducated peasant. He was wealthy; she was poor. He was a man and a member of the social elite; she was a woman and the dregs of Samaritan society. Each stroke of the brush adds to the picture of the emptiness that she had tried (unsuccessfully) to fill with immoral relationships.
When Jesus meets her, he begins by drawing her into a realization of that very thing for which her soul thirsts. She will not find happiness with a string of men; she will not escape hurt by avoiding other people. She has a thirst only God can meet. Jesus gently insists that her efforts at satisfaction have been misdirected: “Drink from this well and you will be thirsty again.”
Johnny Lee sang: “I was looking for love in all the wrong places / Looking for love in too many faces / Searching your eyes, looking for traces / Of what…I’m dreaming of... / Hopin’ to find a friend and a lover / God bless the day I discover / Another heart, lookin’ for love”
Lee is wrong – you will not find it in a “heart looking for love.” This woman’s problem is vertical – not the horizontal relationships she has abused in an effort to escape loneliness and pain. Jesus begins by defining her thirst as a desire to know God; but he does not stop there.
2. We Must Meet Jesus To Have Our Thirst Accentuated (John 4.10)
When she first meets him, Jesus appears to be the thirsty one who needs her help. But he quickly reverses the standings. Now he claims to have the water she wants! And notice he calls it “living water.” The term has a double meaning. In normal conversation, it could refer to flowing or moving water (as opposed to that in a well or cistern). A stream or river or fountain was considered to be better, more healthy, safer. But Jesus means something greater. The Bible again and again uses water as the symbol of the soul’s desire which only God can supply.
In Isaiah 12.3, water equals salvation: “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
In Isaiah 44.3 water represents the giving of the Holy Spirit: “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.”
In Ezekiel 47, water flows from the throne of God bringing the benefits of salvation to the world.
And Zechariah uses water to describing the cleansing of salvation, the change of sanctification, and the promise of glorification.
There is a saying: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” There is truth in that. Jesus is not forcing his blessings on this woman. He has water and offers it to her, but he does not make her drink it. But the saying has one other part: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink…but you can give it a salt tablet.”
“I have living water” – Jesus is placing a pinch of salt in her mouth that her thirst for the things of God might increase.
For you here who have never tasted this water, note well Jesus’ words. You thirst and seek satisfaction, but you will not find it apart from God. The restlessness and incompleteness which infects every aspect of life is your soul’s thirsting for God. If you knew the gift of God, if you knew the complete satisfaction and utter happiness available for your soul, you would ask of Jesus and he would give you living water.
Here is something also for you who seek to witness to dry and thirsty souls. Jesus does not begin with condemnation, as we too often have done. He does not quote chapter and verse, as we may have thought beneficial. He starts with her needs and relates them to God through Biblical truths. He appeals to her imagination and her desires. He defines, then accentuates, her thirst. Oh, how different and delightful is the Lord’s careful and compassionate call to dry and thirsty souls!
3. We Must Meet Jesus To Have Our Thirst Satisfied (John 4.13-14a)
Jesus hinted to this woman that her real concern ought to be spiritual. She does not understand. But he remains patient and comes to point again: “This water that you draw from the well will satisfy only temporary thirsts; I am speaking to you of a different longing. One that can be fully satisfied, forever.”
There are many temporary things that the heart and flesh desire, yet those who obtain them are still weary and dissatisfied. Whether you seek the comfort of riches or rank; whether you labor hard in learning or to acquire power; whether amusement or advancement is your passion; all are utterly unable to fill your soul.
It is as if the soul were in the shape of a sieve. You may pour in the water of worldly delights day and night, but none will be held. Pour in pasta, though, and the sieve is quickly filled. Jesus offers something materially different than the water of the world. He offers good things which stick to your soul.
Peggy Lee recorded a song with this chorus:
"Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is"
A sad song of despair. George Sanders felt the same emptiness. Married first to Zsa Zsa Gabor and then to Benita Hume, he was a famous Hollywood sophisticate, graduate of Cambridge and a brilliant mathematician. Yet his suicide note said, “Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.”
We can clog the holes in the sieves of our souls with the dirt of the world and so feel a bit of filling. But the results will always be temporary. Whoever drinks of this water will be thirsty again. Only Jesus fills the holes of our souls by filling us with living water.
4. We Must Meet Jesus To Have Our Thirst Transformed (John 4.14b)
This is the reservoir Bernard of Clairvaux spoke of. Those who know God are not simply canals to take his message to others. That is why so much of our evangelistic efforts fail. Rather than naturally and irresistibly share the overflow of our lives, we are dry channels trying to give away every drop we receive. And people very often do not want to be like us – they do not want to share in our dryness.
But such is not the promise of Jesus. Those who know him become themselves fountains, springs of eternal life.
In the backyard a low place will occasionally develop and water will pool there. As a result, the ground will always be wet and eventually the grass will be drowned. The problem can be easily solved, however. Adding dirt fills the hole, raises the level, sheds the water and the ground dries.
But sometimes underneath the wet spot is a broken pipe.
The difference is soon discovered when you add dirt. The new ground over a broken pipe does not long remain dry. A fountain of water cannot be stifled by a cap of dirt. Soon the seeping begins and before long, water comes to the surface.
The spiritual life which Jesus gives is similar. Yes, there will be times of discouragement and trouble and, even, backsliding. We all have such in a fallen world.
But there will be an irrepressible life bubbling forth from those who know God through Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit will seep out – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. The character resulting from the blessing of God will flow forth – peacemaking, humility, mercy, purity of heart, doing good even to those who persecute.
A true Christian has more than intellectual assent to the facts of the gospel. A true Christian has something more significant than belief in God, or even knowledge that Jesus is the Messiah. She has those – absolutely. And she has the Holy Spirit. Jesus gives new life to those who ask – a supernatural life, a spiritual life, a fountain of living water than cannot be capped or contained.
5. Conclusion
Wrapped around this whole interaction is Jesus’ thirst. It seems a bit strange that God comes to give living water, yet he grows dry and dusty, tired and thirsty. Nor would this be the only time. In John 19.28, we hear Jesus cry out from the cross: “I thirst.”
We know why we thirst for God. In my sin I have turned my soul from the fountain of living water to the dry desert of the self. But why must Jesus thirst? The reason is the same for his growing weary under the heat of the noonday sun after a long walk. Jesus takes my place in the dry and weary land where there is no water.
Jesus thirsts because I have sought to fill my reservoir with sand. In taking my sin, however, I now may return to the fountain of living water. If you know the gift of God you will ask and he will give you living water. You think about that.
Next Week: John 4.16-26: Meeting God When You are Dry
April 29: John 4.27-42: Meeting God When You are Hungry
