August 5, 2007
John 4
The Living Water
I want you to open up your bibles to John chapter 4. We are going to spend the next two weeks looking at this chapter. For in this chapter there are two characteristics of Jesus that John will paint for us. We will look at one this week, and one next week.
While you are doing that I want to tell you a word. When I tell you this word, I want to see what you picture. Ready? Prejudice. When I said that how many pictured a racial prejudice like the one that was very common in our country from its foundation? Even if you are not prejudice yourself, which I hope you are not, that is a common picture of a prejudice from history. Another example would be the Nazis. Thanks to Hitler they had a prejudice against the Jews. Here’s another one: Samaritans. Before the Germans ever hated the Jews, the Jews hated the Samaritans. They were a half Jewish, unclean group that were utterly detestable to the honorable Jewish people. The Jews and the Samaritans had a sort of blood-crips relationship. Most of them hate each other.
Now Jesus was on his way back to Galilee from Judea. Most Jews when making this journey would go through Perea. This would require crossing over the Jordan river on a journey that was considerably longer than taking a more direct route that lead through Samaria. However this longer route avoided the potential for ceremonial defilement by coming in contact with the Samaritans and a certain threat of violence due to the racial tensions between the two groups. When one gang heads through another gangs territory the results may not be good. Another picture of this would be two countries at war. If America was at war with France, you likely would not want to be an American passing through France. There would be a difinate risk that the French might take their anger towards America out on you, even if you have nothing to do with the war. So it was not necessarily wise for a Jewish person to travel through a Samaritan area. But Jesus did.
It is unclear why Jesus chose to take this route. Verse 4 tells us that Jesus ‘had’ to take this road. Perhaps he was in a hurry to get back and didn’t want to waste the time, but then of course he does spend two days in Samaria, perhaps he wants to avoid the Jews in Perea or even Herod, or perhaps he has to go through this region because of divine appointment. Perhaps Jesus meeting this woman at a well was not mere coincidence but predestination. Either way Jesus ends up heading through Samaria on his journey back to Galilee.
Jn 4:5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jn 4:6 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.
Jewish days started at sunrise, which would be around 6:00 a.m. which means when Jesus and his boys arrive it is around noon. So they arrive at the hottest part of the day. The sun is out at well Palestine and its local surrounding parts are not known for their cool weather and comfortable conditions. It is a desert. So the hottest part of the day is REALLY HOT. In Death Valley California it can get up to 134 degrees during the day.
Jn 4:7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” Jn 4:8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) Jn 4:9 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. )
Here comes a woman to draw water from the well. The story is pretty well known, Jesus and the woman at the well. But here is a question: why is this woman coming to get water during the hottest part of the day? Syncar, the town she was from is about ¼ a mile from Jacobs well. This woman is not coming with a little pitcher to fill up to take back home for something to drink. She is coming to get the water for her house for the day. Now you know a full pitcher can be heavy if you have to carry it a long ways. ¼ a mile is a long way to carry a pitcher. But she needs more than that. She needs water for cleaning, washing, drinking, and perhaps even bathing. She needs a whole lot of water. This would be a large amount of water that she wanted to get, at least a good sized bucket. So why does she arrive at noon? One of the hottest hours of the day…in the desert? To do this grueling work? Think about it. If you would let that marinade for a minute we will come back to a little later. Why would this woman come to do some of her hardest work, during the hottest part of the day when all of the other women would come to get water in the morning?
Jesus asks the woman for a drink. Now who would turn down a weary traveler in the heat of the day? She has everything she needs to get him a drink. The request seems simple enough. But there are some underlying issues at work here. The woman makes a clever observation: she is a Samaritan woman…and Jesus is a Jew. Which is really very astute points she makes: obvious gender and racial divides should have kept Jesus from speaking to her. Now her saying this is not likely to inform Jesus. It’s not like she thinks he missed the fact that she was a woman or a Samaritan she may in fact be bitter about it. The Jews regarded the Samaritans with disgust but here is a Jew treating her nicely…because he wants something. Now this may not be her intention it is hard to psychoanalyze historical figures- but it is certainly fitting of her character. She may be very annoyed that Jews treat her people with such contempt until they need something. Here is a weary traveler who would not think twice about spitting in her face on a normal day…but today he is thirsty and has nothing to get a drink with. So he is nice to her.
As we previously mentioned Jews and Samaritans do not get along. A Jew would not drink from the same glass as a Samaritan…which is really what Jesus is asking. I mean even with all our sanitation and purification systems now you don’t drink after someone unless you are really close. Yet Jesus asks to drink after a stranger. A Samaritan no less. Not to mention that she was a woman. Which in this day would be unheard of. Men did not speak to women in public, even their own wives. Which may seem very strange to our culture. But in this day was quite normal. In fact even considering the racial tension between Jews and Samaritans when the disciples come back from grocery shopping they will be surprised, not that Jesus talks to a Samaritan, but that he talks to a woman. That gives you an idea of how politically incorrect this would be in that day.
Jn 4:10 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.”
Jesus captures her attention with this picture of ‘Living Water’. This was a phrase used for springs, creeks, and rivers. It was a description of water that was moving as opposed to ponds, lakes, wells and other waters that sit stagnant and still. Why is it called living water? Well, water that is moving stays much cleaner than stagnant water. Is their still stuff in it? Sure. But as it moves along it to some degree purifies itself making it safer to drink. Stagnant water is a breeding crowd for disease and bacteria that in a time without vaccinations could be potentially lethal. Even wells could get contaminated with all sorts of impurities.
The way Jesus phrases his statement is an attempt to move her thinking from physical to spiritual.
But here is the portrait John is painting: Jesus as the living water. That will mean something very profound especially when you look at the rest of John’s gospel. But I don’t want to spoil the surprise.
Jn 4:11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Jn 4:12 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?” Jn 4:13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, Jn 4:14 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.” Jn 4:15 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.”
Woman sort of misses the point. She takes Jesus literally. There were some streams in the area, but without a bucket to draw with he certainly could not get living water from the well, but maybe he knew of a nearby stream that she did not. Jesus was not talking about actual water in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense.
She sets up to put Jesus on the defensive. Jacob dug the well 100 feet deep through rock to get to an underground spring. This provided cool, clean water that would be good for drinking. Surely this stranger with no bucket or shovel could not provide her with better water than the well that Joseph the patriarch dug. Yet Jesus…boldly claims he can do better than that. Jesus claims that the water he brings will keep you from ever thirsting again. Cool right? Take a drink of this water and you never have to lug your hug bucket for a half mile round trip walk to the well in the heat of the day. That is better than the water in the well. In fact the water Jesus gives does more than permanently quenching your thirst…it becomes a spring that brings eternal life.
She misses Jesus point again. He is speaking on spiritual matters yet for the second time this woman takes him literally. She is just not getting it. Jesus needs to get her attention somehow. So…
Jn 4:16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” Jn 4:17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. Jn 4:18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
Quite frequently this text will be used to bash divorce. But that is not its intent or purpose. Divorce in our day is common, but a big deal. That is not true of the first century. Divorce was quite common in this day. The Romans would keep a wife at home and a mistress to take out when they went to parties. The Jews adopted the liberal teachings of Hillel who permitted divorce on things like: “if she burnt dinner while cooking”. A Jewish man was permitted to divorce his wife if she shamed him. Permission was given to the man to divorce his wife if she shamed him, but shaming was not so well established. She could shame him by not cleaning well enough, by not laughing hard enough at his jokes, by not being smart enough, or pretty enough, or well spoken enough, or she might just be a bit clumsy. This woman may not have been some wicked lady who was unfaithful or cruel. She could very well just have the rotten luck of being a bad cook or clumsy. Her five previous husbands do not point to her sexual or relational fidelity but to her relation with her community. It was not that uncommon for a Jewish man to trade his wife out for a ‘younger model’ if he did not like the way his wife looked as she got older. Of course having been married and divorced five times would have made this woman…bitter. She is used to having guys treat her nicely until they get what they want…then toss her out like an old shoe. And I imagine there are some ladies in here that can relate to the bitterness this woman feels. She has been promised things, sweet talked, charmed, romanced, and then cast aside like a children’ toy when she got old.
Now remember we had left the question: Why does this woman come at the hottest part of the day to get water to marinade? Here is the answer. She has had five previous husbands. Which in a close nit community means there are likely five women in her town that are now married to her ex-husbands. That is assuming that her ex husbands only remarried one more time. So each of these women and all of their family friends would now treat this woman with scorn and resentment. I mean, some of you know too well how ex’s work. They are not usually people you invite over for the holidays and to parties. Each of these men this woman has been with have likely remarried and each of their new wives know this woman has been with their husbands…talk about a definite cat fight at the well. So likely because she is tired of putting up with the shame of her circumstances she gets water at noon instead of in the morning like the rest of the women.
I want to show you a picture. John depicts Jesus as ‘living water’. An image that the Samaritan woman misses and honestly so do we. We understand that Jesus was talking about spiritual things not physical ones as the Samaritan woman thought, but we miss out on the real picture. Look back through John and see his use of water. John chapter 1: water is used with the baptism of John for repentance as entrance to the kingdom of God, John chapter 2: water from purification jars is turned to wine as a sign of the coming of the kingdom that Jesus was bringing, John chapter 3: Nicodemus is told he must be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, and here in John 4: Jesus offers himself as ‘living water’ to this Samaritan woman. She does not understand what He is offering, but what Jesus offers her, he offers us.
Jesus is the living water. The source of life. When you take of the water Jesus gives you, you will never need to drink again. This is not a literal statement but an image of eternity. Jesus brings eternal life in which you will have no need and no want of water. The fulfillment Jesus gives is completely satisfying. You need nothing but Jesus. He bring a gift, a drink, that if you take it, you will never be thirsty again.
Jesus offers eternal life…will you take it?
