John 5: 1-42 Can I give you a drink?
Bringing water
To the thirsty
Was never really
A problem for God.
If needed,
God
Could get
Water
From a rock (!)
Which, is what God did
For the very thirsty
people of Israel,
When they
wandering around the wilderness.
Or if you find yourself in the desert,
And you’re thirsty,
God could
Just open your eyes so you would see,
A well of spring water, just when you need it most.
Which is what God did
For Hagar,
Right at the moment the desperate mother
was ready
To give up.
Pouring out water on the earth
Was something
God could do,
Not only to meet an immediate need,
it was even something God
Was really going to do
In the future.
Ezekiel, the prophet,
Saw the vision -- a coming day,
Where water would
Flow from the New Temple of God
Like a stream,
Spilling over,
like a river
Running,
Deep and wide,
Deeper and wider,
Water, water everywhere,
Bringing life
to everything it touched.
Whether in the past,
Present or future,
It’s a really good thing
God can make
The Water flow,
Even in the driest of ground,
Because
water
Is
life.
And without it,
You die.
Death by
Dehydration.
In last week’s scripture,
Jesus says to Nicodemus,
You can’t enter the Kingdom of God,
Without being born,
By WATER,
And By Spirit.
This week,
We find Jesus,
In need of a drink.
Of water.
Jesus happened to be passing
Through Samaritan territory,
And -- he is tired.
So, he sat down,
Next to a well.
While the rest of the disciples
Went shopping - for groceries.
While Jesus is sitting there,
Just hanging out at the well,
All tuckered out,
A local woman
Approaches,
Carrying
An empty
bucket.
She’s gotta get
Some
Water.
Water is life.
I’m guessing her last steps
Toward the well --
Might have been
with some trepidation.
She’s a woman,
Alone on the road,
He’s a man, alone,
Sitting where
She needs to be.
And she doesn‘t know
His intentions:
Whether their honorable,
Dishonorable,
Or what.
[Plus, Maybe she knows
the stories in the Bible,
Where,
A man + a woman + a well (usually) = marriage.]
But, you know,
it’s noon,
Middle of the day,
Sun at its brightest light.
And good things, if they’re going to happen,
happen in the
light.
So, maybe,
It’s alright.
So, she takes
her
empty
Bucket
On to the well.
And when she arrives,
Jesus
Says to HER,
“Give me a drink.”
Is he asking
or demanding?
I’m not quite sure.
Either way,
what Jesus says
Opens up an unexpected
Conversation
Between
him
And the Woman
With the empty bucket.
Even the woman
Is surprised.
A Jew talking
To a Samaritan?
A Man talking
To a Woman,
Especially
Her … ??
Considering the circumstance
And the history,
It’s odd.
Very odd.
The woman’s entire “life” story
As she seemed to understand it,
Seemed to revolve
around 6 -- count ‘em, 6,
previous men,
We don’t know the reasons for that --
Maybe her husbands died,
Maybe they divorced her,
Something she’d have had no say about
Maybe it was combination of the two.
But in any case,
her “life”
at the least
Is tragic,
Filled with heartbreak and grief,
Or at the worst,
As least as far as
other people are concerned,
it‘s just “wrong.”
But, even so,
Jesus is
Talking
to her (!)
[And, it’s the longest conversation
That Jesus will have with anybody.]
The talk
Between the two
Quickly moves from,
Talking about
Being thirsty
For what comes from
Jacob’s well,
And A “thirst”
That is deeper,
Wider than that:
A thirst of the spirit.
A desire,
A longing,
Within the heart,
That cannot
Easily or quickly
Be satisfied.
Emptiness
Doesn’t just happen to a bucket.
It’s something that happens to the heart, too.
The woman’s reason for coming to the well that day
Was just to get water --
But that could only
Fill up a bucket
Temporarily.
What Jesus has to offer her
Is quite different.
Jesus
Wants to
Give
HER
Something he called
Living
Water.
What he was offering
Was THE living water
That flows like a river,
Running Deep and wide,
Into the human heart.
And wherever it flows,
THAT living water
can fill you up,
Till you’re
teeming with LIFE,
Life abundant,
Life eternal.
THAT Living Water
That Jesus offered
Can finally (!)
Satisfy
The deepest longings
And deepest desires
Of human life.
And fill
the emptiness
Of the human heart.
That local woman?
She doesn’t have it.
Her life,
Her heart,
For whatever reasons,
Has become
as Dry
as the surrounding desert.
And
Barren of LIFE.
Her heart
Was as empty
as the bucket she carried.
In the deep place
of her life,
She was
“Spiritually”
dehydrated.
“Something’s” gone missing,
And without it?
--------------------
Water is life.
Living water,
Especially so.
But just as there was
In that woman,
Long ago,
there is,
In the lives of many people
Today
a spiritual
Thirst
There is,
What seems to be,
An unquenchable THIRST,
A deep desire,
For something MORE.
We thirst,
Something that can fill the emptiness.
Something that can last,
Something that can endure,
Something that can really satisfy,
We thirst for,
Something that can make us feel
ALIVE as we’ve never felt alive before,
Something that can make us feel
LOVED.
Something that can make us feel
Like our cups are full and running over,
And people are often
Glad to grab at almost
Anything to fill that desire.
Food. Alcohol. Drugs.
Money. Sex.
Shopping. Things.
People can even
Hold onto their
anger, bitterness, fear …
All in an attempt to fill
the emptiness within.
But, desire,
Is limitless,
So, no matter what
You give IT,
it always wants
something
More. More. MORE.
And the emptiness remains.
BUT Jesus ?
Jesus has that
Something
That can fill the emptiness
And quench
That thirst of the heart:
Jesus gives out
Living
water.
Which, we soon learn,
is no less than
The Spirit of God --
You know that Spirit.
It’s the comforting,
The creative,
The death defying
The Chaos conquering,
The joy bringing,
The truth telling,
The Jesus-loving,
The limitless,
The unending,
Life-giving
Holy Spirit.
The Spirit that Jesus gives
Makes it possible for us to
Enter into a relationship --
Even an abiding union,
With God.
And that’s
A relationship
that can last,
Can endure,
For an eternity.
So,
The Spirit that Jesus gives,
That Spirit ALONE
can move in our hearts
And finally fill us up,
With God.
And That can
Finally
satisfy
Our deepest longings,
Our deepest desires
Our deepest thirsts.
And, when the Spirit comes to us,
It is like a cool, refreshing drink,
Given to a parched, dry “heart.”
AAHH.
And when the Spirit comes,
It is like an endless waterfall,
Filling us up and running over.
Over and over and over again.
Spirit Is LIFE!
After six men left her
With not much more than an empty bucket,
Jesus, becomes the seventh man in her life,
But what he brings her is Spirit,
an unending, limitless source of LIFE.
And, as much as she is able,
She believes.
And in believing,
She gets a foretaste of that Spirit,
That Spring of living water,
Welling up within her!
And already,
it O V E R F L O W S !
It overflows
So much
That she forgets
To fill the bucket she brought,
And rushes to tell an entire town
What she has discovered.
Welling up within her.
Suddenly
Here before us,
In Jesus,
Is the new temple,
Ezekiel saw in his vision,
And the living water
Is starting to flow freely !
It pours out
From Jesus
to the woman at the well,
To an entire town in Samaria,
Bringing life (and more life!!)
to everything and everyone
It touched.
I don’t know if Jesus
Ever did get a drink that day.
I do know
That he would cry out, “I thirst,”
On another day.
It was the day he hung from a cross.
On that day,
A soldier would pierce his body,
With a sword,
And then,
water
Some would even say the water of life,
would flow
From his side
Into the earth,
Into the thirsty world.
And, by this outpouring of his blood and water,
By his dying,
And his rising,
By his ascension to the Father,
We know that
Jesus is the One who can bring
the living water
that he offered
the woman at the well
TO US.
So, Thirsty?
Is your bucket empty?
How about your heart?
Let anyone who is thirsty,
Who knows how thirsty they are,
Come --
Let anyone who wishes
Take the water of life
As a gift ….
That living water
That holy Spirit,
It‘s ready to burst forth
from Jesus to you.
To quench your thirst,
And Fill your emptiness.
Through Jesus,
Water
Spirit
LIFE
Can be yours.
