THE WELL – A Place You Meet the Messiah
John 4:25-26 April 3, 2022
Introduction:
One of my favorite stories of all time comes from WWII...and it’s recorded in Max Lucado’s book, “Stories from the Heart.”
John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose. His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name, Miss Hollis Maynell.
With time and effort he located her address. She lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II.
During the next year and one month the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding.
Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like.
When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting - 7:00 PM at the Grand Central Station in New York. "You'll recognize me," she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my lapel." So at 7:00 he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he'd never seen.
I'll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened:
A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. "Going my way, sailor?" she murmured.
Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell.
She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankle feet thrust into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld mine.
And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her. This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful.
I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment. "I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner?"
The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. "I don't know what this is about, son," she answered, "but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should go and tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test!"
Here’s the absolute truth about Jesus Christ according to scripture: “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by mankind.” (Isaiah 53:2-3)
Why does every picture we’ve ever seen of Jesus look like Brad Pitt with a beard?
SHOW JESUS PICTURE
Because it’s easier to love and worship beautiful people. I’m sure the picture Lieutenant John Blanchard had in his mind matched the beautiful blonde much more than the pale, plump face, even if it held a twinkle in its eye!
The Jews have expected a Messiah to arrive for thousands of years. Those who have rejected Jesus are still waiting for him to show up.
The Samaritans had a similar religious history...Jacob or (Israel) was their father...and there was an expectation that a Messiah was coming (called Christ, according to John.)
The word “Christ” is simply the English transliteration of the Greek word (pronounced “Cristos”). It has the same meaning as the word “Messiah” which is simply a loose English transliteration of the Hebrew word (pronounced “mashiach”). Therefore, you’ll find the word “Christ” used in translations of the New Testament and the word “Messiah” used in translations of the Old Testament.
Both words essentially mean “the anointed one.” In other words, Jesus is the one chosen by God to save His people. He is the Messiah who was promised to the children of Israel. He is the fulfillment of the prophecies.
But even though both Samaritan and Jew had the scriptural picture of “The Anointed One....”
I. JESUS DIDN’T LOOK LIKE THE MESSIAH THEY HOPED FOR
Let me ask you...do you think the woman who came to Jacob’s well in John 4 ever thought she’d meet the messiah there?
“You’re a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink.”
She knew about a Messiah... “I know that Messiah is coming.” She even sounds confident in the promised coming...but Messiahs don’t ask you for a drink, do they? Messiahs don’t have anything to do with Samaritan women, do they? Messiahs don’t get tired...do they?
Messiahs come with Armies. Messiahs are majestic, tall, Brad Pitt looking...Messiahs like good people and hate bad people...Right?!!!
The reason the Pharisees and the religious establishment hated Jesus was because He wasn’t the Messiah they were expecting...He wasn’t anything like the picture of the Messiah they had painted. He wasn’t anything like them.
Mike Yaconelli writes in the book Messy Spirituality:
“According to his critics, Jesus “did God” all wrong. He went to the wrong places, said the wrong things, and worst of all, let just anyone into the Kingdom. Jesus scandalized an intimidating, elitist, country-club religion by opening membership in the spiritual life to those who had been denied it. What made people furious was Jesus “irresponsible” habit of throwing open the doors of his love to the whosoever's, the first anyone's, and the not-a-chancers like you and me.” (Messy Spirituality, p. 47)
The Pharisees believed they were the guardians of the door...no one got in without their say so...And they got really good at throwing people out.
[Philip Yancey in “Vanishing Grace” says, “That sums up the view of how almost half 16-30 year olds view Christianity now. And then he uses as an example the daughter of the famous atheist Bertrand Russell...She says that her father’s whole life was a search for God...Somewhere in the back of my father’s mind, at the bottom of his heart, in the depths of his soul, there was an empty space that had once been filled by God, and he never found anything else to put in it.”
In Bertrand Russell’s own words, ‘There is darkness without and when I die there will be darkness within.’ What kept the philosopher from faith?
Russell’s daughter mentions one reason. ‘I would have liked to convince my father that I had found what he had been looking for, the ineffable something he had longed for all his life. I would have liked to persuade him that the search for God does not have to be vain. But it was hopeless. He had known too many blind Christians, bleak moralists who sucked the joy from life and persecuted their opponents; he would never have been able to see the truth they were hiding.’
Philip Yancey says something I agree with wholeheartedly in addition to this...He says “Human beings instinctively seek 2 things. We long for meaning, a sense that our life somehow matters...and we long for community, a sense of being loved.”
Jesus answers both those instinctive needs, for the Samaritan woman and for every single one of us...He gives our life purpose...and He gives us a community to belong to.
Sadly, this community called the church doesn’t always show people coming to the well for living water...the love of Jesus.
“According to Barna research, 61 percent of today’s youth in the US had been church-ed at one point during their teen years but are now spiritually disengaged.” (VG p. 5)
The United States is undergoing a marked change in its attitude towards religion, and Christians there face new challenges. When a blogger named Marc Yoder wrote about ’10 Surprising Reasons Our Kids Leave Church’, based on interviews in Texas (a comparatively religious state), his post went viral. Instead of a hundred or so hits, his website got more than half a million. ‘There’s no easy way to say this,’ wrote Yoder, in words that struck a nerve: ‘The American Evangelical church has lost, is losing and will almost certainly continue to lose our youth.’
Folks this has nothing to do with hymns or choruses...it’s not about worship styles or facilities...and although I believe Biblical doctrine is important...Survey’s have continually shown that it’s Jesus’ representatives that make the most impact...good and bad.
And whether we like this truth or not...if we who are recipients of God’s lavish grace don’t passionately pursue the next generation...there won’t be one.
The picture of the Messiah, Jesus the Savior which many lift up as an example to the world looks nothing like the servant King we encounter in scripture.
Jesus said this...“And I , when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.” (John 12:32-33)
What’s the first picture Cornerstone gets of Jesus from the servants who call this place their home church?
“Is it a Savior who loves so much He died for our sins? Is it a Messiah who came to serve instead of being served? Is it a people who love others so much that they empty themselves and consider others more important than themselves?
Much of the world, especially the 61% of our children, grandchildren and youth group that graduate look at the picture of Jesus that the Church hold up...and they see “past wounds, church splits, domineering parents, a youth director or priest guilty of sexual abuse, a nasty divorce which the church handled clumsily, others have absorbed negative media stereotypes.” (Vanishing Grace p. 6)
The World, especially those who grew up in Church, can’t see Jesus because the Church has so muddied up the window they now look through.
It seems that the people who wear the roses, or the rose of Sharon, have forgotten to lift up a loving Savior instead of a lot of clutter.
How can we become like Jesus and reach people like he reached the Samaritan woman at the well?
II. MEET PEOPLE FACE TO FACE AND SPEAK TO THEM
The Quakers have a saying: “An enemy is one whose story we have not heard.”
Philip Yancey said Jesus granted His followers the immense privilege of dispensing God’s grace to a thirsty world. As one who has drunk deeply of that grace, I want to offer it to a world adrift. He then asks...”How can we communicate truly good news to a culture running away from it?
In our text in John 4 there are some real answers. In verse 25 the Samaritan woman says, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming when He comes, He will explain everything to us.”
Most of America has heard so much about Jesus...good and bad that they know Christianity claims He is the Messiah...the Savior of mankind...many in the world haven’t heard this truth...at least 7,000 people groups around the world have not heard of Jesus.
When Jesus hears the woman’s statement about a hoped for Messiah...His response is our example...“I, the one speaking to you – I AM (the name of God) HE.”
Remember last week when I shared from 1 John 4:17 which says basically “We don’t have to be afraid on judgement day because in this world we are like Jesus?”
I’m afraid many times in the church we puff ourselves up with knowledge that never motivates us to love people. We go to a Sunday School class, or Bible Study, or small group...learn Biblical stuff...feel better about ourselves...maybe even do some stuff “in church” but we never see anyone “face to face.” We never speak to the woman at the well.
When Jesus returns He isn’t going to be concerned about how many arguments I’ve won. He will however judge my faith by how I’ve loved like Him in the world...Listen:
MATTHEW 25:31-46
Most parables don’t begin... “When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all His angels with Him. He will sit on His glorious throne. All nations will be gathered before Him.”
This is Jesus in judgment. This is the King, the Christ on the throne...you have no fear if you’ve been like Him...loving people face to face, especially “The Least of These” but if you’ve put your hope in Biblical knowledge and “works” that make you feel better...all you have to do is look at the results... “whatever you did not do for me of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
I challenge you...find a ministry outside of Sundays and Wednesdays that puts you face to face with hungry, thirsty, strangers, people who are in need of clothes, or sick...people in prison...and then you look after Jesus...and you look like Jesus...and you’ll never be afraid of His return.
S.I. McMillen, in his book “None of these Diseases,” tells a story of a young woman who wanted to go to college, but her heart sank when she read the question on the application blank that asked, “Are you a leader?” Being both honest and conscientious, she wrote, “No,” and returned the application, expecting the worst.
To her surprise, she received this letter from the college: “Dear Applicant: A study of the application forms reveals that this year our college will have 1,452 new leaders. We are accepting you because we feel it is imperative that they have at least one follower.”
Let’s Pray.
