A Nameless Woman Meets the Messiah (John 4:1-15)
Divine Appointment
God’s Divine Providential plan! I am always amazed with the way that God ordains things and in His Will He fits all the pieces together. I don’t believe in coincidences: In chapter 3, Nicodemus, a powerful respected, Jewish trained theologian, a ruler and aristocrat comes to Jesus under the cover of night to secretly meet with Jesus. He comes with certain expectations but leaves having heard quite another story.
In chapter 4, Jesus’ weariness and thirst provided a Divine Appointment with an “unclean”, unnamed, uneducated Samaritan woman, with a despised reputation and without influence, who meets the up and rising Jewish teacher, Jesus, in broad daylight at a well with a history as old as Israel itself, having been used by Jacob and his family 2000 years before. (Incidentally, you can still travel to this well for a drink today!)
Listen to the story in John 4:1-15: Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. (Samaria lies between Judea at its south and Galilee on its north.) 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. (If John is using a Jewish time, this would be noon; if he is using Roman time it would be 6PM.) 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."
11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water."
The meeting time, place, and person were improbable “coincidences”. Women normally came together to gather water early in the morning not in the heat of the day or in the evenings. Travelers often carried an empty pot or skin of some sort to draw water, but Jesus did not. Jesus most likely could have acquired water along with His disciples in the town where they went to buy food, but He did not because, as the text tells us, “he was wearied from the journey.”
In order to reveal Himself to this woman, Jesus goes into enemy territory. He travelled straight through territory where he knew that Jews were not welcomed and He spoke to a woman who was considered “unclean” and asks her to share her unclean water pot with Him. How often have you risked the safety of your own comfort zone in order to provide a “divine GOSPEL appointment” for someone who needs Jesus? Jesus meets with all sorts of people in all sorts of social, economic situations and conditions and any appointment with Jesus is a “Divine” meeting. He works through us today through those unique opportunities to reveal the Savior: powerful points of God’s providence, working through us as messengers of His Love and grace according to His Kingdom purposes!
Jesus, the weary traveler
John’s account of the story portrays Jesus as a weary traveler. Jesus was beyond thirsty; living in an arid climate and traveling along hot dusty roads WITHOUT water can soon cause exhaustion. You may remember that John’s main theme is that Jesus is Divine, that He is fully God, but here John demonstrates that Jesus was also fully human, becoming weary from the heat and tired from traveling the hot dusty roads.
Here we see that “Jesus became man and experienced all that we experience, but the point of the incarnation is that he did this to redeem men. So if he was weary, thirsty, hot and on the road to even greater suffering, he was weary and hot for your sake and mine. Jesus suffered for the Nicodemuses, the women of Samaria, and the others whom this world holds. If you are already a believer, perhaps you should ask yourself whether you have ever wearied yourself in the pursuit of other men and women. Have you ever become hot or uncomfortable trying to communicate the Gospel to others?” (“Gospel of John”, Vol. 1, James M. Boice, p. 278)
There would come a time in the near future, when during the darkest hour in all of history, at high noon, when the Savior who had come to seek sinners would be weary to the point of death from bearing the burden of the wrath of God upon sin and He would cry from a Roman cross of crucifixion, “I THIRST”.
The “thirsty” Samaritan Woman
We have two people at the well: Jesus and the Samaritan woman. One has to wonder if perhaps she had been brushed off the road on her way down the hill by Jesus’ disciples as they headed up the hill to town. A group of burly Galilean fishermen, including a rambunctious Peter, certainly would not have stepped aside for a woman, especially a Samaritan woman. She had probably had the opportunity in her life to return some hatred to Jews many times when they mistreated her!
This may have been in her mind as she came to the bottom of the hill and she discovered yet another Jew sitting at the well. She wasn’t going to speak to him and while she is beginning to lower her bucket into the 130 foot well, He has the audacity to command what WAS UNHEARD OF CULTURALLY: FOR A JEW TO ASK FOR WATER FROM A Samaritan woman! Jesus says: "Give me a drink." Her response is not one of neighborly love or hospitality: "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (Like most people who are spiritually lifeless, she had a problem loving her neighbor; she showed that she was prejudicial to those who were unlike herself. She was saying: Don’t you know that there is a wall of separation between us? Why should I help someone who is not like myself?)
Jesus gives the woman a thought provoking response: 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you LIVING WATER." In other words, Jesus said: “If you knew who I was, you wouldn’t respond to my request by giving me the history of the social and cultural problems between the Jews and Samaritans. You would recognize me for who I am and ask ME for a drink.”
People who are spiritually dead are like the woman at the well: They do not recognize when God is visiting them, they do not understand or recognize the GIFT of Love and Life that is offered in Christ. They immediately recognize their physical needs but are clueless to their spiritual starvation and dehydration. The woman knew the way to obtain physical water and had the means to obtain it, but she did not realize that she had a SPIRITUAL THIRST that so far had gone undiagnosed by her. She needed Jesus far more than He needed her: Jesus knew that she was spiritually starved and spiritually lifeless.
Spiritually there is a wall of separation between the Savior and, not only Samaritans, but sinners in general, and the wall has been built because of OUR sin, not because of the Savior. This woman’s spirit was dead to God and His Love. Colossians 2:13 says that “you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature.” You are separated from God because your sinful nature hasn’t been “cut off”. That’s why she didn’t understand what Jesus was saying at first about “living water”.
Listen to these Old Testament verses: Jeremiah 2:13: “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken ME, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 17:13:”O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water.” Ezekiel 36: 25-27: I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Zechariah 14:8: “On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem.”
Jesus explains Water that is “Living”.
The woman chose to misunderstand Jesus’ words by taking them ONLY literally, however since she was spiritually blind and dead she couldn’t believe her ears: "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? (who dug the well.) He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." Just like Nicodemus, who could not fathom the idea of being born from above or being born anew, this nameless woman could not fathom the depths of Jesus’ meaning. “Living water” meant water that was flowing, like a river or a stream; NOT STAGNANT but fresh, vibrant, purifying. It was purer water than that of a well and so she wondered where she might find such water in this area. If it WAS available, why did Jacob go through the trouble of digging this well, so Jesus continues in verses 13-14: "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
The water in a well just sits there but Jesus invites her to a spring, which, if she allows him to place this spring within her, the spring will never cease but will continue to bubble up or leap up forever. Jesus promises to BE the spring of life within anyone who will come to Him, recognizing their extreme need of the Life that only He can give. This spring will be eternal, free, and joyous, and never be covered up or stopped. This LIVING WATER is a gift from God as it said in Jeremiah 2:13. What does water bring? It brings life; without water you have nothing but death. Jesus isn’t talking about H2O, He is talking about His Life-giving Spirit which will bring a person from death to life.
Listen to John 7:37-39: Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. 38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.' " 39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.’ The LIVING WATER that springs up from the inside is from the Holy Spirit. It has nothing to do with your ability or works. It is the work of God, not of man. The source of the eternal LIVING WATER is from a heavenly source and THAT IS WHY IT IS ETERNAL.
JESUS sought this woman and He knew that her life was void of Living Water. In verse 15, “The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water." This statement points to a submissive and yielding heart. If you have a heart that is sensing an emptiness that needs to be filled, God put that desire there in the first place and ONLY JESUS CAN FILL that need with Himself. When God does this, the promise will be forever fulfilled. Rev. 7:16-17 says this: "They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; 17 for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes."
It may be that God already did fill your heart and He was producing the fruit of the Spirit in your life but you have muddied your life with all kinds of things so that the spring that is visible is dirtied: He will not let you alone until He completes what He began in you. He will do with you what He has to do until you once again are living in a way that is pleasing in His sight and living a life which will bless God and others the way He intends.
Either way, God receives the honor and glory that He deserves because He is the only one to bring heavenly life and spirit to you that will never die. Amen.
John Chapter Recaps:
1. Jesus is introduced as the Word, Creator, and Light and Life from Heaven.
2. The First Miracle, water into wine, symbolizes the coming of Messiah and His Kingdom; Cleansing would come not through waters of purification but by the Blood of the Messiah.
3. Spiritual cleansing by “the water and the Spirit”, a “birth from above”, and warns about the denial of that deliverance.
4. The Kingdom reaches beyond Jewish soil to enemies of the Jews.
Outline:
I. Jesus’ weariness provided a Divine Appointment with an “unclean” Samaritan woman.
A. The meeting time, place, and person were improbable.
B. Any appointment with Jesus is a “Divine” meeting.
II. Jesus is portrayed as a weary traveler.
A. Jesus was fully God and Jesus was also fully human.
B. Jesus would later cry: “I thirst”, from a Roman cross.
III. The Samaritan Woman is portrayed as “thirsty”.
A. She had a SPIRITUAL THIRST that had gone undiagnosed by her.
B. Jesus turns the conversation to “LIVING WATER”. (Jere 2:13,17:13, Eze 36: 25-27, Zech 14:8)
IV. Jesus explains Water that is “Living”.
A. The LIVING WATER is a gift from God, not stagnant but fresh and “springing up”. (Jer. 2:13)
B. The LIVING WATER is from the Holy Spirit and provides eternal life. (John 7:37-39, Rev. 7:17)
