It may seem a little unnecessary at first...sort of stating the obvious, to call Jesus “Master Evangelist”. The word evangelist means, ‘messenger’, or ‘one sent out’, and He is the one who has sent out every messenger of God; whether man or angels.
Since it is His message that they bring; the message of His redeeming love, then we might say, “Well, of course Jesus is the master of evangelists.”
But He is also the Master Evangelist; knowing the heart and mind of the individual, perfectly reading their needs and perceiving their most secret desires, their most private reasons for personal shame, He perfectly address each one.
When the Pharisees challenged Him in anger, He refused to answer them. When they chided Him in envy, He warned them. When they tried to be clever and trick Him, He confronted them head-on and closed their mouths every time.
When the crowd brought to Him the woman caught in adultry, he sent them scampering away like roaches when the light goes on, then turned and gently restored her self-esteem, assured her, admonished her, and sent her away knowing she was loved with a true love, not the kind that is found only in the bed of adulterous men.
Whenever someone came to Him, sincerely seeking truth, it didn’t matter who they were, or their station in life; they got the answers most helpful to them as individuals.
Nicodemus, the Pharisee, came to Him in cover of darkness, and although he formed his question as though from his entire group of peers, Jesus’ answer spoke directly to Nicodemus himself. “You must be born again”.
In the case of Nicodemus, Jesus chided him for not knowing truths that should be known by an esteemed ruler of the Jews and a student of the Law and the Prophets.
He preached Nicodemus a sermon that theologians have used to fill volumes upon volumes of commentaries, because it is so rich and full of divine knowledge and wisdom.
But today we’re going to see Jesus use a much simpler approach, to a much simpler person. Not a Pharisee, not a student of the scriptures, not even a Jew accepted in Judean society; and worse, not even accepted in her own society because of her own reputation.
The Master Evangelist once more sees through the facades, through the outward appearances, straight to the needs of the heart, and meets them with the precision of a master surgeon.
Let’s start with a brief history lesson.
After King Solomon’s death, Jeroboam split the kingdom, North and South. He introduced calf worship and set up idols on the hills.
In the Southern kingdom, Jezebel brought in Baal worship, and the people bowed down to false gods all over the land.
That is really a ‘Reader’s Digest’ version of what was going on, but the end result is that in 723 BC the Northern kingdom was taken into captivity, and the Southern kingdom sometime later.
The people were carried away to Babylon, but many Assyrians were brought in to establish themselves in the land and more or less hold it for their allies the Babylonians.
There were many Jews in the outlying villages and in the Western part of the land that were not uprooted, because they posed no threat to the Babylonians, and over time, they intermarried with the occupying Assyrians, thus creating a kind of half-breed Jew/Assyrian culture.
After the dispersion, when God brought the Jews back into the land from Babylonian captivity (70 years later), the Jews flooded back to Judea and Jerusalem, but despised these Jews who had inbred with the enemy and were now the Samaritans. They saw them as traitors and defilers of the faith, and thus, there was a great deal of animosity between the two groups.
The Jews refused to allow the Samaritans to worship in the temple, so the Samaritans established their place of worship in Mt Gerizim. The Samaritans also only accepted the first five books of the bible (The books of Moses) as scripture; and rejected the poetical books and the prophets.
So here is the setting. Most Jews traveling either North to Galilee or South to Judea would cross the Jordan and add three days to their journey, rather than pass through Samaria.
But we’re told here that Jesus ‘had to pass through Samaria’. It doesn’t say why He had to, (perhaps only because the Father had told Him during His nightly prayer that He had a divine appointment with a woman by Jacob’s well...we can’t know for sure), but he had to.
As He and His disciples neared Sychar, He was hot and tired, and sat down to rest by Jacob’s well, while the disciples went to find a Kwik Stop for roast beef subs, chips and Mountain Dew.
I’m assuming there was some shade there; maybe not. But there was certainly a place to sit near the well.
The sun is beating down hot because it’s midday. There was maybe just a hint of an occasional breeze; not enough to cool anyone, only enough to tease.
Since it’s midday and hot, it is not the time of day that the women of the village come to draw water. They come in the morning for water to wash clothes with, and in the evening for water to cook and bathe with. While there they chat and exchange stories about their children and their husbands, and how the flocks are doing and how the crops are doing...
...but it’s not morning, and it’s not evening...
...it’s midday, and it’s hot.
Down the road from Sychar comes one lonely woman, carrying a couple of large earthen pots and watching her feet as she walks; apparently deep in thought, but not observant of any of her surroundings. Just going to the well, alone, to fetch some water for her house.
She lowers the rope and bucket. It bumps against the stones as it goes down, echoing back up with an empty, hollow sound...
...and finally there comes the sound of water splashing as it finds the bottom.
The sloshing sound as she draws it back up is almost refreshing in itself, as it contrasts the still hot air and the brightness of the noontime sun.
Suddenly this man who was virtually unnoticed by her until now, speaks and says, “Give Me a drink”.
She is astonished. Men didn’t talk to women in public. It was considered beneath them.
More, this was a Jew, and Jews didn’t talk to Samaritans or have any dealings with them.
And here was this Jew, a man; asking for a drink of water from a Samaritan; a woman.
Their eyes lock for just a moment. His full of compassion and peace and just a hint, maybe, of underlying mirth.
Hers full of surprise and suspicion.
Then she looks back down toward her ascending bucket of water and almost mumbles, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?”
There may have been a tone of sarcasm there. It seems to be implied in the wording; we don’t know.
But with this simple request, “Give Me a drink”, and the resulting response, Jesus has drawn this woman into conversation that she otherwise would have been terrified of starting herself, and from here on He controls it every step of the way.
We cannot go into much detail here about all the things that were said, but let’s watch this woman going from IGNORANCE, to INTEREST, to HONESTY, to FAITH.
Notice that the theme of this entire interview centers around water.
Jesus asks for it, then He offers it; He makes her aware of her own spiritual thirst, then He quenches it.
In verse 10 Jesus said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink’, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water”.
He cuts to the heart of the matter with her, in the same way He did with Nicodemus.
Straight to the need of the person. She questions His motives for asking for a drink, and rather than being side-tracked by that, He goes right to the point and offers her the spiritual equivalent of what He had asked from her in the physical.
But she doesn’t understand. She heard Him use the word “living”! Didn’t she wonder what He meant by the term, “Living water”?
No, she’s still caught in the physical realm and thinking in physical terms. “Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?”
Now He has her entirely engaged in conversation. He has made his offer and she has responded in ignorance, yes, but with a question; and a question invites an answer. It invites further conversation.
She could have said, “You’re made crazy by the sun. Leave me alone to draw my water”, and gone back to her work.
But she invited Him to speak further, so, He does.
He again steers her away from the physical to teach her spiritual things.
“Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
Now she is interested. “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty, nor come all the way here to draw”.
Interested, but still ignorant. She still looks at the whole picture from the physical realm. What can be seen and touched. What is passing away; temporal.
All through the scriptures water has a spiritual meaning; always referring to life.
In Psalm 42:1 the song writer says “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God”.
Isaiah 12:3 says “with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation, and Isaiah 35:6 gives the promise of the day when “...waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert”.
In John 7, on the last day of the Feast of Booths, Jesus cries out the invitation, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water”. And it says, “But He spoke concerning the Spirit”.
Folks, how often do we respond to the Lord in the same way as this spiritually blind woman; wanting, and knowing we’re needy, but focusing so much on the physical and what we think are our physical needs, that we miss the blessing of having our spiritual needs met?
We’re praying for health, and the meeting of financial needs, and we’re praying for more people in the church and for a lot of good things; but Jesus wants to fill our own lives to overflowing with His Spirit, so that His own living waters spring up constantly within us to refresh and renew, and overflow to others to touch them for the Kingdom.
This woman wanted Him to give her water so that she would no longer have to go to the well.
She misunderstood. The water that comes from below will never quench permanently. The world only gives temporarily, and then we thirst again.
It is the water from above that quenches permanently, and not only quenches the thirst, but becomes an everlasting spring that never runs dry.
Christian, do you feel dry? Is your spiritual walk lifeless? Are you thirsty and maybe you’re wondering what’s wrong?
Maybe you’re trusting too much in the water that comes from below, and not looking to Him and receiving that water that springs up from the inner being and never runs dry.
He has the woman’s interest, and she wants what He has to offer, even though she does not yet understand what He has to give.
But He has prepared the way for a very delicate issue that cannot be ignored. In order to go further, it must be addressed.
“Go get your husband and bring him here”.
By this, Jesus is forcing her to make a decision. Be honest and tell Him the truth, or turn and go away, never receiving this gift He had to give, for the sake of keeping her private things private.
My friends, do not think to bring someone to Christ; do not think to come to Him yourself, and receive anything from Him, if you will not be honest with Him and yourself and face the sin issue.
With you, or with the people you talk to it may not be adultry as in this woman’s case. It may be something entirely different. It may just be the need to admit and confess the presence of sin itself.
But we cannot come to Him; cannot receive from Him, without acknowledgment and repentance. He must deal with that first. Once it’s out of the way, He can work His miracles in the life. Until that happens, our sin condition and our sins themselves, are clogs in the ducts; and the water cannot flow.
She opts for honesty. She may have suddenly become very interested in the dirt at her feet; maybe even thinking to herself that she hadn’t noticed how dirty her feet were today, as she muttered, “I have no husband”.
She probably hoped He’d drop the issue and move on. After all, “I have no husband” could mean that her husband is dead, and Jesus wouldn’t want to open wounds by bringing it up. Or it may be that she’s never been married and feels unpretty and unwanted, and surely Jesus wouldn’t want to push that issue and remind her that she’s an old maid.
So the response is almost cryptic in its brevity. “I have no husband”.
But she won’t get off the hook that easily. Jesus commends her for her honesty. “You have well said, ‘I have no husband’...”
And goes on to tell her things about her life that both shame her, and astound her that He could know.
We can’t read hearts, and we don’t know the secret things in people’s lives, but Jesus knows; and if we, after establishing a level of personal trust with someone, and making sure they know we care for them and aren’t there to judge or criticize, assure them that their sin must be repented of, JESUS will deal with their hearts and minds concerning the details, and by His Spirit He will grant repentance and purge them of those things that keep them stopped up.
The woman tries to side track Him now, with the old argument that divides the Samaritans and the Jews. “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship”.
Folks will try to sidetrack you too, Christian; and sometimes, when the Holy Spirit is dealing with something in your life, you may find yourself trying to change the subject too.
But Jesus won’t be sidetracked.
We get caught up and catch each other up, with all the little issues. What’s the right way to do this? When is the right time to do that? Does God accept this? Does He frown on that?
But our questions are usually based in the physical realm, forgetting that He is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.
How liberating these responses must have been to this woman.
She is all too aware of her own pitiful condition and her shameful life.
She is locked up under the Law, knowing nothing else about God except what the Law reveals, and knowing how helpless she has been to keep it; violating it daily, yet not knowing where to go for repentance or forgiveness;
And here is this prophet, talking of living water, and true spiritual worship. Not making any demands of her except honesty and recognition of her need.
This is how Jesus deals with us, Christian, and it is how we should deal with others. Asking them only to be honest with themselves and recognize their need, then leading them to springs of living water with the gospel message.
The woman now begins to suspect that she is talking with some one who is much more than a dusty, weary traveler. He knows things about her life. He speaks with authority. He promises things no man can give.
Could this be the Messiah? So she asks.
The way He phrases His answer is interesting.
Remember that I said the Samaritans only accepted the first five books of the Bible as scripture, and note that the term He uses in identifying Himself is the same one that God used with Moses in Exodus 3:14, when He said, “I AM WHO I AM”.
In a brief and very straightforward conversation, Jesus has gone from being the stranger needing water, to the Great I AM, who offers His own spiritual water, which quenches thirst eternally, and flows like a life-giving stream out of the innermost being.
The next thing we see of the woman, she is leaving her water drawn from below, and running back to the village to tell everyone that she has found the Messiah.
My friends when someone comes to a place of recognizing who Jesus is, and what it is He offers freely, and wanting it, the result is always that they are immediately changed!
This woman was an outcast in her community, sullen and quiet and lonely, unable to maintain a constant relationship, and by now probably devoid of any level of self-esteem.
But she met Jesus. And in the space of a few minutes, was transformed to a vibrant, excited, focused, determined preacher of the truth!
I worry a little about Christians today, friends, that it seems to be so easy to claim to be a believer, and live as though it means nothing more than signing up for membership at Sam’s Club or getting a City Market value card.
Have you really been to Jesus for the cleansing Power?
Have you ever said you’re sorry to God; and truly repented of sin? Have you acknowledged your sinfulness to Him and accepted the offer of His gift?
Do you know what it is to worship Him in spirit and in truth?
You’ll know when you have; and so will everyone else. Because you’ll be running to them to tell, and they’ll be heading out to see for themselves. That’s always the result I see in scripture of personal encounters with the Master Evangelist.
Have you met Him? Are you thirsty?
“IF ANY MAN IS THIRSTY, LET HIM COME TO ME AND DRINK. HE WHO BELIEVES IN ME, AS THE SCRIPTURE SAID, ‘FROM HIS INNERMOST BEING SHALL FLOW RIVERS OF LIVING WATER’.”
These are words from God’s own mouth, and He does not change.
