John 4:5-42
“Look How She’s Changed”
By: Kenneth Emerson Sauer, Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church, Newport
News, VA
Samaria was a region located between Galilee to the North and Judea to the south.
In Jesus’ day, Jews would try to avoid going through Samaria--by going around it.
You see, the Jews and the Samaritans didn’t get along very well.
The Samaritans were a mixed race, and the Jews--keeping with their purity system
considered Samaritans impure.
The Samaritans, on the other hand, refused to accept the Temple of Jerusalem as their
Temple, they helped the kings of Syria in the wars against the Jews, and around the time Jesus
was born, some Samaritans profaned the Temple in Jerusalem by leaving human bones in
the atriums.
After that, the Samaritans were prohibited from entering the Temple.
There were also religious differences between the Jews and the Samaritans.
For example, the Samaritans only accepted the first five books of Moses as Holy
Scripture, so the Messiah they were looking for was quite a bit different than the one the
Jews were looking for.
The Jews were looking for a nationalistic Messiah, while the Samaritans expected a
Messiah like Moses.
In spite of all this, or perhaps because of it, Jesus decided to pass through Samaria,
where he arrived at a city named Sychar, where He felt tired and sat down near a source of water
called Jacob’s well.
It was the middle of the day--when the sun is the hottest--and a woman from the
region approached the well to draw water.
This is odd in itself.
It’s odd that the woman would draw water at this time of day.
Usually it was done at dawn or sunset.
She was also alone!
Where were her friends?
Where were the other women from the town.
Could it be that the woman had been pushed to the edges of society for her behavior?
Was she being judged by others?
Was she an outcaste?
Did she suffer from very low self-esteem?
I would say, “Yes.”
At any rate, the woman must have been quite startled to see a Jewish man sitting there!
What went through her mind?
Of course she had spent her life being used by men....
....one of her thoughts may have been....
Here’s another man coming to take something from me.....
Why else would he be here?
She must have been astonished that all Jesus asked her for was a drink of water!
Now, the rules of social behavior did not look favorably upon men conversing with
women.
It was said by the teachers of the time, “Don’t detain yourself for a long while to speak
with a woman.”
In other words, “A conversation with a woman is a waste of time.”
On top of this, the Jews considered themselves to be superior to Samaritans...
So here was this Jewish man, engaging in conversation a Samaritan Woman with a
questionable reputation out in the open in the middle of the day!
And unlike every other man that this woman has ever come in contact with....Jesus isn’t
trying to take something away from her....He is giving her something....
Jesus ignored social norms in His preaching, teaching, healing and other actions.
He disregarded the hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans, and He was even speaking
with a woman!
Jesus was concerned with new relationships between human beings in which there is no hate
but rather mutual love and concern, and where no culture, race, or gender is superior to another.
Two thousand years later....we still have not caught up with Jesus in this regard.
In any case, Jesus offers the woman “living water”....
At first she doesn’t understand what He’s talking about....
See Jesus wasn’t talking about H2O...He wasn’t talking about the kind of water that you
drink through your mouth in order to refresh your body.....
He was talking about the Holy Spirit....that’s what He was offering this woman.
The Holy Spirit is what Jesus offers...
The Holy Spirit is the Living Water which becomes a spring in the person who recieves
it....welling up to eternal life!
Jesus is talking to this woman about being born again/or born of the Spirit.
And without this new heavenly birth, no one can enter the kingdom of God.
It’s not through the material things of this world like real water that we can taste, touch,
and see--that we enter God’s kingdom....
--It is through the Holy Spirit of the Living God.
As Jesus told Nicodemus in John chapter 3: “That which is flesh is flesh. That which is
Spirit is Spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying that you must be born again.”
Notice that the woman tells Jesus that she wants this water...”
She doesn’t understand what He’s talking about, but she believes Him, and she asks Him
for the gift He has offered.”
That is the key.
“Sir, give me this water,” she says to Jesus!
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be
opened to you. For everyone who asks recieves; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the
door will be opened.”
And for the woman at the well....the door was opened to her on a hot afternoon in a town
in Samaria called Sychar near Jacob’s well where she met Jesus the Christ.
Then Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
She asked Christ for the Living Water, then was honest with Him about her life.
And this is what our attitude must be when we call on God for new life...God is big
enough to handle the truth....and He knows the truth anyway....
But at the same time....He does not judge us with the truth....He does not love us less
because of the truth....
This is a lesson that many Christians need to learn.
We are so quick to judge.
We are so quick to dislike a certain person or persons when we learn the truth about
them.
Therefore, we force each other to hide in the darkness, lest the truth ostrasize us from
friends, co-workers, and in many instances...family.
But this is not what the unconditional agape love of God is all about.
God loves us no matter what we have done....no matter what our weaknesses....no matter
what craziness keeps us awake nights, and haunts our abilities to be happy.
A friend of mine recently told me of an interesting experience he had.
His best friend was dying from a brain tumor, and my buddy was visiting him in the
hosital.
During his visit, several other people came in to visit.
They had forced smiles on their faces, made jokes, and talked about everything except
what was going on with the dying man.
When they left, my friend turned to his buddy and said, “We can sit here and keep our
masks on, acting as if everything is alright, but if we do this---we will miss out on connecting
with each other on a very honest, real, and human level.
Let’s just admit that this is horrible....let’s be honest with each other....let’s be real! And
through doing this we will become closer to each other than we ever could of if we continued to
put on a front.”
Jesus was candid with the Woman at the Well, and the Woman was candid with Jesus.
They didn’t beat around the bush.
And their conversation became very intimate and personal.
And Jesus did not judge her.
Instead, He said: “What you have just told me is quite true.”
And down to verse 24 Jesus declared: “God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in
spirit and in truth.”
It doesn’t matter who you are, what color you are, what gender you are, what sins you
have committed, what the world thinks of you--whatever--Christ offers His living water to
anyone who is willing to accept it....
Christ offers His Holy Spirit to anyone who comes to Him in truth!
In verse 26, Jesus presents Himself to the Samaritan woman as the Messiah--a Messiah
who was different from the one whom the Jews or the Samaritans were awaiting.
Jesus as the Messiah transcends all barriers of nationality that lead to discrimination.
Jesus offered Himself as a gift of God, as living water, as grace and freedom that are
present once we are born again.
And He had no misgivings about presenting Himself to a woman, who, besides being a
Samaritan, was looked down upon and ridiculed for her moral conduct.
Then the woman left her jar.....dropped what she had been doing.....put Jesus first....and
returned quickly to the city.
I remember when I finally decided to accept Jesus Chirst as my Lord and Savior--giving
my life completely over to God---it was a radical born again experience!!!
I ran home, and called my family and my friends telling them about Jesus!
I did this immediately. I wanted to share the good news right away..with everyone I
could!
The joy and surprise of the Samaritan woman’s conversion experience was so great that
she couldn’t hold back the desire to share it with others!!!
She had seen the light!
She had been saved!
She knew the truth...and the truth had finally set her free from the hell she had been
living in.
Her new found faith gave her feelings of worth and dignity that she had never
experienced before.
And what effect did this have on the townsfolk--on the people who had known her?
Certainly something amazing had happened on this hot afternoon.
This woman who lived in such shame that she wouldn’t even lift her head or make eye
contact with others....
This woman who hadn’t cracked as much as even a smile in years...
This woman who felt so despised...who was such an outcaste...that she went to draw
water all by herself in the middle of the day...
She came back to her town with confidence, with authority, with joy, with
peace, with happiness, with purpose.....
As the Bible declares in 2 Corinthians: “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation:
the old has gone, the new has come!”
Surely this had an impact on the poeple of her country!
For verse 39 tells us, “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him
because of the woman’s testimony!
Wow, that must have been an incredibly powerful testimony!!!
Yes, my friends, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God used this despised, rejected,
sinful woman
to save many souls.
The Woman at the Well was the first Evangelist to tell the Good News of Jesus Christ
in Samaria!!!
My friends, as the Bible declares in 1 Corinthians: “Think of what you were when you
were called.
Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many
were of noble birth.
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak
things of the world to shame the strong.
He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are
not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from
God--that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him
who boasts boast in the Lord.”
And this is what the Woman at the Well did....she boasted in the Lord!!!
After all, what else did she have to boast about?
Jesus is the One who gave her dignity, Jesus is the One who showed her what love is,
Jesus is the One who changed her life forever!!!
Has Christ changed our lives forever?
Do we have a testimony?
Are we, like the Woman at the Well, participating in the transformation of other lives by
sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with others?
