Jesus answered her, “If
you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you
would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The Middle Eastern climate can be harsh and dry. Water is necessary for life everywhere in the world, but in regions where water is not readily available, it becomes a commodity. A well is a valuable resource. Evidently, this little town's claim to fame was the well, centuries old, that was dug by Jacob, grandson of Abraham. The well was deep. The water was good. It sustained life.
In this conversation with an outcast Samaritan woman, when Jesus referred to Himself as the source of living water, His language was not incidental. He was intentionally wanting her (and us) to understand something basic.
First, Jesus is saying something about His identity. And then, He is commenting on a spiritual principle related to His identity. To grasp the importance of what Jesus is saying, it might be helpful to remember what God had told the Israelites through the prophet Jeremiah: "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." (Jeremiah 2:13)
When Jesus refers to Himself as the source of living water, He is making the same claim that God had previously made -Jesus was identifying Himself as God. And by doing this, He is also alluding to the rest of that prophecy from Jeremiah. He is claiming that no other well, no other cistern, no other source of water can give life in the way that He can give it -and that seeking life elsewhere is sin.
We all have a spiritual thirst. It's how God created us. Some people try to quench the thirst with other (manmade) religions. Some people try to quench the thirst with science and logic and man's best thinking. Others try to quench it with family, or careers or money or fame or power. None of those things truly quench the spiritual thirst because our spiritual thirst was uniquely designed by God to be quenched only by the Living Water we find in Him. Every attempt to quench our spiritual thirst outside of Jesus Christ is like digging cisterns that can't hold water.
Unfortunately, although the broken spiritual cisterns we create can't hold water, and therefore cannot sustain spiritual peace or joy -they can't really support life -they can, it seems, sometimes slake our thirst just enough to keep us returning to the broken cisterns. This, clearly, is not God's plan for us.
In Isaiah 55:1-3, God invites us (seriously -an invitation by God Himself) to let go of all those things that take the edge off of our spiritual hunger and thirst but that do not actually satisfy. Instead, we are invited to find sustenance and life in Him:
“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live."
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
John 4:7-26 (part one) "Scandalous"
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”
“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.
“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.
Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband— for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?”
Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus told her, “I Am the Messiah!”
There are so many layers of good things in this story from John 4. I'm not even sure exactly how to approach writing my thoughts about them without it turning into a sermon (and nobody really wants that). So I think I'm just going to do several short posts going back and forth over various parts of the bigger passage, highlighting different things.
The audacity of Jesus to even talked to this woman. First, she was a woman. Proper Jewish men did not talk to women in public. Scandalous. Even more scandalous was that she was a Samaritan. As she herself pointed out, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. There is a reason for that -especially among righteous Jews.
The short version of Jewish history is that after the Babylonians conquered Israel and carried away many of the strongest and prettiest and brightest into captivity in Babylon, they sent people from other lands they had conquered to repopulate Israel. These new people in the land, of course, brought with them all of their foreign gods. The Jews who remained began intermarrying with the foreigners and worshiping their gods, while still affirming the one true God. The result was that neither their bloodlines nor their religion remained purely Jewish. On the other hand, the Jews who had been sent into exile and captivity, refused to intermarry and continued to worship God. After 70 years (as told in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah) the exiled Jews returned to Israel to find these impure half-breeds claiming to be Jews. These half-breeds were the Samaritans.
So in this story, we find this Samaritan woman arriving at the well in the middle of the day -the heat of the day. Other women from the town all came early in the morning before it got too hot. They came together; there was comradery and fellowship and chatter -and no doubt gossip. Almost by definition, this woman alone in the heat of the day means she was an outcast. Maybe she preferred the heat and dust and loneliness to the gossip because maybe too much of the gossip was about her. In fact, we find out later that she had been married to five different men and that she was currently living with another man to whom she was not married.
This lonely outcast Samaritan that everybody knew to be a loose woman is who Jesus struck up a conversation with. This is, in fact, the first person to whom Jesus revealed that He was the Messiah. She was a Samaritan, but He talked to her anyway. She was an outcast, but He treated her with dignity and respect. He certainly knew who she was and He knew what she had done- He was not naive; but He talked to her anyway. It's almost as if Jesus doesn't mind being a friend to sinners. Lucky for us.
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”
“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.
“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.
Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband— for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?”
Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus told her, “I Am the Messiah!”
There are so many layers of good things in this story from John 4. I'm not even sure exactly how to approach writing my thoughts about them without it turning into a sermon (and nobody really wants that). So I think I'm just going to do several short posts going back and forth over various parts of the bigger passage, highlighting different things.
The audacity of Jesus to even talked to this woman. First, she was a woman. Proper Jewish men did not talk to women in public. Scandalous. Even more scandalous was that she was a Samaritan. As she herself pointed out, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. There is a reason for that -especially among righteous Jews.
The short version of Jewish history is that after the Babylonians conquered Israel and carried away many of the strongest and prettiest and brightest into captivity in Babylon, they sent people from other lands they had conquered to repopulate Israel. These new people in the land, of course, brought with them all of their foreign gods. The Jews who remained began intermarrying with the foreigners and worshiping their gods, while still affirming the one true God. The result was that neither their bloodlines nor their religion remained purely Jewish. On the other hand, the Jews who had been sent into exile and captivity, refused to intermarry and continued to worship God. After 70 years (as told in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah) the exiled Jews returned to Israel to find these impure half-breeds claiming to be Jews. These half-breeds were the Samaritans.
So in this story, we find this Samaritan woman arriving at the well in the middle of the day -the heat of the day. Other women from the town all came early in the morning before it got too hot. They came together; there was comradery and fellowship and chatter -and no doubt gossip. Almost by definition, this woman alone in the heat of the day means she was an outcast. Maybe she preferred the heat and dust and loneliness to the gossip because maybe too much of the gossip was about her. In fact, we find out later that she had been married to five different men and that she was currently living with another man to whom she was not married.
This lonely outcast Samaritan that everybody knew to be a loose woman is who Jesus struck up a conversation with. This is, in fact, the first person to whom Jesus revealed that He was the Messiah. She was a Samaritan, but He talked to her anyway. She was an outcast, but He treated her with dignity and respect. He certainly knew who she was and He knew what she had done- He was not naive; but He talked to her anyway. It's almost as if Jesus doesn't mind being a friend to sinners. Lucky for us.
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