(John 4:5-26)
The Word of God can be a challenging book to read. It can be difficult to see the big picture of how it all fits together. It can be frustrating to wrestle with why God thought certain sections were worth including in Scripture. Remembering where a certain narrative is recorded or which book includes this verse isn’t always so easy. Struggling with doubts about why the Bible is the one religious book we can trust, while all the others are man-made fabrications that lead people astray. It can all be overwhelming.
This is why it is good for us to sit alongside Jesus and the woman at the well. It’s as if we are right there with them, longing for a rest, taking some time to slow down, pause, and recover with the refreshing interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. After all, to make sense of the Bible, to sort it all out, is to see Jesus and spend time with Jesus. Only when we know him do the pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place. Through time spent with Jesus, we get a glimpse into the window of the very heart of God.
We see a Savior packing all of the work of soul-saving and salvation into his short, three-decade-long life, taking time out of his ridiculously busy schedule for just one soul. To see him care so much, to be so invested in one heart, to cast aside all cultural taboos and any faux pas because the eternity of even one soul matters more to him than the opinion of others and how he comes off – this is to know God as he wants to be known. So let us enjoy our time together as quiet bystanders in awe of Jesus’ love for people, for individuals, as he provides exactly what this woman – and we – need.
First things first, how and why did Jesus get to this point? Our account begins rather abruptly with a “so,” leaving us wondering what preceded. What preceded was an explanation of why Jesus had to be on the move. He had been in an area with a high population of religious leaders. They were starting to take note of Jesus’ influence, which was surpassing that of John the Baptist. It may have been that Jesus didn’t want to draw more of their attention and have to worry about more frequent interactions with religious opposition at this point in his ministry. It may have been that Jesus didn’t want to lend to the perception that he and John the Baptist were rivals. Or, since it wasn’t going to be too long before John the Baptist would find himself in prison, Jesus may have left to avoid a similar fate.
On top of all of those considerations, geographically speaking, there were other roads Jesus could have traveled to avoid going through the heart of Samaria. Many Jewish people would do just that to avoid the unfavorable shadow of a “purebred” Jewish person having to have anything to do with a “mutt” Samaritan.
But right before this interaction, John records for us, “Now he had to go through Samaria” (John 4:4). “Had to,” didn’t mean there were no alternative roads he could have taken to avoid Samaria, because we know there were. No, “had to” means that this encounter was divinely appointed. It was slated to happen on God’s eternal planner that Jesus would radically impact not just one woman’s life, but, as a result of this very encounter, that many in the whole town would eventually come to call him their Savior by faith.
She was slow to get it at first, as we all are. But, given the circumstances, it’s understandable that she was not expecting any conversation to unfold with this weary traveler by the well. Not only did the man initiate the conversation with a woman, which was culturally uncoomon on its own, but she recognized, likely by his dialect, that he was a Jew, prompting her shocked response at being asked for a drink. “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.) (v.9). No upstanding Jew would have been willing to drink from the bowl or cup of a Samaritan.
Take note, however, of how Jesus responds – not just to this inquiry, but to each concern the woman expresses. Rather than diving into a treatise on the past and present relations between Jews and Samaritans, Jesus begins to direct the conversation to the one thing that mattered most. She needed to understand and ultimately believe that he came to bring her not what she thought she wanted, but what she needed: eternal salvation.
Even as Jesus steered the conversation toward the spiritual, referring to the “gift of God,” making mention of who was asking her for a drink, speaking of “living water,” and finally even mentioning “eternal life,” still her reply demonstrated she wasn’t tracking. “The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water’” (v.15). Figuratively speaking, she was still looking down into the well, when Jesus was leading her to look up to the heavens. She was stuck on the physical and temporal, while Jesus longed to turn her attention to the spiritual and eternal.
You ever have that kind of frustrating conversation? The one where you are gradually trying to ease your way into a tough or challenging discussion that needs to happen, and the other person doesn’t pick up on what you’re really talking about? More often than not, those situations are our own fault, because we’re not speaking clearly and we’re expecting the other person to do the heavy lifting in the conversation. We’re trying to avoid saying what we should actually just come out and say and hoping the other person picks up on it and connects the dots. Then we’re the ones who get angry when they don’t, when it’s really our fault that we aren’t communicating clearly.
This case, though, was not one of Jesus lacking clarity in his communication; rather, it was an example of the chasm that exists between fallen sinners and a righteous God. If you need a reminder of how wide that chasm is, just look at how thick the Bible is! We’re so obtuse and spiritually clueless that God needed to record one account after another to show us our lost condition. He needed to cover every possible path someone might think they could pursue, only to arrive at a dead end every time.
In its simplest form, God’s law is easily summed up with the word “love.” “Love me,” God says, “and love your neighbor.” That’s it! But for us to see how miserably we fail at it, God records take after take throughout history of people failing at loving him and others perfectly. To our shame and embarrassment, he has to spell out specifically the countless ways we violate his command to love.
Jesus’ next request of the woman shows just that. “He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back’” (v.16). In an effort to officially shift the conversation into the spiritual realm, Jesus brings up her current living situation, knowing full well it will raise the issue that needs the most attention: the condition of her heart. That’s what God’s law does. It reveals what we think is hidden. It shows what we think can be covered. It displays what we feel can be tucked safely away unnoticed. And she realized it.
Her reply shows that her awareness has shifted from the physical to the spiritual. “‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem’” (v.19-20).
Some take the view that the woman was attempting to change the topic away from the matter of her adultery. However, it seems just as plausible that she realizes the conversation is a spiritual one, her sin has been exposed, and now she is naturally focused on what to do about it. So she asks about the right way to worship, presuming that must be the way to go about it. She wants to see if this man, who is obviously a prophet, may have insight into the right way to worship.
By nature, that’s how we operate, isn’t it? In some way or another, when we do wrong, get caught or called out, or just plain feel guilty about it, we naturally resort to thinking about what we must do to make everything right. Indeed, though it may not revolve around a building or a Sunday morning service, for many, that’s really their understanding of worship, isn’t it? Many view worship as the required activity that we have to keep up with to counter all of the ways we’ve violated God’s law of love. We want God to just tell us how to make things right so we can carry on with our lives.
But Jesus shoots down that idea when he explains to the woman that she’s asking the wrong question, and that worship isn’t about finding the right location, but about something else entirely. He explains that “salvation is from the Jews” (v.22), and as such, what matters far more than location, religious rites, or even right behavior, is worshipping “in Spirit and in truth” (v.22 & 23). In other words, worship that is pleasing to God is not a matter of doing the right thing, but of having the right heart. And Jesus qualifies that by adding that it’s also a matter of truth. Because without the truth, our hearts would only succeed in driving us further away from God.
So what is the truth? Jesus made it known to the woman with his final big reveal. The Messiah – the Savior – she was waiting for, was the very one to whom she was speaking! He alone could promise to satisfy not just dry lips and a parched throat, but a dehydrated soul, with his living water that wells up to eternal life. Jesus could provide what none of her past or current relationships ever could: a heart cleansed and purified by the living water of salvation.
Friends, it isn’t easy. We are tired. We are worn out. We are thirsty. But don’t make matters worse by seeking to satisfy your thirst with worldly stuff that will only leave you in a worse condition. Drink up. Guzzle in all the grace you can. It will not run out. It will not fail to quench your thirst. It will not disappoint. It will leave you, too, with a clean conscience and a heart that is whole. Less of what will only leave you thirsty again and more of what will never leave you thirsty. More of Jesus and the living water only he can provide.
