church

INI
The Second Sunday after Epiphany
January 17, 2010
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

A SINNER STRIKES WATER AT JACOB’S WELL
John 4:5-14

To the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor
and glory forever and ever, Amen. Today's text comes from the fourth chapter
of John, beginning with the fifth verse, as follows.

So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground
that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore,
being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth
hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a
drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the
woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink
from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
Jesus answered and 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.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to
draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are
You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it
himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her,
“Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water
that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will
become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” Thus far
our text.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Who is a refreshing Spring of salvation in a
parched and weary world, Dear Fellow Redeemed,

Sometimes it's easy to strike water, sometimes it's not. There are some areas of
the country where you can hardly put a shovel in the ground without striking
water. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the state of Montana boasts the
deepest water well in the country – at one spot in Montana they had to drill
down 7300 feet in order to find water. Water is important, obviously, and
people will often go to great lengths in search of it.

One place you wouldn’t expect to have to search for water is a place where
there’s already a well. Especially if that well is deep and reliable, and has been
producing water for a long time. In our text for today, Jesus arrives at just such
a well, after a long and weary journey on foot. He needs a drink of water, and
asks a woman to provide it. But things are not as they seem. For the Holy Spirit
reveals to us that it is the woman who is really in need of water – the water of
life! – and it is Jesus who alone is able to provide it. If you’ve ever felt parched
and thirsty for righteousness, this text is for you. If you’ve ever found yourself
so wrapped up in the mundane tasks of day-to-day life that you’ve thirsted for
something real, something satisfying, something that lasts, then you’ve come to
the right place! This morning we consider the theme,

A SINNER STRIKES WATER AT JACOB’S WELL
I. This water is for everyone.
II. This water is living.
III. This water comes only from Jesus.
IV. This water leads to everlasting life.

Jesus and His disciples were travelling from Jerusalem, in the southern part of
Israel, to Galilee in the north. They chose the most direct route, which passed
through the land of the Samaritans. This in itself was striking. Most Jews
travelling north took the alternate route through Perea specifically to avoid
Samaria. If you know anything about Bible history, you know why – it’s because
the Jews hated the Samaritans. The Samaritans were a renegade religious sect.
They recognized only the first five books of the Bible. The Jews considered
them mongrels, a mixed race of Jewish and foreign blood, and they avoided
them whenever possible. A Jewish man would never dream of drinking from a
Samaritan well.

That’s why this woman was so amazed at Jesus’ request. Then the woman of
Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a
Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. To further
heighten the irony, it would soon become clear that the one who really needed a
drink was the woman, not Jesus. And she would get it! She was a sinner who
was about to strike water. The fact that Jesus was even sitting there talking to
this woman showed something important. The water Jesus gives – the water of
life – is for everyone.

Some time ago I met a man of Hawaiian descent. We started talking about the
Christian faith and he said he wasn’t interesting in hearing about Christianity
because he assumed that was religion that was only for white people. He was
totally serious! What a shame that is, because the water of life that Jesus offers
is for everyone, without exception. In Jesus’ own time, the idea that salvation
could come to non-Jewish people, as well as to Jews, was repugnant to the
Jewish religious leaders. They had rejected Jesus and His preaching. So when
the Jews turned away from Christ, the Gospel was given to the Gentiles. Paul
later said to the Jews, It was necessary that the word of God should first have
been spoken to you: but seeing you put it from you, and judge yourselves
unworthy of everlasting life, see, we turn to the Gentiles. –Acts 13:46. The
woman at the well was one such non-Jewish person who would be offered the
water of life. I am another. You are another!

The water Jesus offers is for everyone, especially for wretched sinners. The
woman at Jacob’s well qualified in that category, too. Jesus probing would later
reveal that this woman had previously had five different husbands, and the man
she was living with at the time she wasn’t even married to! She had been a very
great sinner for a very long time, and yet here was the Lord of Life, offering her
the Living Water. Truly, this sinner struck water at Jacob’s well! Does that fact
comfort you? It certainly comforts me, for the category of “wretched sinner” is
one to which I, too, must confess I belong.

The water Jesus offers is for everyone, including those too ignorant to ask for a
drink! Jesus said, , “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.” But she didn’t know, and she didn’t ask. She didn’t make any
“decision for Christ.” In her unbelief she was too blind even to understand what
Jesus was offering her. The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw
with, and the well is deep. She was talking about the physical water in the well
before them. But Jesus was talking about something different. For the water
Jesus gives is living water!

What does Jesus mean by “living water”? Our Lord is here painting a vivid
picture of the grace of God. In Bible times, there were two kinds of wells –
springs and cisterns. The phrase “living water” always referred to a spring, a
source of water which was fresh, free-flowing and self-replenishing. A spring
was much preferred over a cistern, and for very good reason. A cistern was just
a large holding tank, designed to catch rainwater. The water in a cistern quickly
became stagnant and brackish. Cisterns were notoriously unreliable and would
frequently develop cracks. They could leave you without water, particularly in
the dry season when you most needed it.

What had the Jews of Jesus’ time done? In a spiritual sense, they had had
traded a spring for a cistern. They had replaced the true, God-given religion
with a false religion of their own devising. They had forsaken the salvation God
promised them in Christ, and were trying to save themselves through outward
piety and good works. The Lord said through Jeremiah, “My people have
committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
And hewn themselves cisterns; broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jer
2:13.

But the Samaritan woman had struck a spring. Jesus was sitting before her,
offering her the gift living water! Not the stagnant, polluted water of her own
righteousness, but the pure, refreshing streams of His righteousness.

I was trying to think of what would be the best way to illustrate the difference
between human work-righteousness and the righteousness Christ offers. There
was a glass of water which stood for a long time on the window ledge above our
kitchen sink at home. In the water was a cutting from a house plant that Carol
was hoping to grow. Each time I went to the tap for a drink, I saw that glass of
water getting more and stagnant, more and more green and vile. Needless to
say, I would never have dreamed of turning off the freshwater tap and taking a
drink of that polluted water! Would you? But my friends, that is exactly what
we’re doing if we allow ourselves to rely – even the least little bit! – upon our
own good works to stand justified in the eyes of God. Two weeks ago we talked
about the sin of pride. Are you guilty of sinful pride when you look at your own
upright behavior and your own honest lifestyle? Do you find yourself looking
down upon those who don’t attend church as often as you do, or don’t put as
much money in the collection plate as you do? Beware! When it comes to
justification, let us not take so much as a single sip from the brackish water of
our own good deeds. Let us rather go to our Savior, the One who says, "I am
the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the
fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. Rev 21:6.

The woman at the well assumed (rightly) that if Jesus had “living” water, then
it didn’t come from the well they were standing at. “Sir, You have nothing to
draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?” The
water must have come from some other source. And she was right, for this
water comes only from Jesus Himself!

She asked Jesus, Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well,
and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock? The original
Greek here reveals that she was expecting a negative answer. She assumed it
was false: “You’re not greater than Jacob, are you?”

This woman of Sychar had probably been drinking from this well her whole
life. A great man – the patriarch Jacob! – had provided this well. It had been
serving her people for many hundreds of years. Who could have greater power
or prestige than Jacob? Certainly not this weary traveler sitting here before her!
But appearances can be deceiving. Truly, one greater than Jacob was here, as
she was soon to find out. Unbeknownst to her, she had struck living water at
Jacob’s well! Here was One who knew her whole life inside and out. One who
knew the deep stain of her sinfulness, and loved her nonetheless. One who
knew her desperate thirst for righteousness, and who was prepared to satisfy
that thirst. Jesus Christ is the only One who can supply the water of life!

This woman’s question was asked of Jesus over and over again. “Who do you
think You are?” The Jews of Jerusalem asked, "Are You greater than our father
Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Whom do You make
Yourself out to be?" And the skepticism continues to this day. The world asks,
“Who do you think you are, Jesus? Who do you think You are, that You ask us
to ignore all the learned scientists and believe what Your Word tells us about
creation? Who do you think You are, that you expect us to reject Allah and
Buddha and all the other gods of this world and cling only to you? Who do you
think you are that ask us to forsake all our good deeds and trust only in your
merits and righteousness? To these questions, Jesus simply replies, "I AM."
John 8:58. “I am the only God who is or exists. “I am the Way, the Truth, and
the Life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by ME.” To the woman He
answered in this fashion: He pointed to the old well before them and said,
“Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water
that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will
become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” And that’s
another important thing about this water which Jesus offers: this water leads to
everlasting life.

The Samaritan woman was so focused on the mundane aspects of her life that
she couldn’t take in the wonderful nature of what Jesus was offering her. In the
very next verse she says, Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come
here to draw. She was just hoping she could get out of drawing water every day.
She was thinking too small.

What about you? Have you been thinking too small? E.g., have you been
rushing around so frantically in your life – trying to take care of business – that
you’ve neglected to pray? That you’ve forgotten to ask God for His blessings?
And when you do pray, do you find yourself devoting 90% of your time to
asking for worldly, material things, and 10% asking for spiritual blessings? Do
you read and listen to the Word of God, but never really get around to applying
it in your life? “What a shame it is,” said one Christian writer, “that so many lift
the cup of living water to their lips, but never taste it.”

My Christian friends – taste the water of eternal life! “Taste and see that the
Lord is good.” Leave the mundane details of your life behind for a moment -
Jesus has much greater things to offer! Lift your head from the details of daily
existence and look to the eternal horizon. Yes, you and I are sinners. Yes, we’ve
failed time and again to keep God’s commandments. We’ve neglected our
prayer life. We’ve majored in the minor things of life while neglecting the main
things. Time and again you and I have come up so woefully, sinfully short in our
service to God. But never forget - Christ has provided a payment for your sin.
“There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, and
sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” Jesus voluntarily
poured out His blood on the cross so you could be redeemed, restored,
forgiven. So that you, too, could be free forever from the punishment your sin
deserved. You have tasted the water of eternal life. Your Savior is alive, and He
has said, “Because I live, you shall live also.” Because Jesus bore your
punishment for you on the cross of Calvary, you are guaranteed a place in
heaven. Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so,
I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, there ye
may be also.” For Jesus’ sake we are walking together, you and I, toward a
future life whose joys we can scarcely imagine! That’s why we sing in the
familiar old hymn:

Redeemed, restored, forgiven, through Jesus’ precious blood.
Heirs of His home in heaven, O praise our pardoning God.
Praise Him in tuneful measure, Who gave His Son to die,
Praise Him whose sevenfold treasures, enrich and sanctify. TLH 32

In 1521, the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon landed in North America and
spent several years in a fruitless search for the legendary “fountain of youth”.
He was convinced there was a spring whose waters would restore youth and
vigor to an aged man, and allow him to live forever. We know now, of course,
that such a fountain doesn’t exist. – Or does it? That Samaritan woman
discovered such a fountain - a fountain of eternal life. The rest of this chapter
of John reveals that not only did she receive Jesus as her Savior, she also shared
that good news with many of her countrymen. Truly she was the sinner who
struck water at Jacob’s well! Let’s you and I, too, plumb the depths of this
wonderful fountain. We know now that the water there is for everyone, it is
living, it comes from Jesus and it leads to everlasting life. With joy, therefore,
let us answer the invitation of our Savior: "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." –Jn 7:37-38. AMEN.