John 4:5-26 NIV
5 So he came to a town in Samaria called
Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s
well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the
well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw
water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His
disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 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.)
10 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.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have
nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 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?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who
drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.”
15 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.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your
husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you
have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five
husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said
is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that
you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on
this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is
in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe
me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this
mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans
worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is
from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now
come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the
Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God
is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah”
(called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to
us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one
speaking to you—I am he.”
I AM He
Jesus is
teaching here again about The Kingdom, Spiritual Life, Eternal Life, Salvation
and so much more. Similar to teaching Nicodemus in the dark of the night, Jesus
teaches here a woman at a well. Both personal conversations, both contrasting
what is seen here on earth and what is seen in heaven.
What?
Like, a mother giving birth once again to a full-grown man, yet the spiritual concept
of being born again. Here Jesus comes to the well thirsty for a drink of water
to quench His thirst, yet He speaks to the woman with the means to give Him
something to drink from the deep well; but Jesus speaks of “Living Water” that
never runs out. And that “Living Water” comes from Jesus Himself.
Well, if
You, Jesus, are this well of “Living Water,” why do you seek the water from
which this woman can draw forth from this deep well to quench your thirst, here
and now?
Do you
see what I mean? Jesus seems to be teaching and contrasting, what you, and I,
see as reality, to the reality that Jesus observes from the Kingdom of God in
eternity.
In
Exodus 17, God taught the Israelites in the desert the contrast between
Spiritual Gifts and Earthly needs. The Israelites were moaning and groaning for
water and wanted Moses to do something about it. So, Moses moans and groans to
God about what his role in providing for the thirst of the Israelites is, in
this case. What does God do?
God has
Moses go in front of the people, take the staff that he used for all of those
plagues in Egypt and hit a rock for water to come forth, so that the Israelites
thirst would be quenched. And there it is! Something real, as we would recognize,
like water and rock, coming out of nowhere! This is a gift from God, like “Living
Water.” A Spiritual, “God thing” from a physical “Earth thing.” A Spiritual,
Kingdom of God water, feeding the physical needs of the Israelites.
Can you
see it? Psalm 95 points out a praise to God for the “Rock of our Salvation.”
Something physical, the rock, connected to a Spiritual gift from God,
Salvation. Salvation is FROM God! And there is that connection also to Jesus
when we sing to Him as the “Rock” of our salvation. Physical, what we may be
able to grasp, connected to Spiritual, Jesus our Salvation.
Jesus
demonstrates, at the well, how we come before God. Remember from that passage
above; Jesus was thirsty, but he didn’t have a physical means to draw the water
from the deep well to quench His thirst.
We,
likewise, come before God in our physical need for something. Like the Israelites
were thirsty and needed water to survive. As Romans 5 points out, when we are
powerless, Jesus comes to us, the ungodly, and demonstrates His own love for us
and dares to die for us to save us, from the physical to the spiritual.
So, what’s
the connection?
Just as
Jesus knew the woman at the well completely, He was able to expose her
sinfulness; He knows us well enough to show us our sinfulness. Why? So, that He
can point us away from our physical sinfulness, to expose us to His forgiveness
of that sin and give us “Living Water,” that will draw us to Him and into the
Kingdom of God. And there it is again, a connection from the physical of our
sinfulness, here and now, and the spiritual forgiveness that only Jesus can
give to us. As Paul points out in Romans 5:8b, “While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.”
So,
there is water that quenches our thirst, but there is also water, “Living Water”
that leads us into the everlasting grace of God, in the Kingdom of God, through
Jesus, life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension back to heaven. And
guess what? Jesus is coming again to take us too, with Him, from the physical
to the spiritual, and from the spiritual to God’s given physical with a new
body, and a New Jerusalem, with all the believers for eternity. Come, Lord
Jesus, come!
Jesus
became physical. Jesus, our God and Savior, came from heaven and took on
physical flesh and blood, to show us the spiritual aspect of being with God in
eternity. And that happens through what Jesus gives to us freely. That’s “Living
Water!” That’s “Living Water” from the Rock of Salvation!
Recall John
4 verse 21…
21 “Woman,” Jesus
replied, “believe me, a time is
coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what
you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the
Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and
has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the
Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers
must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
This is the invitation to an eternal Church. Jerusalem
is no longer a physical place that we need to return to, it is a spiritual
place that we all CAN go to. How? Not through the physical city of Jerusalem,
but through the New Heavenly, spiritual Jerusalem, now open to ALL people and ALL
races. Why? Because like verse 24 states, “God is spirit, and His worshipers
must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
Jesus bluntly makes it clear to the Woman at the
Well, to Nicodemus, to you, and to me, and to all the world, that HE IS THE
MESSIAH. Spiritual, to physical, to spiritual, to physical, for Him and as a
gift for us as well, who believe what He tells us…
I invite you to humor me with a bit of a journey.
Imagine you are on a hard rocky, stony, road. A road of your life, before and in the present. You have been in a struggle. You have been in need. You are at the end of yourself.
Now leave this road and step down a smaller road.
A road covered in trampled grass. A road with red clay dirt beneath. A road
with ruts and grooves worn down by travelers, like yourself. As you pass down
this road, you see in the distance a small body of water.
You slowly approach to see a small stream of
water, cool and fresh. You hear the sounds of the water trickling over smooth
rocks. You see the reflection of sunlight on that water. In this brook you find
a small depression big enough to take a dip in. So, you remove your shoes and step
into the water, stepping stone by stone, towards this depression in the brook.
As you arrive to this depression in the brook,
you remove your clothes. You are naked, standing in this water on a stone. Next,
you do it. You take a leap from the stone on which you have been standing, and
plunge into the water. The water covers your entire body. Your head goes under
the water, and you hold your breath.
As you rise to the surface of the water, you look
up and the sky opens up to your view. You see Creation in the sky. You see the
open arms of Jesus coming from the clouds, you see the Heavenly Dove descending
on you! You feel the connection between earth, sky, water, and the oneness of
God.
Yes! You have been raised to new life. New life
in the waters of your baptism. You have been graciously saved from your sinful
life on that hard road of the past. You have been given the gifts needed to
profess a connection, between the physical life of the here and now to the
spiritual life, now freely given through Jesus.
As you have experienced this connection, you are pulled, out of the water. You put your clothes back on, step stone to stone out of this babbling brook. You notice the horses in the rolling hills beyond you, peacefully feeding on a clump of hay. Now, you step back on to the red clay path, with the trampled grass, and walk slowly down the lane. You feel the presence of a gentle breeze in your face. You smell the fresh mown field and the scent of new flowers, blessing your life with rich fragrance. As you exit this path, you step back onto that hard surface road of life.
But you’ve changed. You’ve changed and even
though you are still on that rocky road of life, things are vastly different. For
it’s God that brought you from the physical to the spiritual. God set you back
on your path with the full knowledge that once again, someday, perhaps someday
soon, He will pull you from the physical to the spiritual. Perhaps over and over
again, day after day. But that day will come, when you will once again, look up
from this creation, and into the clouds, you will hear a sound and see Jesus,
once again, on the clouds, to welcome you eternally into the Kingdom of God,
and into that heavenly realm with the New Jerusalem descending and ascending,
to spend eternity with God in a New Creation. And that life has already begun…
And Jesus spoke to the Woman at the Well…
John 4:26… Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking
to you – I am he.”
And that holds true… today… tomorrow… and forever.
Thanks be to God!
Enjoy this YouTube Music Video about the Woman at
the Well
