Jesus by Jacob's Well

Series: Awkward Family Photos

March 18, 2018 | David Crosby
Passage: John 4:1-15

Jesus is Lord. This is participation in the Kingdom of God. If you want to give primary allegiance to some other kingdom, then Jesus is not Lord in you, and you are not seeing the Kingdom.

Eliezer encountered the beautiful Rebekah at a well and initiated there the conversation that resulted in her marriage to Isaac (Gen. 14:11). Jacob met Rachel at a well and immediately kissed her, wept out loud, and wanted to marry her, but her father had other plans (Gen 29:2). Moses came upon his beloved wife, Zipporah, a foreigner, at a well in arid Midian where he defended her from ruffians (Ex 2:15). In each case the young ladies were at the wells to water the animals and the fathers were sitting in the shade at home swatting flies and watching television.

Another well. Another woman. Another worship conversation.

Love the Stranger:

Our first natural impulse is to fear the stranger. Jesus tells us to see them as people whom God loves.

Care about persons over rules.

  • All Jews would agree that Jesus should not be speaking to the enemy, especially a woman. “The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.” That is, they have nothing to do with them.
  • Jesus feels a necessity to go through Samaria. This need is not geographical. He could have traveled up the East Bank at the foot of the Golan Heights. Instead, Jesus feels compelled by the Spirit to go through Samaria.
  • Jesus ignores the wrong-headed opinions of the religious leaders and the political leaders of his day. This woman is more important than the rules, spoken and unspoken, that prevent him from talking to her.
  • This is typical of Jesus. He is forever doing what is forbidden by the authorities in order to change the lives of persons that he cares about.

Treat women with full dignity. The disciples seemed more shocked that Jesus would be talking to a woman than a Samaritan.

  • The treatment of women around the world has been shameful for generations. We are changing the laws in our own state to end the possibility of “child brides.” Children in Louisiana may be married at any age with the consent of their parents. Around the world such marriages are an economic benefit to impoverished parents and therefore a form of human trafficking.
  • Christians around the world have the opportunity to distinguish themselves culturally by following the example of Jesus who cared deeply for the women whom others ignored or abused. Failure to follow Jesus in his example has hampered Christian evangelism worldwide. We warp the good news and erect needless barriers to the gospel when we discount women, threating them less than men, rather than affirming their full dignity and worth.

Treat foreigners with full dignity.

  • Religion: The Samaritans were the descendants of Jews who had stayed behind and intermarried with the foreign colonists brought in by the Assyrians. Their loyalties were divided.
  • They refused to worship at Jerusalem. The temple in Jerusalem was the heart of Jewish worship.
  • In 128 B.C. the Jewish high priest burned the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim.
  • Jesus was called a “Samaritan” by his enemies. "The Jews answered him, 'Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?'” (John 8:48).
  • This is a racial slur. They are insisting that Jesus is similar to all Samaritans in three ways: demon-possessed, ritually unclean, and a heretic.
  • Jesus ignores it, I think, because it is unworthy of a response. It is senseless babble. It reflects a prejudice against all Samaritans, the embracing of an obvious falsehood.
  • Politics: Some Jews would consider the Samaritans their chief enemies. The Samaritans had sided with the Syrians in their wars against the Jews in the 2nd century B.C. The Samaritans had obstructed the way to the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the exile.
  • This is Jesus modeling how to handle politics as a citizen of the kingdom of God. You ignore politics in your interchange with others, including strangers, so that you may share the great gift of the gospel unhindered by political questions.

Treat sinners with full dignity.

  1. Jesus knows this woman’s past, as she discovers. Yet he engages her in conversation as a person worthy of his attention. He does this despite the dangers to his own reputation.
  2. Do not deal with people according to their sins. God does not deal with you that way. "He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth,
    Sogreat is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us." (Ps. 103:10-12).

Lead Them to the Living Water:

There is a lot of water in the gospel of John. John the Baptist is baptizing in the Jordan. Jesus changes water to wine. Nicodemus learns he must be born of water and the Spirit. Jacob’s well. The healing at the pool of Bethesda. Walking on water. Man born blind must wash in the pool of Siloam. The footwashing.

Here is the first awkward moment at the well of Jacob.

  • Jesus asks her for a drink. It is a totally unexpected request, against the custom of the day, and she is startled.
  • The woman may actually be poking fun at Jesus, mocking him, because he has nothing with which to draw water and is so desperately in need of a drink that he will forget proprieties.
  • Jesus turns that around by saying her real interest should be the water that he would give her, not the other way around. He issues her two challenges:
    1. Will she really recognize who he is: “who it is that says…”
    2. Will she ask for living water: “you would ask him, and he..”

Move from the natural to the spiritual.

  • The Gift of God: “If you knew…”

Woman: “You have nothing to draw with…”

  1. Never thirst again water.

Woman: “Give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water”

So the Woman actually does what Jesus says she should do: she asks for living water, though she still does not know what it is.

What is the living water?

  • It is Jesus himself. He says to the crowd in Jerusalem: "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of water will flow from within him." (John 7:37-38).
  • The Word of God is living water, cleansing and healing.
  • The Spirit of God is living water (the Gift of God).

Help Them Find True Worship:

The second awkward picture occurs when Jesus tells her to go call her husband and come back. She has no husband, as she readily confesses. But any woman with her history would be at least somewhat embarrassed to tell a new and impressive friend about her own marital history and current living arrangements.

  • Why does Jesus bring this up? God does not deal with us according to our sins. He is full of mercy. So why this question?
  • God buries our sin in the sea. He removes it as far as the east is from the west. He remembers it no more against us.

Jesus wants her to recognize who he is. That is the reason that he brings up her marital history.

  • Her ambiguous answer is hiding: “I have no husband.”
  • Jesus reveals his supernatural knowledge of her situation. Remember, Jesus does not need any testimony about mankind. He knows what is in a person.
  • She decides that Jesus is a prophet. That’s a move in the right direction, and it fits her Samaritan expectation of the Messiah. But Jesus wants more. He wants her to see her need.

Jesus uses her answer to uncover her sin.

  • John 3:19-21 tells us that people who love darkness avoid the light lest their deeds be reproved.
  • The critical question is this: Will the woman turn her back on the light?

The woman does not run away. She makes the decision to look to the light, but she seeks to move the conversation away from her personal situation.

  • Jesus explains that true worship can only happen from those who are begotten by the Spirit.
  • The woman finally recognizes who Jesus is (as far as she is able), and Jesus affirms it.

The woman has now met the two challenges. She has asked for the living water, and she has recognized that Jesus is the Promised One—ego eimi—I who speak to you am he (v26).

You must get to the point where you will ask Jesus for the gift, the living water. You who are thirsty, come to the water! And you must confess who he really is—God’s Promised One!

Series Information

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