Thirsty No More

Big Idea

Tension: How does Jesus treat the woman at the well?

Resolution: while he doesn’t ignore her sin, he does offer her eternal life in himself.

Exegetical Idea: While Jesus doesn’t ignore her sin, he does offer her eternal life in himself.

Theological Idea: Jesus reveals our sin so he can give us eternal life in himself.

Homiletical Idea: Jesus deals with sin so as to give me true life in him.

Outline

Introduction: How should Jesus deal with sinners?

Should we just pretend that sin doesn’t exist?

Should we cancel sinners?

The Story

(The Request)

Exposition: Jesus is going through Samaria (vs. 1-6)

Inciting Incident: Jesus asks for a drink (vs. 7)

Now, it’s worth noting, from teh start there’s something off. Because this woman comes in the middle of the day to draw water, alone. In the ancient world, drawing water was a social event for women, and it typically happened in the beginning of the day or end of the day, when the heat was not quite as oppressive. So the fact she comes to draw water in this way immediately points us to the fact that she’s a bit of a loner, she’s isolated from other women in the village, and it’s reasonable to guess this is because of some details in her life we’ll learn about shortly.

But Jesus doesn’t start with that, he starts with a request which dignifies her and elevates her. He asks her for a drink.

(The Resistance)

Scene 1: Jesus says, “I have more to offer you than you do me” (7-15)

The woman responds with a little almost disdain, “how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”

Jesus responds with what I think is one of hte most stunning sentences in the whole gospel of John: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he woudl have given you living water.” Now, what’s stunning about this is Jesus is saying, I am a fountain, a spring that gives living water. And it’s stunning when we see some of these passages:

Jeremiah 2:13 (ESV)

for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Isaiah 12:3 (ESV)

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

Isaiah 44:3 (ESV)

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.

Isaiah 55:1 (ESV)

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Revelation 7:17 (ESV)

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation 21:6 (ESV)

And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

Revelation 22:17 (ESV)

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

Jesus is in essence saying, ultimate life, ultimate peace, rest from all your troubles, satisfaction, joy, all of this is from God alone and in God alone. And because I’m God, in me you can have all these things. I will give you my Spirit, so you can have life bubbling up in you. You will never thirst again.

This woman, though she is a bit indignant at first, asking if Jesus is really that good in vs. 11-12, asks where she can have it (15)

And it’s kind of a question exactly how much she understands at this point. And I’m not exactly sure. But here’s what I do know, she didn’t want to feel her shame anymore. She didn’t want to have to keep coming back to this well and be reminded of her loneliness, her isolation, her shame. She wanted to be free of that. She knows she doesn’t want to be thirsty, even if she doesn’t know exactly what that means.

Scene 2: Jesus brings the sin of the woman out into the open (16-18)

So Jesus says the one thing which she’s probably not expecting. And rather than helping her to avoid her shame, he rips it right open.

he says, “why don’t you go get your husband.” And she says, “Oh I don’t have one.” And Jesus says, “Oh I know. In fact, you’ve had five husbands. And the man you’re living with now, he’s not your husband.”

Why would Jesus do this? Why would Jesus bring up her shame? Because what keeps us from finding our satisfaction in Christ is our own sin. Jeremiah says that we have not only forsaken the fountain of living water, we’ve hewed out for ourselves broken cisterns. So, if we’re going to return to the fountain of living water, that means we’re going to have to forsake our leaky, broken, faulty, fractured and fissured cisterns.

Is it really fair to do this? After all, the woman herself is probably a product of sin done against her! I’ve been a pastor long enough to know that women don’t just end up in situations like this. Typically there are some deep pains and hurts that lead to this life. And yet, to say she bore no responsibility just doesn’t match with what she herself would say later in vs. 29 and 39 when she says, “the man who told me all that I ever did.” The woman seems to believe that she has personal responsibility for her own sin.

But let me say this, Jesus is so gentle towards her. Jesus unpacks this in a careful, cautious, tender and loving way. It would have been easy for Jesus to shame her even more, but he draws it out from her. And once he’s made his point, he gives her time to think about it, he doesn’t force the point, but he lets it percolate and simmer in the back of her mind.

Scene 3: Jesus turns her religious intellectual objections back to the matter at hand: she too can worship in spirit and truth. (19-24)

So the woman, after just having had her life put on a screen in front of her life, turns and says, “Well, let me ask you a religious question.”

And this is a question about where the place of worship was, and there’s some historical reasons for that, namely that the Samaritan religion formed as a kind of rival religion to Judaism with headquarters on Mt. Gerizim. So there was always a debate between the Jews and Samaritans where they should worship.

But notice how Jesus hear turns the conversation back to the matter at hand. By saying God is spirit, and that those who worship him must worship in sspirit in truth, what Jesus is saying is that it realy doesn’t matter where people worship, because the time of the New Covenant is here, when the Spirit will be given like water, and anybody, even you, can worship him as a member of the New Covenant.

(The Reveal)

Scene 4: Only Jesus as the Messiah can do such things (25-26) [Climax]

Now the woman is truly flabergasted, and she says, “Well, i know that the Messiah is going to tell us all thigns.” Now here it’s important to say that the name, “Messiah” means “anointed one.” And as we’ve already seen from texts like Is 12:3, the anointing he receives is the Holy Spirit. And if he has the Siprit, he can “tell” us all things. He’ll teach us, he’ll give us the Spirit.

And Jesus says, Yeah, that’s me. I am the Messiah. I am the anointed one. I am the one who will bring these things about.

This is because of what Jesus has already told us in the Gospel. THat he would bear the curse, he would be crucified, he woudl be lifted up on teh cross, and in him God would condemn all sin.

Scene 5: The woman seems to have been converted: she understands her sin, she understands Christ, she witnesses to the world (27-30)

We see that this woman seems to bear fruit. She has some understandign of her own sin, she semes to understand who Christ is, and most importantly, she bears witness to other people.

Application:

Jesus gives living water because Jesus is living water.

Blaise Pascal the great mathmetician who helped invent the modern calculator, geometery, and algebra, said this, about God: “The God of the Christians is a God who makes the soul feel that He is her only good, that her only rest is in Him, that her only delight is in loving Him...” (Pensees 543)

In this, he’s just following Augustine whose conversion went something like this....

Jesus meets us in our shame.

Jesus does not dance around her brokenness. In fact, he engages it. He meets her in her loneliness, he meets her when she is trying to hide because of her shame, and he still offers himself to her.

The very parts of her life which bring her hte most shame, he engages.

I say this all the time, nobody gets to heaven without a limp. But that means that if you have a limp, the gates aren’t close to you.

When Jesus saves us, he necessarily reveals our sin.

It is our sin which keeps us from finding satisfaction in Christ. It is the fact that we’re digging in broken cisterns that make us unable to be satisfied in him. So if God loves us, he will rip off our fig leaves, he will reveal our sins, he will rebuke our foolishness.

Richard Sibbes, the great Puritan writer said this, “For the concluding of this point, and our encouragement to a thorough work of bruising, and patience under God’s bruising of us, let all know that none are fitter for comfort than those that think themselves furthest off. Men for the most part, are not lost enough in their own feeling for a Saviour. A holy despair in ourselves is the ground of true hope. In God the fatherless find mercy (Hos 14:3); if men were more fatherless, they should feel more God’s fatherly affection from heaven, for the God who dwells in the highest heavens dwells likewise in the lowest soul (Isa. 57:15).” (page 14-15)

Note also 1 John 1:7-9:

1 John 1:7–9 (ESV)

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

You will notice in this passage, that Jesus does not modify traditional morality. In fact, while he is careful and pastoral and gentle, he is also firm that she is adopting a sexuality which is at odds with Scripture’s teacings, and he is pretty strongly implying she’s lived a duplicitous lifestyle.

And if you are a Christian, this never stops.

We should not use past sufferings as an excuse for present sin.

There is no doubt in my mind that this woman had a thousand terrible things happen to her. People don’t just end up like this. You can imagine all the broken dreams, the hurt and the difficulty that led to this moment. And by the way, Jesus doesn’t blame her for any of it.

What Jesus reveals are her own decisions, her own mistakes, her own regrets, her own sin.

Listen, there are things that happened to me as a kid that should not have happened. There were things that weren’t fair, ways I was treated, that I should not have had to endure. And I don’t feel guilty because of them. But what I have had to work through is the bitterness, the unforgiveness, the self-righteousness, the hypocrisy, the ways I’ve tried to use other people that all came out of that.

Listen, maybe there were some things that you’ve had to endure that were horrific. And I’m sorry for that, and I think Christ can heal that. I would also say, examine the ways you’ve acted as a response to that, and when you’ve done wrong-and I don’t know anyone coming out of deep suffering who hasn’t-take responsibility for it. Own it. Apologize it. Confess it.

So come thirsty. Are you weary, are you tired, are you convicted of your own sin? Are you exhuasted bearing your own shame? Come thirsty. Come take the water which will never run out, the elixer which will never fade. Believe in him, put your faith in him, receive him. Take him as yours.

Isaiah 55:1 (ESV)

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

True faith bears fruit.

If you would receive living water, it means you will have to set aside your broken cistern.

If you want to find true life, if you want to find hope, if you want satisfaction, if you want to have living water, that means you’re giong to have to set aside your own broken cistern.

The water really is that good.