Spring Up O Well!

This is an encounter that changes absolutely everything. It’s a familiar story, which is one of the challenges whenever we read Scripture. We tend to read back into the text biases and or details that are not recorded there. We’re going to talk about some of those as we work through this passage.

We start with something we do know. The Samaritans were not “liked” by the Jews nor visa versa. This stems from a long history of both politiical and religious differences. Long story short there were great tensions between the two groups. The Jews held that the Temple in Jerusalem was the place for worship whereas the Samaritans held it was at Mt. Gerizim. In approx. 6AD the Samaritans desecrated the temple in Jerusalem by spreading human bones within the temple porches and sanctuary during Passover.

The Samaritans held strongly to the Torah - the first five books of the Bible - to be inspired and based their dogma and practice esclusively on these books. Moses, then, becomes in Samaritan thought the most exalted prophet so a Messiah from te house of David could not be anticipated as there’s no evidence for that in the first five books of the Bible.

So one of the first things we note in this chapter of John is Jesus is Boldly Breaking Boundaries.

Breaking Boundaries

Jesus attitude towards the Samaritans differs radically from that of his Jewish contemporaries, including the disciples. At one point in Luke’s gospel two disciples ask Jesus, “Do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Jesus rebukes them. (Lk 9:55). Later Luke would record Jesus healing 10 lepers, and only one of them - a Samaritan - returns and gives glory to God. And perhaps the best known is Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan told in Luke 10:30-37 in which Jesus breaks with tradition and tells the story portraying the despised Samaritan as the hero not the Jewish priest nor the Levite.

Now, here comes Jesus, passing through Samaria and stopping at a well. His disciples go into town to get food, and a woman comes up to draw water and Jesus strikes up a conversation.

Clearly he is breaking the boundary between Jews and Samaritans, but more than that he is also breaking the boundary between men and women in public. Rabbis of the time did everything they could to resist even the hint of impropriety.

Thus, you did not approach a woman other than your wife as you could be accused of adultery, the penalty for which was stoning. Jesus begins a conversation, “give me a drink”. The woman points out both crossing of boundaries. Jn 4:9

John 4:9 ESV

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

And Jesus begins to teach her, about a Refrshing Gift:

The Refreshing Gift

In the next part of our passage, vss.10-15 Jesus begins to teach the woman moving from the physical to the spiritual, and needs that we all have. Deep down we all are in search of eternity, it’s why we fight against our own aging which forces us to consider our mortality. Here these words of Jesus: Jn 4:13-14

John 4:13–14 ESV

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

What would your response be? Likely it would be exactly hers: Jn 4:15

John 4:15 ESV

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

It’s what we all want. Yet clearly she doesn’t quite understand yet. We’re all on this journey.

Empathetic Revelation

As we enter this next section, be careful how you read it. Let’s read it first: Jn 4:16-18

John 4:16–18 ESV

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Jesus revelas here that he knows her far better than she can imagine. One can imagine how vulnerable she felt in that moment.

Before we go any further, I want us to be clear what Jesus does not say about her. Many have assumed that the woman was someone who was less than moral - having had so many husbands. Some have presented her even as an a chronic adulteress yet the Scripture says nothing like that. Jesus does not say anything like that. We do not know why she’d had 5 husbands:

Had her husbands died? Had they given her certificates of divorce? Did they throw her out?

The truth is we don’t know, so we have to be careful in making assumptions.

Regardless of the why she’d had five husbands or that the one she now was with was not her husband, Jesus does not show condemnation, but affirmation that she’s told the truth. Still, the woman is no doubt feeling vulnerable, and changes the topic to theology that is at the core of the Jewish/Samaritan divide.

John 4:19–20 ESV

The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

nShe goes on to say, Jn 4:25

John 4:25 ESV

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”

You are a prophet? Remember they were expecting the Messiah to be a prophet like Moses, not a Davidic king. And jesus tells her uses the phrase that God called himself, “I AM”. He qualifies it saying, “I who speak to you AM”.

Then the disciples show back up and the woman leaves to go tell others about her conversation.

The Eternal Harvest

As she is going off to tell others Jesus talks to the disciples about evangelism. They’re trying to get him to eat, and he’s talking about his food being doing the work of the One who sent him. He then speaks of evangelism as the harvest.

John 4:36 ESV

Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.

Notice that as this conversation is happening with the disciples all the while the woman is out telling her town to come and see this man. Talk about breaking boundaries!

In this patriarchal society it’s a woman that is bringing people to Jesus. (Remember it was also women who announced the resurrected Jesus).

In a culture where Samaritans are looked down upon, it is a Samaritan that is the first missionary bringing people to Jesus.

Spreading the Saving Story

It’s interesting to note that it is because of the woman’s testimony that people begin to believe. Notice the barriers that John shows Jesus overcoming.

In Chapter 3 we saw a Pharisee, one of the ruling council come to Jesus. Here we have Jesus breaking the barrier between Jews and Samaritans and male and female. and the story spreads.

Clearly this is central to John’s Gospel sharing the story of Jesus. Jesus is greater than the boundaries that we might erect. Ethnic, Religious, Gender…and there’s encouragement to go beyond them all.

The boundaries continue to get smashed in the next 9 verses from vs. 46-54. An official approaches Jesus to heal his son. Jesus comments, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official continues to press him. and Jesus simply says, “God, your son will live.”

As the official is returning home, he meets a servant and finds out that the fever has left his son at the same time that Jesus had sent him on his way.

So what do we take from all this.

1. Jesus is for all

You don’t have to have the right theology, the right gender, the right ethnicity for Jesus to offer you the living water that springs up into eternal life.

2. You’re called to share

We often don’t think of ourselves as equipped to share about Jesus. We’re too this, or too that, or not enough this, or not enough that. Within the 4th chapter of the Gospel of John we find the most unexpected evangelist and missionary. IN fact the woman becomes the first missionary recorded in the Gospel of John.

Jesus Himself says that his food is to do the will of the One who sent him. We know that as God sent Jesus, so Jesus sends us to the harvest.

3. Jesus is God

One of the things that we know of Jesus is that he limited himself by becoming human. Thus far we’ve heard testimony of the Spirit coming to rest and remain on Him, we’ve seen Him have power like Moses turning the water to blood, except he turns the water to wine.

Jesus turning the water to wine was the first sign.

The second sign revealing Jesus is the healing of the officials son.

Finally: Do you live as you say you believe?

All of us are faced with the question, who do we say Jesus is. If we believe Jesus is who He says he is, we have to consider how that impacts every other thing we do in our lives.

It takes reflection. It takes commitment.

We are called like the Samaritan woman to share what Jesus has done in our lives. Find someone to share with - family, friend, stranger, The harvest is ripe.