Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this meditation is written in the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to St John: Verses 5 – 42:
So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.1
So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.1
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 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.) 10 Jesus answered her, “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 would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 15 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.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 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.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.”
39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.”
There is an advantage to reading the Bible in large sections. You notice the continuity in the narrative and the overall structure and purpose of the Word of God becomes evident. This can lead to some wonderful revelations concerning God’s love for us. I can still remember the first time I read John 3 and 4 in one sitting. Here are two chapters that show us that God’s salvation is truly for all people.
We heard the beginning of John 3 in last week’s Gospel. This is the account of an honourable Pharisee named Nicodemus coming to Jesus with some honest questions. This morning, we heard the beginning of John 4. This is the account of the Samaritan woman at the well.
Pharisees were the leading members of society. Jesus meeting with Nicodemus would be the equivalent of meeting with a Federal Parliamentary Minister. In today’s Gospel we learn that the woman at the well had a sinful reputation and she was a Samaritan. In the culture of that time and place, she was at the bottom of society and Nicodemus was at the top. It would be hard to find two more different people. Regardless of this, both of these people were sinners and both of these people needed Jesus and His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.
The beginning of today’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was in Samaria. This is very unusual. Most Jews traveling back and forth between Galilee and Judea would actually walk to the Jordan and cross it before heading north or south. You see, Samaria was between Galilee in the North and Judea in the South. Jews would rather make the effort to cross the Jordan twice so they could walk around Samaria instead of walking through Samaria. The Jews despised the Samaritans so much that they didn’t even want to travel through the country of Samaria.
The second problem was that the Samaritan was a woman. There were some cultures around the Mediterranean basin that pretty much treated women as equals, but the Jewish and Samaritan cultures were not among them. There were strict rules about the interaction between men and women. Basically, a woman was not supposed to interact with an adult male without the protection of a male relative … a father, husband, adult son, big brother, or similar relative. A solitary woman at the town well was a scandal waiting to happen.
Thirdly, this woman had a history. She had been through multiple marriages and was currently living with her boyfriend. She was guilty of adultery.
So, if we total everything up, Jesus had three very excellent reasons not to talk with this woman. No one would blame Him. Everyone would understand. As far as the culture was concerned, this woman was a scraping from the bottom of the barrel. Note that it was the culture that placed Nicodemus at the top of the heap and the Samaritan woman at the bottom of the barrel. God’s judgment has a different standard … His holy, righteous law.
According to that law, we are all the same. Jesus said, [Matthew 15:19] “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” The Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write, [Romans 3:23] “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Moses recorded the Lord’s thoughts after Noah’s Flood, [Genesis 8:21] “The intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” These verses and many others teach us that God’s law judges us all and finds that, according to God’s law, we are all scrapings from the bottom of the barrel.
In our worship services, we confess our sins to Almighty God. In different variations we confess: Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against You in thought, word and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves. We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment. We tell God that we are the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel because our sin corrupts us. We tell God that we deserve the scrap heap of eternal punishment.
The fact that Jesus shared the Gospel with this woman teaches us that Jesus came to save the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel. Jesus transcended the cultural barriers between Him and the woman in a very simple way. He asked for a drink of water. Then He talked about the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian by comparing it to living water … a bubbling spring that continually brings healthy water to the surface. Last week, Jesus had told Nicodemus that He must be born of water and the Spirit. Now this week, He is the source of living water – water that will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.The woman was intrigued and that is when Jesus began to work on her with the law.
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” This was a reasonable request. As I said before, men did not normally interact with women outside of their family. Instead, a man normally went through another man who was closely related to the woman – a husband, father, adult son, or some other close relative. In this case, however, this ordinary request began a process that would cause the woman to confront her guilt. She had no husband.
Then Jesus laid her sins out before her. He 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 laid out this woman’s lifestyle of adultery – a sin that was punishable by death. Even though today’s culture would celebrate this woman’s life style choices, adultery still is a sin – a sin that earns eternal punishment under God’s Law.
It may seem that God is cruel when He forces us to face our sin, but that is not the case. This is actually part of the love that God has for us. As the Holy Spirit shows our sin to us, He shows us that we cannot save ourselves. He shows us that we must receive our salvation from outside of ourselves. He shows us our need for a saviour. This reality check with the law prepares us for the living water of the Gospel.
You see, once the Law has softened our hearts, the Holy Spirit uses the living water of the Gospel to show our Saviour to us. Notice how Jesus brought the Gospel to the woman. The woman said to [Jesus], “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” The same Jesus who presented this woman with her sin now shows her the salvation from that sin. Jesus is the Gospel in the flesh. He is the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. He is the saviour from all our sins.
The Holy Spirit used these words to work faith in this woman. It was just as Jesus had said. She became a spring of living water. The living water of the Gospel quickly became a fountain in this woman. The woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” The living water produced an instant missionary.
Think about the woman’s message. A man who tells her about all she did is telling her about all her sin. In response, she went to all the people who know her and her reputation and told them, “Come, see a man who told me about my reputation as a sinful woman.” She confessed her sin to the people and invited them to see the man who knew all about those sins … and the Holy Spirit used her confession. He worked the miracle of faith in this town. This miracle caused a Samaritan town to invite a Jewish rabbito teach them for two days.
Eventually, the people of this town confessed, “We know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.” These people only had the books of Moses, but that was enough. They knew that this was the Seed of the Woman that God had promised to Adam and Eve in the Garden. They knew that this was the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed. They knew this was the fulfilment of all the sacrifices required by the Law of Moses. They knew that this was God’s sacrifice who would give up His life for the sins of the world. Because Jesus lovingly hammered a Samaritan woman with the law, a Samaritan village came to the knowledge of God’s salvation through the teaching of a Jewish rabbi – a Jewish rabbi who is their saviour.
The Bible’s main message is that God saves the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel. In order to do this, the Son of God took on human flesh, lived a perfect life under the law, and died on the cross. He did this to save sinners … the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel. Only sinners qualify for this salvation. That is the reason that it is an act of love for us to remind each other that we all qualify for that salvation, for we are all sinners.
When flight attendants give instructions for emergencies at the beginning of a flight, they tell the passengers to place the oxygen mask on themselves first and then on the people around them. In a similar way, when Jesus tells the church to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His name, we need to proclaim it to ourselves first. We need to begin with our own evil self and the forgiveness that Jesus has for us. Only then can we proclaim that message to others. It is only when the church proclaims that message to herself first that she can go on to proclaim it to the world.
Our message to the world is not that Christians are better than anyone else, but that Christians are in the process of becoming honest about our sin. It is only as we see our true depravity in the law that we begin to see the love that God has for us in that [Romans 5:8] God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Through that death we receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, for where there is forgiveness of sins there is also life and salvation. Amen
The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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