John 4:1-30 (Part 1)

Our text for today is John chapter 4, verses 1 through 30.

John 4:1–30

While you're getting there, I just want to extend some appreciation to everyone who showed up over the last two days on Friday and Saturday to help with the project downstairs.

If you are unaware, about two-thirds of our building flooded downstairs and had to be remediated, flooring out, sheetrock cut, and we're putting it back together.

And not only am I thankful for all the help that showed up just because the project needs to get done, but it's a real clear expression that the church understands that it's not my project.

This building belongs to you all as much as it belongs to me, and I'm very glad for that.

So you didn't just show up and help me with my project, but we came together and rallied.

And especially thankful for Jake, who pulled together materials for us, and Tyler, who spearheaded and led the charge over the last two days.

And the long haulers.

And if you don't know if you're a long hauler, you're not a long hauler.

But I'm grateful for everybody who showed up, even those of you who could come for an hour or two and pitch in.

It was really, really helpful.

Very encouraging.

We'll keep at it.

It's not done quite yet.

So, John chapter 4, verses 1 through 30.

John 4:1–30

Let me pray before we read it.

Father God, help us as we study your word together this morning.

We humbly recognize that it was written for your glory and for our good.

We should.

We need your help to believe its promises and obey its commands and have affection for you, its author.

So help us, we pray, to this end.

Amen.

Amen.

Verse 1, chapter 4 and following.

Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John,

although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples,

he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.

And he had to pass through Samaria.

So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

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.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water.

Jesus said to her,

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 had no dealings with Samaritans.

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.

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?

Are you greater than our father Jacob?

He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.

Jesus said to her,

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.

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.

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.

The woman said to him,

Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Our fathers worshipped on this mountain,

but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

Jesus said to her,

Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

You worship what you do not know.

We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

For the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

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.

Jesus said to her,

I who speak to you am he.

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?

So 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?

They went out of the town and were coming to him.

Okay, now, you may have noted in your bulletin that it says,

John chapter 4, verses 1 through 30, part 1.

John 4:1–30

If all goes to plan, you know, often I have a plan to do the entire text,

and then we end up splitting it into parts.

I am planning on doing it in two parts,

so this Sunday and the next Sunday,

because there's just so much richness to be pulled out of these verses.

And to aid us across this week and next in our study of these 30 verses,

I'm going to do something unique for my preaching,

perhaps for all preaching, I don't know.

We're going to consider the text with two outlines,

not just one, but two.

And my hope is that this will help us grasp the structure

and, therefore, the meaning of the text.

So our first outline for today,

Jesus is presented in four ways.

Number one, he is Jesus the living water.

I'll explain more, verses 4 through 15.

He is Jesus the prophet, number two, verses 16 through 19.

We'll try to cover those two today.

Thirdly, he is Jesus' savior of the world.

And fourthly, he is Jesus, Messiah.

So we're going to try our best to get to those two points of the four today.

And we're also going to use a second outline,

which will kind of be the more prominent outline.

First, if you're taking notes, this is probably the place you want to start.

First, the greatness of our sin.

And secondly, the surpassing greatness of Jesus' mercy.

The first of these outlines presents itself fairly obviously to me

as I sought to ascertain some direction for our study.

You may not have ever taught the Bible, but this is a thing we do.

We sit down, we read the text, we reread the text.

We're looking for some structure found within the text itself.

Some texts it's easier, some texts it's a little more difficult to ascertain

how you should structure what the structure of the text is,

therefore what the structure of the sermon ought to be.

But as we read through that, and I gave you those first four points,

I imagine that it was fairly simple for you to see the point there.

It's sequential, Jesus the living water, Jesus the prophet, Jesus the savior of the world,

Jesus the messiah follows through the text in that way.

And of course, we do well to see what any text intends to inform us about our Lord.

We want to pay very careful attention to it.

What is it saying about Jesus in the case of the gospel of John?

So, why the second outline?

If that's easy to ascertain, why the second outline?

And I want to tell you, I want to give you a little bit of explanation.

So as I'm looking at this passage, I'm beginning to notice some patterns

that I want to show you that were emerging to me.

I'm going, I really think there's an interesting pattern going on in this text.

And so we need to talk a bit about the literary structure of chapter four.

Before doing it, though, I want to take two quick comments about preaching.

Some of you are guests this morning.

Some of you are pretty settled in here.

But number one, I'm just always baffled, just absolutely astounded

by the preacher who is constantly searching for relevant stories to help make Bible points.

I don't spend any time in the week watching TV or sports

and looking for an analogy that I can bring to the pulpit on Sunday morning.

Why?

The Bible itself is replete with Spirit-inspired stories.

We have one before us today.

I just want to say, not all preaching that has stories in it is bad,

analogies in it is bad.

But be wary of preaching that's always looking elsewhere to try to drive a lesson home.

It's right here.

It's right here in the text itself if we would be careful and really consider it.

Secondly, good preaching keeps your nose in the text.

What do I mean by that, right?

Good preaching is many things,

but a really good place to begin preparing a faithful sermon

is to consider how to have your hearers swim around in the text.

So when I say keep your nose in the text,

not that I really want any of you to do this, but this.

You're doing this.

You don't have to look at me.

I'm not very much to look at up here.

I wave my hands around frantically sometimes,

but you're better off in the text.

And I do a good job when I'm drawing you to it again and again and again.

We don't want to just read it and then move on in our preaching.

We want to contemplate it deeply so that the text might read us.

And beloved, this text, I mean, it is just rich.

The scripture is so incredible.

The times I've read this passage and not really understood the layers of its meaning,

and I will tell you humbly,

probably someday I will come back through the book of John

and there will be something else in there,

something I missed that will make it all the much more rich.

This past Monday at our elder meeting,

we had a discussion about literary structure

and how it aids in our preparation and delivery of faithful sermons.

We talk about things like that at elder meetings sometimes.

And we had some extended conversation about how much of that is helpful to listeners.

Like, how much time should we spend explaining things like literary structure?

But we also don't want to neglect it,

particularly when it's really important to the meaning of the text.

We want you, in hearing the way we preach,

to be able to go home and confidently study the Bible.

You can do everything I'm about to do this morning.

It's very possible for you to do it

if you could just take up and learn how it is that you're supposed to do it.

So, at the risk, I recognize,

at the risk of spending too much time on the structure before us this morning,

but with the hope of keeping your nose in the text

and with the aim of answering the second outline question,

why a second outline,

I want to talk to you about chiasmus.

I've used the term before.

I think it blows off the top of your head.

We're doing it again.

Chiastic structure.

And this word comes from the Greek letter,

the X in Greek, which is the chi.

So that's chiasmus is the plural of it.

Chiastic structure.

And these structures are found everywhere

in Hebrew, in Greek literature,

including the Bible.

So what that means is,

the starting point of the text

can kind of be folded over

to the ending point of the text,

and they reflect one another.

So the two things, you could fold.

So think of the X,

like you're following the pattern,

or if you want to follow it,

down to the point and then back out.

The two things fold over the top of the structure.

All over the place in the Bible.

Not forced into it.

And I'm going to show you this morning

that this text has a chiastic structure.

In fact, the entire book of John

has a chiastic structure,

and I can't wait to get to the center point of the text.

I'm so excited to get there,

but I'm going to wait for it right now.

Did you know that the entire Pentateuch,

the first five books of the Bible,

have a chiastic structure?

Brilliant.

Brilliantly written.

And meant to bring us to a place

to help us interpret the rest of it.

Why?

Why does this type of structure exist?

Well, it's a very useful device

for the memorization

and the transmission of thought.

It's really helpful for that.

And that structure can help lead us,

again, to some interpretive help

as we're looking at text.

Now, I learned this week,

if any of you listen to the Room for Nuance podcast,

which I commend to you a lot,

this was talked about this week

from the book of John.

I learned this week that Jewish children

were taught their alphabet this way.

I don't know the Jewish alphabet,

so I'm going to tell you in our alphabet.

First, right, sequentially in order

from beginning to end, right?

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and so on.

Then, they learned it backwards.

So, in our alphabet,

Z, Y, X, W, V, E, U, T,

and yes, I typed the whole thing out backwards.

Because I couldn't do it otherwise.

Because we don't learn the alphabet that way, do we?

In fact, if you're anything like me,

you've got to sing the song every time.

You try to...

Then, then they would learn it

in a chiastic structure.

A, Z, B, Y, C, X, D, W.

What a way to know their alphabet

forward, backward, inside out.

I mean, you really know

where the letters belong in that sequence

if you memorize it in that way.

So, this is like in the water

of our biblical writers

and their initial audiences.

I think they would have seen them.

It should have been really apparent

what was going on.

We've got to recognize that they exist

and slow down a little.

So, that was what I was doing this week.

As I was looking, I'm going,

there's some things happening.

This is an interesting text.

Even odd.

What's going on here?

And then, praise God,

somebody smarter than me

actually built out the chiastic structure

and handed it to me in a book.

And I was able to take a look at it.

And I want to bring it to you.

Like I said already,

but regularly,

where the literary structure

meets in the middle,

the central point of the text

is being made

or a significant turning point happens

or a phrase that helps

the reading of the rest of the passage

is presented.

We're supposed to pay attention to it.

A little special attention

to what's going on

right at the center

of that text.

And so, we really do well

when we notice these patterns

emerging from the text.

So, I want to show you.

Now, the chiastic structure

begins in verse 4

and ends in verse 30.

The previous text

is also chiastic,

but the first three verses

belong to it.

So, I'm going to talk about

the first three verses

just briefly

and then I'm going to get

to the chiastic structure.

Again, I'm answering the question

why a second outline.

So, I'm just going to know.

There's structure here

that matters

for our study

of this text.

Okay, so first three verses.

Now, when Jesus learned

that the Pharisees had heard

that Jesus was making

and baptizing more disciples

than John.

He's rising in prominence.

His ministry is growing.

There's a concern

on Jesus' part

that the Pharisees

are going to take him

before his time.

We'll see this repeated

throughout the gospel accounts.

Jesus himself

did not baptize,

verse 2 says,

but only his disciples.

He left Judea,

the region

where Jerusalem is located,

and departed again

for Galilee.

He's going back to Galilee.

Okay?

So, that's where we pick up

the end of the other

classic structure

and the beginning

of this one.

Now,

nose in the text.

Are you ready?

I'm going to show it to you.

I just want you to see

how very cool it is.

I hope you think it's cool.

Okay.

First,

verses 4 through 6

correspond to verse 30.

Notice in verse 5,

he comes to a town,

he comes to a town

of Samaria.

And then what happens

in verse 30?

They go out of the town

and there,

in this language,

they're coming to him.

Okay?

So, see how that happens?

And inclusio,

he's going to the town,

eh,

there's some coming to,

coming out to him.

Okay?

So, I'm just showing you.

This is how you can kind of

see the pattern.

Go, eh,

there's some coming to

and some coming to

happening on both sides

of this.

Now,

watch again.

The first half of verse 7.

A woman from Samaria

came to draw water.

She would have brought

something with her

in order to do that.

A water jar.

Notice verse 28,

29.

So,

the woman

left her water jar

and went away.

Right?

So,

are you seeing

what's happening here?

So,

he's coming to,

then they come to,

and you step just inside of that.

She came to draw water

with a water jar.

What does she do?

Just before,

she leaves her water jar

and she goes back

to the town.

You see how it steps in?

I won't walk you through

the entirety of the text,

but I'm going to give you

another one.

Okay?

Jesus speaks

to the woman.

Okay?

We see this at the very

beginning of verse

7.

Oh,

the last half of verse 7.

Excuse me.

Jesus said to her,

give me

a drink.

And what we see

in verse 27,

the disciples come back.

What do they do?

They marvel

that he was talking

with

the woman.

Are you seeing it?

I'm not making this up.

Right?

It's there.

And we can track it

all the way down

to the central point.

For the sake of time,

I'm not going to walk you

through the entire thing.

If you'd like to see it,

I'll be happy

to share it with you.

But what I do

want to bring you to

is the central,

the hinging point.

Okay?

And it is found

in verse 17,

the very first half.

We show you

on either side.

Again,

this is reflecting

on either side.

Jesus says to her,

go call your husband.

Other side,

he's speaking to her again.

Same phrase.

Jesus said to her,

you are right in saying,

I have no husband.

Last half of verse 17.

The beginning of verse 17.

The woman answered him,

I have no husband.

Isn't that fascinating?

If you understand

that these structures exist

and you can see the pattern,

and again,

it's a whole pattern.

It's built out here.

See the chiasm?

There's a whole thing.

The central point of it

is the woman said to him,

answered him,

I have no husband.

Fascinating, right?

The structure of the text itself

is communicating,

this is a turning point.

There's something going on here.

We should pay attention.

So this text fully intends for us

to behold Christ.

But this is not a text

that's teaching us

how to emulate Christ.

This is not a text saying to us,

look like Jesus in this way.

We could pull some things

by implication,

but that's not the point

of the text.

This text seeks to expose us,

to lay us bare.

This is what's going on,

right in the central point

of this text.

Jesus says to her,

go get your husband,

come back here,

and she says,

I have no husband.

He knows this already

when he asks her,

because how does he respond?

Yeah, you don't have a husband.

You've had five.

Five failed marriages,

and now the man

that you're living with

is not your husband.

Which is why the first point

of that second outline

is the greatness of our sin.

We're supposed to notice

this happening in this text.

The greatness of our sin.

This little point,

we have to start with it,

verses 16 through 19,

and this is where we see,

she makes the declaration

that Jesus is the prophet.

That second point

in the first outline

that I mentioned to you.

Jesus said to her in verse 16,

go call your husband

and come here.

Jesus has just said

some astounding things.

We read them earlier,

and we'll address them

in a moment.

Some astounding things

about living water.

Water that you will have,

and it will never go away.

Water that wells up in you

for eternal life.

I mean,

these words are worth

contemplating.

Roll these things over.

What is going on here?

And she is just

absolutely clueless.

I mean,

she thinks he's speaking

literally

as he's saying this.

And we can see in verse 15,

she says to him,

Sir, give me this water

so that I will not be thirsty

or have to come here

to draw water.

How great.

It tidies up my day

is what it seems to be doing

there on the surface.

And what does Jesus do?

That's what's so odd

about this text.

What does he do

when she says this?

He doesn't go,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Let me explain further

what I mean by this.

He just drops the analogy.

He stops talking

about it altogether.

He doesn't even revisit it

later in the text.

Like we move on later

to talk about worship

and where worship happens

and how worship happens

and who worship is

to be aimed at.

He just leaves it behind

altogether.

She doesn't get it.

And he just

seems to just

move on.

This response

seems so

very

strange.

but if we

understand the structure,

if we see the structure

and we see what's going on

and we can add

another little detail

into the mix,

it helps us comprehend

what is happening here.

Right?

So,

we come to the text.

Again,

our elders,

this past week,

we had a conversation

about textual structure

and I didn't get

to this point.

It was not where my head was

by the time we ended

our time together.

But we were all

kind of thinking

through outlines

and I was scratching my head.

I said,

I got some work to do

on this text.

Right?

It is odd.

And then I start

to notice patterns.

And then we pick up

a detail

in the last part

of verse 6.

When does Jesus arrive

at this well?

It was about

the sixth hour.

So,

about noon.

First hour was 6 a.m.

It's about

noon.

This is not

when people

went and gathered

water in the desert.

This is the hottest

time of the day.

They would go out

early in the morning

or they would go out

late in the evening

as the sun

was setting.

Preparing for the day,

putting it away

in the evening,

getting ready for

the next day.

This woman,

by herself,

as far as we can tell,

this woman

is out there

in the middle

of the day

gathering water.

It's extremely

significant.

The woman answers

Jesus.

She says,

I have

no

husband.

Jesus says to her,

you are right

in saying

I have no husband

for you have had

five husbands

and the one you have

is not your husband.

what you have said

is true.

Five failed marriages.

This number,

I mean,

this is a true story.

This number

is an astounding number.

Less so in our day,

but still in our day.

And she's now

in a cohabitation

situation.

This woman

has either

first looked

for satisfaction

in men

and they have

failed to satisfy

her.

Or she has been

the desired

satisfaction

of these men

and she has

failed to satisfy

them.

Or,

and likely,

as we know,

the nature of human

relationships,

both things

are true.

She

is

dry.

She has

looked for life

and she

has failed

to find it.

She is

out there

in the middle

of the day.

This is some

sanctified imagination,

I know,

but cultural

details help us

to understand

she is avoiding

the scorn

of others

and she is

collecting water

by herself

in the midday heat.

She comes

to that well

in the middle

of the day

with great

shame.

It's why

she's there

and it's

why Jesus

encounters her

in this

very

moment.

She doesn't

get what he's

talking about,

about living

water.

Why does she

not want to

come back

to the well?

She could

avoid it

altogether,

right?

I don't have

to be around

the shame,

I don't have

to come out

in the midday

heat instead

of gathering

early in the

morning or

late in the

evening,

I could avoid

it all

together.

And Jesus

turns to

expose her.

You've been

looking for it

in the wrong

place,

is what he's

saying to her.

The relief

of your shame

isn't found

in a midday

gathering

of water,

it's found

in me,

the source

of living

water.

Earlier this

morning in our

liturgy,

Jake read

from Jeremiah

Jeremiah 17:5–13

chapter 17

verses 5

through 13,

I want to

reread some

of that

for you.

This is

verses 5

and 6.

Thus

says the

Lord,

cursed is

the man

who trusts

in man

and makes

flesh

his strength,

whose heart

turns away

from the

Lord.

He is

like a

shrub

in the

desert

and shall

not see

any good

come.

He shall

dwell in

the parched

places

of the

wilderness

in an

uninhabited

salt

land,

dry,

dry land.

land.

Then down

to verse

9,

the heart

is deceitful

above all

things and

desperately

sick.

Who can

understand it?

And then

verse 13,

O Lord,

the hope

of Israel,

all who

forsake you

shall be

put to

shame.

Those who

turn away

from you

shall be

written in

the earth,

for they

have forsaken

the Lord,

the fountain

of living

water.

water.

That wasn't

an accident.

We planned

that,

him reading

that earlier

for our

benefit.

You may

not comprehend

just how

dry a

desert

is.

Water is

life in

these places,

right?

In a stark

way,

right?

It's life

for all

of us,

but it's

in a stark

way.

It is

precious.

It is

carefully

saved in

the desert.

desert.

We here

are like

fighting

against

water all

the time,

right?

We're

trying to

keep water

out of

stuff like

our

basements,

right?

It's the

enemy often

where we

live,

but not

at all

so,

right?

This idea

of a water

that satisfies,

that gives

life forever,

it's a really

vivid thing

that Jesus

is saying

to her

as she

confuses

it all

together.

Jesus'

response

to her

failure to

understand

what he

told her

about

living

water

makes

perfect

sense

when we

can understand

the cultural

and literary

context,

right?

Keep your

nose in

the text.

Keep your

nose in

the text.

It's a

rich,

rich

book.

Let it

read

you.

We are

no different

from this

woman.

I feel like

we're always

reading the

Bible.

There are

others all

the time.

Don't let

it be lost

on you.

You and

I have

searched

for satisfaction

for life

in so

many places

where it

cannot be

found.

We should

not read

this text

and go,

well,

I haven't

been married

five times

and now

I'm

cohabitating

with somebody

else.

This is

clearly a

story about

somebody who's

that bad

off.

Not at

all.

Every single

one of us

has tried to

find satisfaction

in something

that will

not provide

satisfaction.

It will

not.

It cannot.

And we

walk around

in this

world,

apart from

the forgiveness

of Christ,

with great

shame and

guilt.

Metaphorically,

for us,

we're looking

for all kinds

of ways to

avoid it.

And we

drown it in

things.

Even those

who have

been delivered

from the

power and

the guilt

of sin,

we drown

the way we

feel with

all sorts

of unsatisfactory

things.

We,

so often,

are midday

at a well.

What we need

is living

water.

to the point

to the

point,

draw our

attention to

this woman.

We might

see the

greatness of

our sin

as we

behold

her.

How does

she respond?

The woman

says to him,

Sir,

I perceive

that you

are a

prophet.

He knows

things that

he couldn't

possibly know

without her

having told

him.

And her

conclusion that

he is a

prophet is

absolutely

correct.

Jesus holds

that office.

It's certainly

not all that

he is,

but he

certainly is.

She's saying

a true

thing there.

She's taking

a step in

the right

direction.

We'll see

next week where

her thinking

leads her.

It doesn't

take off the

way you might

hope that it

would.

but we

do see

in verse

29,

she says,

come see

a man

who told

me all

that I

ever did.

Can

this be

the

Christ?

The

greatest

person

and

ours.

But

praise God

we get to

step out

beyond that.

We're not

left miserable

in the middle

of the text.

So we

also want

to note

the surpassing

greatness of

Jesus'

mercy.

The opening

song,

kind of the

song that's

kind of meant

to gather

your attention

and get

us together,

although that

seemed to

be slow

this morning.

So you

might have

missed the

first verse

of his

mercy is

more.

This is

what love

could

remember

no wrongs

we have

done.

Omniscient,

all-knowing.

He knows

all about

this woman's

sin.

Omniscient,

all-knowing,

he counts

not their

sum.

Thrown into

a sea without

bottom or

shore,

our sins,

they are

many.

His mercy

is more.

Praise the

Lord,

his mercy

is more.

Stronger than

darkness,

new every

morn.

Our sins,

they are

many.

His mercy

is more.

Surpassing

greatness

of Jesus'

mercy.

So let's

back up in

the text

and look

at what it

teaches us

about that.

Verse 4

says he

had to

pass through

Samaria.

Now,

Jesus has

left Judea

and he's

traveling back

to Galilee.

We see that

detail in the

text.

He did not

have to

travel through

Samaria

in a

geographical

sense.

It was

the fastest

way,

it was

the most

direct way

to complete

his journey,

but there

were two

routes that

circumnavigated

the region

and most

Jews went

out of their

way to

avoid

encountering

Samaritans.

They went

around the

long way

to not go

through the

region of

Samaria.

But John

says Jesus

had to

pass through

Samaria.

Why?

The verb

that John

uses here

translated

had to,

he also

uses to

speak of

Jesus

fulfilling

the mission

that the

Father had

given him.

He uses

that same

verb

repeatedly

throughout

his

gospel

account.

Jesus

had to

pass through

Samaria

because this

was a

mercy-filled

divine

appointment.

He was

compelled to

go there

by God

the Father

that he

would be

at this

well,

at this

time,

to speak

words of

life to

this woman.

What a

merciful God.

He was

meant to

encounter

her.

Now I

mentioned that

Jews went

out of their

way to

avoid

encountering

Samaritans.

Some

historical

context is

helpful here.

Samaria was

a region,

I mentioned

that already,

but the

people named

after the

region were

viewed with

disdain because

of their

mixed

ethnicity.

after the

fall of the

northern kingdom

of Israel

to the

Assyrians,

the ten

tribes of

Israel,

this is in

2 Kings

2 Kings 17 · chapter mention

chapter 17,

were exiled

from their

own land

to Assyria,

and the

king of

Assyria

brought people

from Babylon,

Kutha,

Ava,

Harnath,

and

Safarazim,

something like

that,

and placed them

in the cities

of Samaria

instead of the

sons of Israel,

and they

took possession

of Samaria

and they

lived in

its cities.

They

intermarried

and were

therefore

viewed as

unclean

by the

Jews.

Not only

that,

for some

time,

the Samaritan

people had

mixed together

pagan idolatry

with Judaism.

In Jesus'

day,

they had

departed from

the idolatry,

but they

had a

pretty odd

version of

Judaism.

They only

read and

studied

the

Pentateuch,

the first

five books

next week,

but the

Jewish people

just viewed

them as

unclean,

outside of

the grace

and mercy

of God.

So,

a further

mercy,

right?

He is sent

through this

region to

encounter

this woman,

a Samaritan.

Jesus does

not see

this Samaritan

woman,

or the

Samaritans

of her

village,

we'll see

later in

the chapter,

as being

outside of

the reach

of his

mercy.

So,

he prompts

a conversation

with her,

verse 7,

right?

He asks her

for water,

give me a

drink,

and we get

the parenthetical

insertion,

verse 8,

his disciples

had gone

away into

the city

to buy

food,

and she

responds

to him,

how is it

that you,

a Jew,

ask a

drink from

me,

a woman

of Samaria.

And then

John inserts

again,

for Jews

had no

dealings

with

Samaritans.

Further,

it was

breaking

a societal

norm

for a

rabbi

to speak

with a

woman.

At very

best,

it was

seen as

a waste

of time.

This is

why the

disciples

marveled

that he

was talking

with a

woman.

Further

mercy.

The

original

readers of

this would

have been

like,

why is

Jesus

spending

any

time

with

her?

Jesus

answers

her.

If you

knew the

gift of

God and

who it

is that

is saying

to you,

give me

a drink,

you would

have flipped

it around.

You would

have asked

him and

he would

have given

you living

water.

If you

have any

idea of

who I

am,

you would

get that

the point

is not the

water in

the well.

everyone,

verse 13,

who drinks

this water

will be

thirsty again,

but whoever

drinks of

the water

that I

will give

him will

never be

thirsty

again.

Fully

satisfied.

He does

not mean

that we

won't have

to drink

water.

He's not

talking about

our temporal

life.

He's talking

about our

eternal

satisfaction.

Never

be thirsty

again.

The water

I give

him will

become in

him a

spring

of water

welling

up

to

eternal

life.

Here

Jesus

presents

himself

as the

living

water.

Great,

great

mercy to

this woman.

He presents

himself as

the living

water.

But why

not the

giver of

living

water?

Again,

back to our

Jeremiah

Jeremiah 17:5–13

chapter 17,

verse 5

through 13,

reading from

before.

This time,

let me read

to you

verses 7

and 8.

Blessed

is the

man who

trusts in

the Lord,

whose trust

is the

Lord.

Trust in

the Lord,

whose trust

is the

Lord.

He is like

a tree

planted by

water that

sends out

its roots

by the

stream and

does not

fear when

heat comes,

for its

leaves remain

green and

is not

anxious in

the year of

drought,

for it

does not

cease to

bear fruit.

The picture

is a tree

planted by

a stream

that continues

and continues

and continues.

Even in a

year of

drought,

the water

continues to

flow.

Does that

sound familiar

at all?

Back to

verse 14.

The spring

of water

that wells

up to

eternal

life.

And again,

verse 13,

O Lord,

the hope of

Israel,

all who

forsake you

shall be

put to

shame.

Those who

turn away

from you

shall be

written in

the earth,

for they

have forsaken

the Lord,

the fountain

of living

water.

That's why I

think Jesus

is presenting

himself as

the living

water.

John's

Jewish readers,

this imagery

would have been

just firing

off in their

brains as

they're reading

this recorded

word of

Jesus'

teaching to

this woman.

God's

love of

So,

we get to

see in the

first part

of this

passage,

in our

first week

in it,

the greatness

of our

sin,

the surpassing

greatness

of Jesus'

mercy as

he presents

himself as

the living

water and

as the

prophet.

I hope

that our

time in

thinking about

this lays

us bare.

we recognize

our great

need of

a merciful

savior.

And close

with a

quotation from

Charles Spurgeon,

it's on the

back of your

bulletin.

He's once

said,

God's mercy

is so

great,

God's mercy

is so

great,

that you

may sooner

drain the

sea of

its water,

or deprive

the sun

of its

light,

or make

space

too

narrow,

than

diminish

the great

mercy

of our

God.

Let's pray

together.