John 4:1-26. Thirsting for Life?

In June 1945 the new battleship, USS Indianapolis, was travelling from Guam to the Philippines in the preparation for the invasion of Japan. There were no escort ships as it passed through enemy infested seas. Disaster struck. She was hit by two torpedoes and sank within twelve minutes. Surprisingly nine hundred, of the total crew of twelve hundred, escaped into life boats. However after four days of drifting on the hot seas only three hundred sailors were left alive. What had killed them? The ship’s doctor, Dr. Louis Haynes, wrote in his memoirs that the biggest problem wasn’t the Japanese, wasn’t the sharks, but was thirst.

“There was nothing I could do to keep the men from drinking saltwater. When the hot sun came out, in the midst of this crystal clear water, you couldn't believe it wasn't good enough to drink. I remember striking one of the men with an oar to try and get him to stop drinking. Young ones, in hope, will drink the saltwater and then they would become more dehydrated and then they would die.”

In the remarkable discussion that Jesus has with the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4, he invites her, and us all, to question the water we're drinking. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah referred to the same problem.

“My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Jeremiah 2:13

In Jeremiah’s day, people had forgotten the Lord who had saved them and had moved elsewhere. They had turned to other sources to try and find satisfaction. The containers that they had dug out for themselves were broken and could not satisfy. They had forgotten God.

We all have an insatiable thirst. We are surrounded by things that offer satisfaction in the short-term. Careers, power, family life, hobbies, sports, and even religious activities can satisfy us - in the short-term. These are like the crystal clear waters and can look so promising and refreshing. We imbibe them, and even worship them, but they still leave us thirsty.

David Foster Wallace, an award winning American post-war author and not a Christian, was giving a lecture to some graduates at Kenyon College. He said,

“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life there isn't such a thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping; we all worship, everyone worships. The only choice we get is what we worship. The compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God is that pretty much everything else you worship will eat you alive.”

So it is not whether we worship but what we worship, not whether we drink but what we drink. The question is, ‘Can what we worship deliver or will it leave you thirsty?’

Life can leave us thirsty

As Jesus began to teach in Jerusalem and around Judaea, the Pharisees became jealous and Jesus felt it right to move back to Galilee in the north again. The quickest route was through Samaria, although most people preferred to take the longer route bypassing Samaria and travelling up the Jordan Valley. John adds an interesting detail,

“Now he had to go through Samaria.” John 4:4

Why was this? It could be that he feared meeting opposition on the common route but it seems more likely that he felt he had to meet this woman and have this conversation with her. God certainly does organise affairs so that people can meet Jesus. As Jesus and his disciples walked north under the hot sun, they became thirsty and hungry. They approached the town of Sychar and Jesus sent his disciples into the town to buy some food whilst he went to the well outside the town. It was midday and Jesus felt tired from the long walk.

The water was at the bottom of this deep well but help was at hand; a Samaritan woman approached on her own. She had a bucket with her so Jesus opened the conversation by asking her for a drink. The woman was shocked, it was against their social convention for a man to talk to woman in public and especially for a Jew to speak with a Samaritan, as Jews considered them to be heretics. Furthermore this woman seemed to be an outcast. The usual practice was for a group of women to come and collect water together in the cool of the day; this woman had come alone and at midday. The probable reason for her isolation is given later, she had been married five times and she was not married to her present partner.

We're not told that cause of these multiple marriage break-ups but it would seem likely that she had moved from one relationship to another looking for love, peace and security. This story reveals that she was not only physically thirsty but also spiritually thirsty. Jesus claims to be the solution to her deepest spiritual needs and said to her,

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” John 4:10

Jesus is saying that he can give her life, love, and security in its fulness. The woman doesn't realise that Jesus is not talking about a literal well:

“‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?’” John 4:11

Jesus's reply is profound:

“‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’” John 4:13-14

Nothing else will satisfy our thirst for long. A recent article has compared life in the United Kingdom today with that of the 1950s. Now there is far more entertainment and sexual activity and yet people are unhappier. There is no comparison - people are looking for ‘life’ in the wrong place. The source of real life is God. We have the same problem that Jeremiah described. We dig our own cisterns. We take the good things in life that God has given us such as romantic relationships, career or even family, and put on them weights they cannot possibly bear.

Good things become ‘god things’, good things become our idols.

David Foster Wallace continued his profound speech.

“If you worship money and things, if that's where you tap into the real meaning of life, then you will never have enough, you will never feel you have enough. It's the truth - worship your own body and beauty and sexy allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start to show you will die a million deaths before your family even plant you into the ground. Worship power and you'll end up feeling weak and afraid, you will need ever more power over others to numb you from your own fear. Worship your intellect and being seen to be smart and you will end up feeling stupid and a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they are unconscious, they are our default setting.”

We must surely all consider what ‘good things’ we cherish so much that they become ‘god things’. What really satisfies us? If our aim is success in the realm of status, family or even experiences then we will be spiritually thirsty. As we get older we increasingly realise that what we used to value is passing away. What or who will satisfy us as we are dying or afterward that? Jesus is clear there is a judgment to come. Drinking the wrong water can be deadly.

Jesus can quench our first John 4 v 10-26

Jesus said,

“‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’” John 4:13-14

The woman doesn't understand the metaphor Jesus is using. How can ‘The living water he offers well up to eternal life?’ This water is found not in place but in a relationship with our creator. It begins now and goes on for ever. Only Jesus offers this as he alone is our creator. She needs this living water, it can quench her spiritual thirst and make her spiritually clean.

At this point Jesus seems to change the subject. He says to her,

“Go, call your husband and come back.” John 4:16

This is so profound, Jesus is not trying to rub her face in her history of multiple failed relationships. Just the opposite, he wants to show her that she has a need for eternal life - just as he wants to show this to all of us.

The woman responds well, she is honest with Jesus.

“I have no husband.” John 4:17

Without an honesty before God no-one will ever find eternal life.

“You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What do you have just said is quite true.” John 4:17-18

From this insight the woman recognises that Jesus is someone special but his presence gives rise to a theological problem for her.

“I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” John 4:19

How easy it is to get into a theological dispute in order to divert a conversation. She's asking where people should go to meet God, should they go to the Samaritan mountain of Gerazim or go to Jerusalem? This was an old debate between the Jews and the Samaritans. Jesus is clear which side of the argument was right - in the past. The Old Testament is clear, there has been only one place to meet with God and that was in his temple in Jerusalem. However, all that was now changing because now God himself has entered his world. A relationship with Jesus is a relationship with God. He is the one person who can satisfy our spiritual thirst and wash us clean from the consequences of our sin. Rituals will be replaced by a relationship. Jesus said,

“Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet the time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth. John 4:21-24

Today a church building or cathedral is not the temple of God, Jesus himself is now the temple. To be close to God, we need to live closely with Jesus. We worship not in a place but a person, it is not where we worship but who. That woman is now beginning to understand that God’s representative needs to be involved. She said,

“I know that the Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”| John 4:25

Jesus responds very simply and with absolute clarity,

“I who speak to you am he.” John 4:26

Nothing could be clearer, either for the Samaritan woman or for us. Life will leave us all thirsty but Jesus can quench this spiritual thirst.

Jesus was later to go to Jerusalem to die. Some of the last words he said on the cross are very significant,

“I am thirsty.” John 19:28

Again it would appear that Jesus is talking physically as well as spiritually. He took on himself our sin, our spiritual thirst so that we can enjoy his living water. He died that we might all be able to enjoy ‘life in its fullness’ into eternity.

The woman left her water jar

John does love to include details that have a double meaning.

“Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?’” John 4:28

That water jar symbolised that her old way of quenching her thirst was being left behind. She was now starting a new life because she has come to know Jesus.

Another consequence of knowing Jesus is that we, like this woman, will want our friends and family to come and meet Jesus too.

When we become Christians we start a new life and this is radically different. Our satisfaction is found in pleasing Jesus in all we do.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

BVP

Based a talk given by Rev Andy Palmer at Christchurch Balham