“Our thirst quenched”

So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well.  It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”  (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)  The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”  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 no bucket, and the well is deep.  Where do you get that living water?  Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”  Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.  The water that I will give will become in them a spiring of water gushing up to eternal life.”  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call you husband, and come back.”  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 have now is not your husband.  What you have said is true!”  The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”  Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  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 worshipers will worship the Father in sprit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these 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” (who is called Christ).  When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”  Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came.  They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?”  or, “Why are your speaking with her?”  Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city.  She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!  He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”  They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”  But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”  So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one brought him something to eat?”  Jesus said them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.  Do you not say, “Four months more, then come the harvest’?  But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.  The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.  For here the saying holds true,  ‘One sows and another reaps.’  I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.  Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.”  So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.  And many more believed because of his word.  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 truly the Savior of the world.”

During Lent many of us are aware of our need to sort out some issues in our lives.  There have been some Lents that I will remember forever because every scripture text that I read and, in my case, every sermon that I preached, spoke to all that I was going through.  There have been seasons of questioning too when I was wondering where was God?  Times when I felt very alone, and I was so longing for the Divine touch.  Now I can’t tell you that it was always perfectly resolved for me on Easter morning, but I can tell you that this season is fertile ground for prayer and guidance. 

Lent gives us the opportunity to work with what is going on in our lives.  You know that the task of sorting things out will always bring us to the need for prayer and reflection.  Whether we know it or not, our task, our goal, must always be to come closer to God.  That is so that we can live what might be called an “authentic life.”  Some call it finding our home or our center. 

You may have heard me in the past  refer to living an authentic life as being in the Jesus House.  Another way to say it is that we are living in the Kingdom of God or having a taste of eternal life right here and now.  During this Lenten season, if you are seeking to live an authentic life, if you want to live close to Jesus, you may want to pay close attention to today’s story from the Gospel of John.

This saga of the Samaritan woman has got to be one of the best stories in any of the Gospels.  All of the elements are here.  The plot is played out before us.  The dialogue is wonderful, and the ending ties it up nicely. 

We begin by hearing how Jesus just happened to be in Samaria—it was on his way from Judea to Galilee.  We hear how he just happened to sit down beside the historic and sacred Jacob’s Well around noontime.  He’d been walking, and he was really hot and thirsty.  Some things we need to know are that there was very bad blood between the Jews and the Samaritans in those days.  Jews held Samaritans in contempt because of the way they practiced their religion.  We also need to remember that during the time of the 1^st century, rabbis avoided speaking to women in public.  It just wasn’t done.  This all sets the stage for our story.

When the Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water, Jesus asked her for a drink.  Knowing what we know about Samaritans and women of the time, we can understand why the woman at the well is astounded by the request and why the early hearers of this story would have been just totally confused …and probably disgusted.

Jesus replied to her amazement with this strange answer: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have wanted to ask him, and he would have given you living water.”

So, we have Jesus asking her for a drink of water, knowing that all this was flying in the face of the customs of his people.  And we know that it was she who was in need of the kind of drink that only God can give—the living water, the water that comes from the spring of water gushing up to eternal life.  We have Jesus thirsty after walking into town at the hottest time of the day, and we have our Samaritan woman who has lived a life probably full of grief and uncertainty.  Jesus had a common, ordinary thirst for water from Jacob’s well.  She had a thirst for healing that only God could quench—one that she was barely aware of.

Jesus says that the water he gives will become a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.  That, folks, is what we are all searching for.  It’s what we hope that the season of Lent will give us.  Somewhere within us, is this longing for closeness to God and to Jesus.  This longing has people buying crystals and rocks these days, things that can bring us good energy.  It has us reading spiritual books that may help us turn inward rather than focus on all the craziness around us.  It has folks looking for just the right place to worship with just the right music or the right preacher or the right children’s program.  We’re all looking for the place, the setting that will provide for us or lead us to the “gushing water” experience that Jesus talks about.

              Our world is desperately seeking this spring of water that is the Source, the Home, the love that we are longing for—now, tomorrow and eternally.  It is the gift from God that will satisfy our thirsty souls.

All the Samaritan woman did was show up and be herself, …and she encountered God.  She didn’t even seem to have the right answers.  After Jesus made his theological explanation of offering her living water, she protested, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket, and this is a deep well.”  Her literal take on what Jesus had been talking about didn’t matter.  It didn’t matter that she was of the “wrong” religion (at least, according to our ancestors in the faith).  She was still thirsty for the spring that gushes up to eternal life, the living water that Jesus was offering.  In the face of all that, Jesus was willing to quench her thirst with living water.

There is a fountain from which we all can drink that will quench our thirst for divine love and forgiveness.  It gushes up to fill our souls with the living, healing water of God’s gift, Jesus.  It never runs dry, and it’s there for us to partake. 

It can be our oasis in the midst of our Lenten journey as we open ourselves to God’s healing of our brokenness.  When we pray to have our darkness cleared, when we seek God’s fresh and new presence to wash away our old, brittle ways, Jesus is there, offering us Living Water.

Jesus comes to us in unlikely places, in unlikely ways, meeting us where we are, knowing us as a parent knows her child.  That’s God’s wonderful gift to us.  Jesus is the one who can save us from the dark side of human existence.  Jesus is our lifeline in the rough waters.  He is like a spring of water gushing up in the desert, even the desert of Ohio right in the midst of the winter blues; even in the desert of the souls of folks like us who attempt to look as though we have it all together.  In the most unlikely places, a spring gushes forth from which our thirst can be quenched.

…And because of this Samaritan woman’s testimony, many believed.  Because of the report of that testimony in our Gospel we are still drinking at the spring of living water, we still can allow the gushing water to wash us and make us whole.  So, like the Samaritans, I hope you have heard for yourself and you can live as ones who have met their Savior.  If you are drinking of the living water and having your eternal thirst quenched, someday you may have the opportunity to share the way that your life began to be turned around with the taste of that living water.

I know that some of us are going through tough times.  It’s true that we go through these phases.  There is no use denying it or pretending that it will never happen to us.  This is human life. 

Today’s message is custom-made for tough times just like it was for others of us who have been where you are and may be again.  For those whose thirst is super-sized, there is no cup big enough to handle this.  It requires the living water that only Jesus offers.  It requires the fountain that never runs dry, that can handle any crisis or question that you can throw at it.

All that is required of you is that you wait at the well (and, of course, this means just keep living your life, in the assurance that Jesus will meet you there).  He will tell you everything you have ever done and love you still.  He is your Savior.  He will throw you the lifeline and get you back on solid ground.  And once there, he will quench your thirst with Living Water. 

If you are seeking today, if you feel lost, if you live with doubt and fear, come to the water.  Jesus is waiting.  If you need more support, you can speak to me after worship and maybe we can get together this week.  If that doesn’t work you can call me or call a trusted friend.  You know, the living water is available for you, waiting for you to take and drink.  You are not alone….  Come to the water….