Text: John 4:5-26
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.”
The Civil War was carnage beyond belief. Jefferson Davis, who was the President of the Confederacy died and eventually the commanding United States General, Ulysses S. Grant of the Union also died. Their widows, Varina Davis and Julia Grant, settled near each other in New York. Both were writers with Varina writing her husband’s autobiography, Jefferson Davis, a Memoir in 1890. Julia Grant too was a writer, though she was unable to find a publisher for her own personal memoir for many years. Though they had been on different sides of the conflict during the Civil War they became the closest of friends.
Source Unknown.
Even in the worst of human endeavors reconciliation is possible. At times even at church separation can occur. Sometimes it is between friends and at times it is within families but through Jesus Christ and the living water he gives, you and I are restored to a right relationship with our loving God because:
The water of life is found in Christ!
On His journey north with His disciples, Jesus came to the little city of Sychar, which was located almost in the center of Samaria. Near this town there was a piece of land which the patriarch Jacob had given to his son Joseph in addition to his share of the country, Gen. 48, 22. It was on this piece of land that Joseph was buried. And here was also a well or cistern which Jacob had dug after his return from Mesopotamia. The well, which is now known as “Jacob's well,” is about a hundred feet deep and is protected by a wall. Jesus, being a true man, had become very tired literally, tired out — by the long journey of the morning; for it was now high noon. So He sat down at the well.
P.E. Kretzmann NT vol. 1 pg 427
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
Those of you who have ever worked outside or had been on long walks during the summer might have an idea of just how thirsty you can get.
At our circuit meeting this month, Pastor Terry Klaus often talks about growing up on a farm and how different that was for him. I’m sure that his illustrations of farm life, work, and growing up there might show many wonderful and helpful examples of the type of thirst Jesus experienced.
As we all get older and with the advent of air conditioning in every room and space we live, we can tend to get a little spoiled … especially me, who spent my entire work life in a cool office during the summer and a warm office during the winter. But, I’m sure that many of you who have grown up before the prevalence of air conditioning or worked the fields yourself can and do understand thirst. If you don’t … the rest of you can sign up to work VBS during July in our hot church sanctuary … and then you’ll know.
There were a few things going on here. First Jesus was tired and thirsty but the one who approached the well was a Samaritan and it was of her that Jesus had asked for a drink. Israel had been carried into exile by the Assyrians in 722 BC and a small group of Israelites had remained behind who mingled with the pagan culture of Mesopotamia. These are the people who became the Samaritans so there was a long and wide divide between the Jews and the Samaritans.
This explains her reaction to Jesus’ question:
9 …, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”
There had not been much love between these two peoples and if you’ve had tension in your family or witnessed it you might know how this might play out … when two people that have not spoken to each other for years suddenly find themselves face to face.
But as we continue on we will see that:
The water of life is found in Christ!
Tension, can cause families to break and peace can be at times, only for a little while.
The divisions can divide a people, evident in the current tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but reconciliation must be truly on an individual basis.
The median used is water which can quench our thirst for a little while. It is something everyone can relate to. Jesus knows both the Samaritan woman’s thirst and that He is the cure.
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with and He replies, “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.”
Ill.
There is a story of the British liberation of Palestine:
Driving up from Beersheba, a combined force of British, Australians and New Zealanders were pressing on the rear of the Turkish retreat over arid desert. The attack outdistanced its water carrying camel train. Water bottles were empty. The sun blazed pitilessly out of a sky where the vultures wheeled expectantly. "Our heads ached," writes Gilbert, "and our eyes became bloodshot and dim in the blinding glare...Our tongues began to swell...Our lips turned a purplish black and burst." Those who dropped out of the column were never seen again, but the desperate force battled on to Sheria. There were wells at Sheria, and had they been unable to take the place by nightfall, thousands were doomed to die of thirst.
"We fought that day," writes Gilbert, "as men fight for their lives... We entered Sheria on the heels of the retreating Turks. The first objects which met our view were the great stone cisterns full of cold, clear, drinking water. In the still night air the sound of water running into the tanks could be distinctly heard, maddening in its nearness; yet not a man murmured when orders were given for the battalions to fall in, two deep, facing the cisterns" He then describes the stern priorities: the wounded, those on guard duty, then company by company. It took four hours before the last man had his drink of water, and in all that time they had been standing twenty feet from a low stone wall on the other side of which was thousands of gallons of water.
From an account of the British liberation of Palestine by Major V. Gilbert in The Last Crusade, quoted in Christ's Call To Discipleship, J.M. Boice, Moody, 1986, p. 143.
Even thousands of gallons of water will only quench our earthly thirst for a time before you and I get thirsty again. But Jesus gives us living water through Baptism that takes away our sins and brings us to faith in him and His finished work.
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.”
Jesus tells her to “Go, call your husband, and come here.” Knowing full well that when she says “I have no husband,” he answers he that she has had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. To this He adds: What you have said is true.”
She now understands that this man, the Jesus is something special even calling him a “prophet” saying that 20 our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
Jesus tells her that not on the mountain and not in Jerusalem but true worship will be in spirit and truth, and that this Messiah that she is expecting and is waiting for is right here with her!
The living water himself who quenches our eternal thirst is the one, who by the Holy Spirit’s working in us, we believe and trust. Our spiritual thirst is never to return because in Christ we have been brought into his family by faith.
Thought we continue to fall short as we are conformed into the image of Christ the security of His water and word washing you and me clean of sin continues to give comfort that the gift of faith by water and the word has once and for all freed us from the power of sin, death and the devil in us because:
The water of life is found in Christ!
The enemies of Jefferson Davis and Ulysses Grant found their wives after the Civil War to be close friends. The Samaritan woman’s faith was found in the Jew Jesus Christ at the well and we have found separation of God and man restored in this same Jesus through His give of word connected to the water in Baptism for the forgiveness of sins by faith in His finished work.
The water of life is found in Christ!
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
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