John 4:1-30

¹ Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ² (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), ³ he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴ And he had to pass through Samaria. ⁵ 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. 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.

 

Some of literature’s most beloved stories involve men’s struggles with showing grace to women who have made mistakes.  Most notably, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina focuses on Anna, the adulterous wife of Alexey Alexandrovitch.  In the story, Anna is having an affair with a character named Vronsky.  When her husband, Alexey, discovers it he ultimately writes her off as irredeemable and unworthy of grace.  Tolstoy has Alexey Alexandrovitch say the following about his adulterous wife:

“Forgive I cannot, and do not wish to, and I regard it as wrong.  I have done everything for this woman, and she has trodden it all in the mud to which she is akin.  I am not a spiteful man, I have never hated any one, but I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her, because I hate her too much for all the wrong she has done me!” he said, with tones of hatred in his voice.[1]

Or consider Jane Austen’s beloved story, Pride and Prejudice.  In the story, there’s a scene where a minister, Mr. Collins, writes a letter to Mr. Bennet after Bennet’s daughter, Lydia, scandalously runs off with a shady character named Wickham, publicly shaming her family in the process.  Mr. Collins, a Christian minister, writes a letter encouraging Mr. Bennet to forget his daughter and consider her dead because of her shameful actions. Here’s Mr. Collins letter to Mr. Bennet:

My Dear Sir – I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from Hertfordshire.  Be assured, my dear sire, that Mrs. Collins and myself sincerely sympathise with you, and all your respectable family, in your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove.  No arguments shall be wanting on my part, that can alleviate so severe a misfortune; or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others most afflicting to a parent’s mind.  The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison to this…Let me advise you then, my dear Sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence.  I am, dear Sir, [Mr. Collins][2]

“I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch.  “Let me advise you then, my dear Sir…to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence,” said Mr. Collins.

The common denominator in these examples is the unwillingness of these men to show grace to the offending women.  There are other examples in literature as well.

Interestingly, before either of these two examples were written, the New Testament revealed a situation in which Jesus had an encounter with a woman involved in scandalous behavior.  Jesus had the opportunity to withhold grace, like Alexey Alexandrovitch and Mr. Collins, but He didn’t.  In fact, Jesus’ approach to the woman He encountered has justly made this one of the most famous episodes in all of scripture.

Jesus chose to show grace.  In doing so, He revealed the nature of God.  Furthermore, He revealed the nature of grace itself.

Grace refers to the undeserved mercy and favor that God offers sinful human beings in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  If you don’t get grace, you won’t understand what Jesus is doing.

Grace is all over this story in John 4.  Let’s see what we learn about it from Jesus’ encounter with this unnamed woman.

God’s Grace Is For The Unworthy (vv.1-9)

John begins the story by telling of Jesus passing through the land of Samaria:

¹ Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ² (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), ³ he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴ And he had to pass through Samaria.

Let us begin by observing that good Jews didn’t pass through Samaria.  Good Jews went around Samaria.  This was because Samaria was inhabited by Samaritans, and Samaritans were considered to be a kind of half-breed, heretical, unclean people by the Jews.  The Samaritans did not honor all of the Hebrew scriptures.  Neither did they honor Temple worship.  Their religious views were suspect, and their standing before God was considered broken by their own sinfulness and pride.

Some have found John’s wording interesting here:  “And [Jesus] had to pass through Samaria.”  In point of fact, He did not have to pass through Samaria, at least not as far as the customary Jewish routes of travel were concerned.  But what if Jesus “had to pass through Samaria” because He was driven more by the meeting He knew He would have there than any need for a shortcut?

John continues:

⁵ 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. 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.)

Jesus has already violated social custom by entering an unworthy land.  Now He further breaks it by conversing with an unworthy person.  The woman had a number of strikes against her as far as Jewish men were concerned.  She was (a) a Samaritan, (b) a woman, and (c) a sinner.

But Jesus enters her land.  He “had” to enter Her land, verse 4 tells us.  He enters her land, sits where He knows she is coming, then asks her for a drink.

This is highly unusual and, in truth, highly scandalous.  This almost certainly explains the parenthetical statement in verse 8: “For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.”  But of course they did!  The truth is they didn’t want to be anywhere near this scene that Jesus was creating by His presence in Samaria.  They found a convenient excuse to do something else.

Let us not miss the prophetic significance of Jesus’ actions.  Merely by entering Samaria and speaking to a woman like this, Jesus was signifying something profoundly important and fundamental about the nature of grace.  His very presence said this:  grace is for the unworthy.

In truth, this is basic to the very definition of grace.  Grace, by definition, is for the unworthy.  The worthy don’t need grace.  Only the unworthy need grace.  As R.C. Sproul has put it:

It is impossible for anyone, anywhere, anytime to deserve grace.  Grace by definition is undeserved.  As soon as we talk about deserving something we are no longer talking about grace; we are talking about justice.  Only justice can be deserved…God never “owes” grace….God reserves for Himself the supreme right of executive clemency.[3]

And the further reality is that all of us are unworthy.  All of us are in need of grace.  “For all have sinned,” Paul wrote in Romans 3:23, “and fall short of the glory of God.”

Shane Clairborne recounts seeing a panhandler holding what he calls “the best cardboard signs for panhandling that I’ve come across…The sign simply read ‘In need of grace.’”[4]

The truth is, we all carry that sign:  “In need of grace.”  Paul knew this well.  A self-righteous Pharisee who persecuted the Christian church in his blindness and rage, Paul was overcome by the grace of Jesus Christ.  Did you know that the word “grace” appears at least by the second sentence of every letter Paul wrote.[5]

Do you feel unworthy this morning?  Have you done too much, said too much, thought too much?  Do you feel like an outcast, like damaged goods?

If so, you will want to pay special attention to this story, for in this story, Jesus intentionally creates an opportunity to confront a person just like that.

God’s Grace Is An Always-Sufficient Well (vv.10-14)

Grace is for the unworthy, meaning grace is for us all.  And God’s grace is always sufficient.  Listen to how Jesus explains this to the woman at the well:

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.”

Once again, as in the earlier conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus about being born again, Jesus is speaking on one level and His hearer is trying to process it and respond on another level.  Jesus says that He can give this unworthy woman “living water.”  He means, of course, that He can give her salvation, that He can give her Himself.  But she is only thinking of the literal water that she has come to draw from the well.  We might call this conversation “Exercises in Missing the Point!” at this particular point.

Jesus then further explains what He means:

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.”

It is as if Jesus is saying, “No, you misunderstand.  I’m not talking about this water.  I’m talking about the refreshing, life-giving, saving waters of Almighty God.  Eventually, this well will run dry.  But, lady, the waters of God will never run dry.  The waters of God are for you, if you will drink, but they are also forever.  The waters of God are my grace that I will pour into you, and these waters will quench your thirst forever.”

But there’s even more to this, isn’t there?  Jesus also said that “the water I will give…will become…a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

This means that we not only drink from the well of grace, but the well is dug in our own hearts.  Grace isn’t just something outside that we take in.  Grace takes root inside and bubbles out.

God’s grace is an always-sufficient, never-ending, forever-refreshing well of water that He digs in our own hearts and souls when He gives us His Spirit.  The Spirit of God takes root when we come to Jesus and accept Him.  He is like a gushing torrent or an overflowing river of grace, continuously ministering to us, refreshing us, encouraging us, challenging us when we act contrary to His grace, and sustaining our hearts.

Church: grace breaches the banks and spills over, flooding the parched lands of our own souls with God’s great beneficent mercies!

God’s Grace Is Received By Repentant Hearts (vv.15-19)

Even so, Jesus turns to address the condition of the woman’s heart.  For as beautiful as this grace is, it is received by repentant hearts.

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.”

At least to some extent, the woman begins to understand that Jesus is speaking of something more than mere water.  “Yes,” she says, “I want this.  Let me have this.”

What Jesus does next is curious.  He has created a sense of need and desire in her heart.  She now knows that she needs this water, and she desires to have it.  But Jesus goes on to steer the conversation into awkward areas. He begins to talk about her personal life.  Watch:

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.

How fascinating.  As modern Americans accustomed to steering clear of awkward subjects, we might instinctively find this rude.  I might go so far as to say that the climate of our churches even might find this rude.

See, if Jesus were one of us, He might have said, “Oh, great!  You’re ready to accept me!  You’re ready to pray the prayer!  You’re ready to get saved and join the church!”

After all, that’s how we act.

But Jesus does something very interesting, doesn’t He?  She says, “Ok!  I’m ready!  I want this water!  I’m ready to drink!”  And Jesus turns on her and essentially says, “Fine, but tell me a little about the way you’re living.”

He baits her:  “Go, call your husband, and come here.”  He’ll say in just a moment that He knows she doesn’t have a husband.  He knows that she’s living with a guy who isn’t even her husband.  He knows that her past is strewn with the wreckage of ill-conceived relationships:

¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.”

You can see this woman fall from the heights to the valley.  A minute ago Jesus was enticing her with living water, with unending water.  A minute ago she was ready to go.  “This is great,” she seemed to be saying, “a little bit of Jesus to make my life go better.”  Then Jesus puts the spotlight on her life, on her sins.

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.”

What a painful moment:  “Yes, you don’t have a husband.  You’ve had five.  And the guy you’re currently shacking up with, he’s not your husband at all, is he?  You have a tendency of running through relationships, don’t you?  You have a tendency to live your life on impulse, don’t you?  You really have made a mockery of God and His plan in the way you’re living, haven’t you?  You’ve had a lot of men, and you’re living in sin with one right now.”

How will she respond?  Like us?  “Well, Jesus, that’s really none of your business, is it?  Who are you to judge me?  Who do you think you are?!  You guys are so narrow-minded.  If I want to live with a guy I’m not married to, what is that to you?!”

She could have said that, but she doesn’t.  Instead:

¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

I imagine her pausing.  The smile slips from her face.  Her voice is more quiet now.  The light of understanding dawns in her eyes.  Then she says, “You’re right.  My life is a wreck.  I’ve been doing it my own way.  Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.”

What is happening here?  Why would Jesus so suddenly expose the dark corners of this woman’s life?  We say, “Don’t go there!”  But Jesus went there.  And because Jesus went there, something deepened in this conversation, in this interaction between Jesus and this woman, didn’t it?

What’s happening here is that Jesus needs to teach her something else about grace.  He needs to teach her that grace is for the unworthy, yes, and God’s grace is an always-sufficient well, yes. But He needs to teach her here that God’s grace can only be received by repentant hearts.

To receive the gift, we need to know our need for the gift.  To receive these living waters, we need to know that our hearts and minds and souls are parched and dry with sin.  To be saved, we need to be convinced that we’re really lost.

It’s not just that Jesus went there with this woman, it’s that Jesus had to go there, because we don’t really know the joy of being found until we know the anguish of being lost.

It could just be that some of you this morning have tried to have grace without repentance, water without thirst, Jesus without humility. But that doesn’t work.  The nature of grace is that it is designed for those who know they need it.

Those who are proud or stubborn in their sins don’t want grace. They don’t think they need it.

Jesus created a sense of wanting in this woman when He told her about living water.  But then He created a sense of need in this woman when He reminded her of her sins.

What about us this morning?  What about you?  What is it that’s keeping you from Jesus?  It could be this particular sin:  cheap, disposable relationships.  Living with somebody in sin that you’re not married to?  Are something else: greed, anger, bitterness?

Oh, listen:  I know it’s painful to let God reveal what’s really going on, but I want you to get that this too is part of grace.  He reveals the wounds only so that He can heal.  He tears the scab off only so that He can get to the real problem.

Jesus isn’t trying to be cruel.  Jesus is trying to save this woman from herself.  To do that, He must bring her to a point of repentance.

Grace is received by repentant hearts.

God’s Grace Is Found In A Relationship (vv.20-30)

And then He shows her one more thing. He shows her that grace is found in a relationship.

This woman finally does what most of us do when somebody gets too close to what’s really going on in our lives.  She changes the subject:

²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

She changes the subject by pointing to one of the old religious debates between the Samaritans and the Jews:  namely, where the people of God should worship.  But Jesus is having none of it:

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.”

It’s almost as if Jesus is saying, “Woman, it’s not about where we worship.  It’s about Who we worship.  It’s not about knowing where worship should take place.  It’s about knowing God personally and intimately – knowing His name, knowing His nature, knowing Him as Father – so that you might worship Him at all.  Woman, worry less about these matters than about the fact that you don’t know who God is!”

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.”

Ah, the irony!  Do you see it?  The woman shrugs off Jesus’ answer by saying, “Well, whatever.  We can’t settle it here.  Eventually, God’s going to send His chosen One to the world, then He’ll make sense of it.”  Ha!  Then Jesus strikes:

²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Scripture does not describe her immediate reaction:  the look on her face, her body language, whether or not she opened her mouth in astonishment.  But what a powerful moment!  This woman suddenly seems to want to avoid the unpleasant issue of her sins.  She wants to avoid now the confusing issue of religious debate.  She retreats now behind the casual observation that one day the Messiah is coming to reveal the truth.  And Jesus responds by throwing all of His cards on the table:  “I who speak to you am he.”

“Woman!  Woman!  Don’t you get it?  Don’t you see?  What you’ve been looking for in all those past and now-shattered relationships…what you’ve been searching for in those five ex-husbands…what you’re looking for now in this man you’re living with…what you’re reaching blindly for in your religious tradition and religious questioning…what you’re waiting for in the promised Messiah…everything that your life has been hungering and thirsting and searching and looking and waiting for is right here in front of you!  You don’t have to keep running through relationship searching for meaning.  Meaning is right here!  You don’t have to keep mulling the religious questions over in your mind anymore.  The answer is right here!  You don’t have to keep approaching life looking for the next rush, the next relationship, the next whatever.  What you’re looking for is here!  Woman:  God’s grace is for you but God’s grace is found only in a relationship with Me!  I who speak to you am He!”

Even the thick-headed disciples seem to get that something amazing is happening here.  For once, they hold their tongues:

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?”

They are silent.  They didn’t understand it, but they knew better than to interrupt the high drama of grace with dumb questions.

But what of the woman?  What happened to her after her encounter with God’s grace?  Watch this:

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.

I love this.  No, the woman didn’t seem to have complete understanding.  I don’t think it can be definitively said that she truly trusted in Christ.  Of course, neither can it be said that she didn’t.  She was still struggling.  But I personally think her response here reveals the gentle sunrise of God’s grace over the horizon of her darkened heart.  It’s almost like watching the slow dawning of realization:  “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.  Can this be the Christ?”

Ah, yes. Yes, dear lady, it could be…and it is.

He has come.  God’s grace has come.  God’s grace has come…and it has a name…and that name is Jesus.

This morning, I’m going to let this woman offer our invitation.  Her words will be mine:  “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.”

Come.  Come and see.