John 4:5-26 (Lent 3A)
St. John, Galveston 3/8/26
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus was traveling from Jerusalem to Galilee, a distance of about 100 miles. He passed through a region known as Samaria and He stopped at well in the town of Sychar. That little bit of information is important, because traveling through Samaria, Jesus did something that was not customary for Jews to do. Samaritans, you see, were despised by the Jewish people. Primarily because they were considered half-breeds, people who had married outside of the Jewish culture in the days of the Jerusalem occupation some six hundred years earlier.

    Jesus was then, as He is today, seeking to save the lost. As to God’s desire to save all people, the Scriptures tell us, “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” Which is to say, God doesn’t care where you came from, or where you’ve been, He cares where you are going.  

    Having stopped to rest at the well in Sychar, Jesus encountered a woman who had come to draw water for her household. At this point, I think there are some things about this woman that you should know. Some it comes directly from the reading in John 4. Some of it though we can surmise by what we’re told in the reading.

    As was said earlier, she’s was a Samaritan. She carried with her all that that entailed. We also know that she had had five husbands, and that the man that she was currently living with was not her husband. In other words, she was currently living with a man outside of the bonds of marriage, which is to say, she was living in sin before God, that clearly indicated by the fact that Jesus pointed it out to her. She was also living outside of cultural norms and cultural expectations too. As to drawing water from the well, women generally went in the morning or late evening and in groups, in order to enjoy the social aspect of that part of their day. She went to the well in the sixth hour, one of the hottest times of the day and she went alone, which indicated that she wasn’t part of the social structure of her town.

    All of this is to say that the woman Jesus encountered at the well was most likely an outcast. She was a throwaway, if you will, in the minds of the people in her town and perhaps in her own mind too. This encounter between her and Jesus tells us something remarkably comforting about ourselves and about Jesus. No matter what your life has been, no matter how embarrassing it might be for you if God were to recount all the details of your life, no matter what others think of you, no matter what you think of yourself, Jesus came into the world FOR YOU. There are no “throw aways” in the eyes of God.

    When the woman arrived at the well, she was likely startled to see anyone there, much less a man. Jesus asked her to “give Him a drink,” simply because he didn’t have any way to draw water Himself. The woman recognized that He was a Jew and so she surprised that He asked her to draw water for Him. “How is it that you (she said), a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” Her question gave Jesus a perfect opportunity to talk to her about thirst and about a water that is greater than any that could be drawn from the well. “If you knew the gift of God (He said), 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.”

    Like Nicodemus in last Sunday’s Gospel reading, the woman was confused about the living water of which Jesus spoke. He said, “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.” “Sir (she said), give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

    Spiritual things are always hard for us to grasp and appreciate. In fact, elsewhere in the Bible we’re told that “the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” It is the Holy Spirit who opens our eyes, our hearts and minds, that we might know and trust in the things of God. Living water is not something that a person would understand naturally. Water that gives life, physical life, we would understand, but not “living water.” Jesus told the woman that with this “living water,” she would never thirst again. That “living water” is Jesus and all that He gives to the world through His life, death and resurrection.

    The Old Testament reading for this morning is from Exodus 17. It’s about the period of time when the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness after they were delivered from bondage in Egypt. Moses was commanded to draw water from a Rock so the people could drink and quench their thirst. Later, in the New Testament, we read this remarkable verse. “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”

    I will give you “living water,” Jesus said. I will give you Myself. Our thirst for spiritual things is a thirst that could never be quenched outside of Jesus. It is a thirst for what we were created to be. It’s a thirst for holiness, for righteousness, for sinlessness, for fellowship with God. In this present fallen world, it is a thirst to have our guilt taken away, to have all the sordid details of our life wiped clean, erased, if you will, by the cleansing blood of Jesus.  

    The Samaritans connection to the Jewish tribes wasn’t lost until about the 6th century BC, which means that during the period of the Exodus they were still one with Israel. That’s an important little detail to know, because after Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman about living water, she said, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” With that, Jesus, with a very simple, and yet, profound statement, took her back to her ancestors and their deliverance from slavery in Egypt.

    The Rock her people followed was Christ and the water that flowed from that Rock was given to them by Yahweh, the Great I AM, the covenant God of Israel. Throughout His ministry Jesus equated Himself with the I AM, the God of Israel. “I am the bread of life (He said).” “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (He said).” “I am the Light of the World (He said).” “I am the resurrection and the life.” “I know that Messiah is coming (the woman said).” To which Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you AM HE.”

    In that seemingly simple declaration of Jesus, both the Old and the New Testament come together. Everything said in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah was fulfilled in Jesus. He came to seek and to save the lost, including this Samaritan woman that had been deemed by so many, perhaps even herself, a “throw away.”     

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +