Sermon – Lent 3 – "If You Knew The Gift Of God" – John 4:5-26 – 2/24/08
February 24th, 2008Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.
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Back in the days when parents were responsible for finding a spouse for their children, Abraham was determined to find a good Jewish girl for his son Isaac to marry. Because they lived in Canaanite country, good Jewish girls were as scarce as hens teeth. So, Abraham sent his servant back home, where his relatives lived, to look for a wife for Isaac. The servant took 10 camels with him. The camels carried the dowry for the lucky woman. 10 camels means that this was no small dowry that Abraham was prepared to give for the right daughter-in-law.
After a several days of traveling, the servant came to a well outside a little town. It was evening, the time when women come to the well to draw water because it's a little cooler than during the heat of the day. Abraham's servant approached one of the young women. His request is strikingly familiar to one we've already heard spoken this morning. "Can I have a drink?" And the woman answered with a response that we haven't heard yet this morning, "drink my Lord." And she lowered her jar to her hands and gave him a drink. And then she said, "I'll water your camels too until they're filled." Do you know how much water you have to draw up out of a well to satisfy and a camel? Times that by 10! And with that, Abraham's servant found a bride for Isaac. Her name was Rebecca. Isaac and Rebecca had a son whose name was Jacob. (Genesis 24).
And the scriptures tell us that Jacob dug a well in a town called Shechem which would later be called Sychar. (Gen.48:22). Now today we meet another servant. He too is looking for a bride. And He too comes to this well that Jacob had dug. And along comes a certain woman. She's not Jewish. She's a Samaritan. But with Him, nationality and race don't matter. This man is looking for a wife of every race and nationality and background.
"Give me a drink," he asks. Just as the servant of Abraham had asked long ago.
How often do we meet Jesus on the road, going from one place to another, only to be stopped along the way by someone who wants something from Him. The lepers and the blind call out to Him, "Kyrie, eleison." "Lord have mercy." Some men lower their paralyzed friend through a hole they dug in the roof just so He will give His help. Crowds followed Him and lined up so that He would touch them. The point is, people want to get Jesus' attention because they want what He is able to give to them.
But here in Sychar, it is Jesus who comes to this woman and wants something from her. He asks her for a drink because He is thirsty. This is remarkable. He would command the stormy sea to be still and it would behave. He would demand that the water support Him so He may walk across its surface and it would obey. Surely, He could have summoned the water in this well to become like a fountain and report immediately to His parched lips. But no, this one who sits at the right hand of God tells the seas, 'this far you may go and no further,' here sits on the edge of this well and is dependant upon the willingness of this woman to give Him a drink.
Off hand, (which means, "I'm not exactly sure of this") but I can only think of one other instance recorded in all the gospels where Jesus asks for help from someone. We'll come back to that.
Whenever we find the Son of God putting aside His divinity and humbling Himself to be the servant, we must always ask ourselves, "why?" And the answer is always the same. "For us men and for our salvation." He will not call upon the legion of angels at His command to come to defend Him, for us men and for our salvation. He will not come down from the cross and save Himself, for us men and for our salvation. He will not get Himself a drink from this well but asks this woman to give Him a drink "for this woman and for her salvation."
So how does this woman respond? It is the saddest fact in the world that St. John records in the prologue of his gospel when he states that, "[Jesus] was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not know him." (John 1:10-11). Maybe John had this woman at the well in Sychar in mind when he penned those words.
The multitudes clamored to have just a second of this man's attention and here is this woman who has His undivided attention. But she did not know Him.
Nicodemus knew Jesus to be a man from God because no one could do the signs that He was doing unless God is with him. But Samaria was a long way from Jerusalem and Jews and Samaritans didn't speak to do with each other. Word of the things that Jesus was doing hadn't reached the village of Sychar. She did not know Him.
If she had known Him, she would have known that He was the One who was able to give her the "gift of God." And if she had asked Him, He would give to her "living waters." We don't talk like that anymore because we have a different plumbing system today than they did then. In those days, "living water" was water that bubbled up from a spring or flowed in a stream. It was fresh and good to drink. "Dead water" was the water that was stored in a cistern or a well. Very often, it needed to be boiled or purified before it could be drank.
Pointing to the water in the well, Jesus says to this woman, "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 forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
This is highly figurative language that Jesus is using here. What does He mean by "drinking" and "thirsty" and "spring water welling up?"
A little bit later on when Jesus is back in Jerusalem, John reports that Jesus cried out for all to hear, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' And then John interprets all these figures of speech saying, "Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive." (John 7:37-39).
Jesus compares a spring of water to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is alive and life-giving. To drink of this living water is to believe the Word that comes from Jesus and receive what comes through the Word – the Holy Spirit.
Like Nicodemus who couldn't get past the figure of speech, this woman has the same trouble. Looking down into the well that Jesus is pointing to, she says, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?" She thinks that Jesus is talking about physical water and physical thirst.
It was the same for the 5,000 whom Jesus fed with bread and fish on that miraculous night. They could see no further than the bread and fish. When what He was really pointing them to and offering to them was something far greater.
To Nicodemus, to the 5,000 and to this woman, Jesus is offering the "gift of God." He is offering the satisfaction for spiritual hunger and spiritual thirst with spiritual bread and spiritual drink. Do you see, that when Jesus comes to this woman and says, "give me a drink," He is really telling her what she should be asking for from Him?
This woman is all of us and each of us. It's not that we ask our Lord for too much, but that we ask Him for too little. We ask Him for too little, because we don't drink the living water – we don't believe His Word. We don't know what we really need. Without the Holy Spirit, we don't know that we are dying of thirst anymore than we know who it this is who comes to us to give us the only thing that will satisfy our deepest thirst. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst," not for more food and drink and bigger paychecks and faster cars or successful lives, but "for righteousness." This is what Jesus has come to give to this woman at the well. And it is what He has come to give to you too.
He knows what we need better than we do and before we do. We cry out to God for this, that and the other thing that we believe will quench our thirst for pleasure or happiness or contentment. This country can produce far more than we can consume. So marketing mangers must find effective ways to convince us what we need and can't live without. And when our paycheck won't cover all these things and after our credit cards are maxed out we pray that God would give us these things.
- "If you knew the gift of God" you would sell all that you have and give it to the poor and follow Jesus.
- "If you knew the gift of God," you would turn away from all those false gods you put your hope in but which will never satisfy you.
- "If you knew the gift of God," you would reject all of those gifts of Satan which stagnate in you like polluted water.
- "If you knew the gift of God," you would understand that that pile of earthly treasurers that you cling to so tightly is nothing, less than nothing, in fact, a positive impediment when measured against one drop of that living water Christ offers you to quench your spiritual thirst.
St. John is a real stickler for details. He carefully notes the time of day that this encounter took place. "It was about the 6th hour." That would make it right about noontime. You would think, wouldn't you that a man so keen on the details would surely note the little detail that we've all been waiting for from the beginning of this encounter, which was that Jesus got His drink of water. But John either missed that detail or it never happened. And we ask "why?" And the answer is what it always is, "for us men and for our salvation."
It is this same John who shows us the only other occasion that I can recall, of Jesus asking someone for something. Once again, John notes the time. "It was about the 6th hour." Jesus is hanging from the cross and begs for a drink, saying, "I thirst."
I sometimes wonder if, while hanging from the cross with his cracked lips and parched throat, He might have thought back to that time when He had met a woman at the well in Sychar. It is for her that He thirsts. And it is for you that He thirsts. That is her thirst and yours that He is bearing on the cross.
It is because we did not know the "gift of God" or Him who came to His own, that in His thirst He in only given the cup of the Father's wrath to drink. It is because He drank this cup to its dregs that you are satisfied by the forgiveness for all of your sins and the promise of eternal life. It is because He knows your greatest need that He gives you to drink from the spring of water and blood that wells up from His pierced side.
Jesus has come to you and met you at the well of your baptism. And there, He has given you the gift of God, the Holy Spirit. And you have eternal life welling up in you. And you are the bride of Christ.
Related Entries:
» The Season Of Lent» Sermon – Lent 4 – "Nicodemus' Big Night" – John 3:16 – 3/22/09
» Sermon Index – Lutheran – LCMS
» Sermon – Ash Wednesday – "The 40 Days of Lent" – Hebrews 3:13 – 4:6 – 2/25/09
» Avoiding the Gift of God? – John 4:4-26
» Sola Gratia – What Is "Grace"?
