February 24 2008    Lectionary Reading: John 4.1-14

Theme: Jesus and the woman at the well

Text: “If only you knew what God gives……….” John 4.10 (GNB)

In New Testament times, if you lived in Galilee and wanted to go as the crow flies, the most direct route south to Jerusalem in Judaea, then you had to go through Samaria. However, this was a problem with that road. It was dangerous, the locals could be hostile, and sometimes there were Samaritan bandits who lay in wait for travellers. So many people took a longer route to avoid Samaria, and instead of going directly through Samaria, they headed east first, and then south down the safer road through the Jordan Valley to Jericho and then back west to Jerusalem.

We can work out from John’s gosepl that Jesus and His disciples on this occasion have taken the direct route, through Samaria.

And when we pick up the gospel in chapter 4, they have arrived in Samaria at Jacob’s well near the village or town of Sychar, wearied and thirsty in the heat of the day. While the disciples go into the nearby village,

Jesus rests by the well, when a woman comes to draw water:

and a conversation begins.

Verse 7 tells us how the conversation begins……:

Jesus says: Give me a drink of water

but the woman replies: You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan, so how

can you ask me for a drink ? As John explains in the gospel Jews would not use the same cups and bowls as Samaritans, such was the enmity between them. But Jesus in turn says: If only you knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask Him and He would give you life giving water.

I wonder what our first impression on hearing this story once again ?

I would imagine for most of us, that probably our first impression, the thing that strikes us first, the thing that moves us, is the kindness, the deep sympathy, the deep concern, of Jesus for this woman, the healing grace we see in Him.

After all, here we see here this poor village woman trying to hold her life together, rather unsuccessfully as it turns out, trying to hide the details of her life from Jesus, trying to keep the conversation at arm’s length, trying to keep the discussion a safe distance from being about herself.

So, perhaps our first impression on hearing John chapter 4 once again

is of the kindness, the deep sympathy, the deep concern, of Jesus for this woman and her circumstances.

But as always in John’s gospel, there are many levels here,

much that lies just beneath the surface,

and when we consider these deeper things,

we begin to come to a deeper understanding of the gospel.

For yes, as a first impression, we are struck by the kindness, the sympathetic listening of Jesus, but there is much more going on here than first meets the eye……..

What else is going on here ? One recent commentator has written: the conversation between Jesus and the woman…..gives us a remarkable insight into how readily Jesus put aside social and religious norms for the sake of genuine engagement. Or to put it another way, there are other, personal, social, political realities apparent here in the gospel

When we read the passage once again, they start to come to light

Beginning with the woman herself. Some scholars have suggested that the timing of her visit to the well in the heat of the day (12 noon), was rather strange. Few women would venture down to the well at such a time. It has been suggested that the woman came to the well at this time as a deliberate ploy to avoid the other women in the village, which suggests that she may have been a women with a dubious reputation. That’s one reality.

And we then also begin to see that there are other realities present here, in the way the woman replies to Jesus: in verses 9, 20

v. 9, You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan, how can you ask me for a drink ?

v.20 Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem…

in just a few minutes conversation many of her prejudices come to light ……

Samaritan prejudices about the Jews………….

The reality was that there was real hostility between Samaritans and Jews and it was deeply rooted………it went back a long time. The people in Samaria, you see, had split away centuries before, and when the Babylonians took most of the people away into exile in Babylon, many of the Samaritans stayed where they were…. and when the Jews returned, they would have nothing to do with these Samaritans, as they thought them unclean, impure.

The Samaritans then built their own temple on Mt Gerazim, a rival to the Temple in Jerusalem. And during a famous uprising in the region, the Samaritans surrendered leaving the Jews to fight on alone. All of this contributed towards a deep hostility between the two………. finally the relationship between Samaritans and Jews lurched from bad to worse. When,

sometime between AD 6 and 9 a group of Samaritans scattered bones in the Jerusalem Temple during Passover, defiling the Temple, wrecking the Passover festival……

Real enmity between Samaritans and Jews, deeply rooted hostility.

When we look more carefully at this passage that we begin to trace other realities of life here:

the personal realities of the woman’s life and relationships…………..

the social and political realities, of the hostility between Samaritan and Jew………

So, here is a deeper question:

What is the message of the gospel here ?

Is Jesus One who simply speaks gently and kindly,

in deepest sympathy with the woman at the well…..?

When He speaks to her about the reality of her numerous relationships with different men…. does Christ only amaze her by His wonderfully deep insight and sympathy and nothing more ? If so, then the woman’s situation is the same as before - she is still trapped in her circumstances……..

When Christ offers sympathy, and kindness, what of the ruinous divisions between Samaritan and Jew ?

What is the message of the gospel here ?

Is there a message that will deal with the deeper sinful personal and social realities that come to light in these verses ?

And I am convinced that that message is contained in these brief but all encompassing 7 words of Jesus that we read recorded in verse 10

He said to her…….

If only you knew what God gives

What is it that God gives ?

John, has already answered that, drawing together the whole meaning of the Gospel in a few, short, sublime words, in chapter 3 verse 16,

What does God give ?

John tells us

God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son…

What is it that God gives ? He gives His only Son………

God’s love for this sinful world is so deep, so great, so infinite

that He sent His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ into this world,

not only to offer sympathy

but salvation.

Not to come simply as One with a listening ear,

but to be our Redeemer……..

This is what God gives us in Jesus…..

He is not One who offers only deep sympathy but……One who powerfully Redeems - through an all conquering confrontation with sin at the cross……

This is the message, the good news, the gospel message of the entire New Testament the 1st. Letter of John puts it like this:

This is love: God loved us

and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins……

Here is Paul in his own inimitable words in Romans 5.8:

God demonstrates His own love for us in this:

while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us !

The cross is the centre ….

where God restores the world to Himself,

and this happens through Jesus

who has stood in our place,

and has taken our sin upon Himself, once and for all.

He takes our sin upon Himself. This is how He has redeemed us

What is the message of the gospel as we read it here in John 4 ?

Well, when we read the whole of John’s gospel and his letters,

we find that God has dealt with the sinful life of that woman at the well,

with the sinful hostility of Samaritan and Jew

with the deeper personal and social realities of sin

at the cross,

there Christ has dealt with our sin, by taking our sin, upon Himself

John says:

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins

and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world….

As we read the New Testament we find that

from the very beginning this was God’s loving purpose,

this was the reason why He sent His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ into the world - it was to restore us !

And it is at the cross, finally, that the deep personal and social realities of sin

are handled, and dealt with,

It is at the cross, finally, that the sin of the woman at the well,

Samaritan and Jew,

our own sin,

and not only ours but also the sins of the whole world….

are dealt with………

and God has restored us to Himself

AMEN