Series: “Encounters With Christ”
“The Woman at the Well”

Take your Bible and turn to John, chapter 4. It's about 12 noon. Jesus is tired and thirsty. He had been in Judea with His disciples, baptizing. But the Pharisees (a Jewish religious group) were starting to turn on Him, so He decided to head north to Galilee. He did something hardly any devout Jew would do: He went right through Samaria. Jews hated Samaritans and had no dealings with them. They regarded them as half-breeds. It was a prejudice that went back hundreds of years. Most Jews would by-pass Samaria, even though it took twice as long. Not Jesus!

He comes to a well outside the town of Sychar and sits there in the hot noonday sun, while His disciples go into town for food. A woman comes to the well - a Samaritan woman. It's
surprising that she’s there. Why, come at noon, when most women would draw water in the morning or evening when it's cooler? We’ll see in a minute why she didn’t want to come when other women would be around.

Jesus says, “Give me a drink” (John 4:7). It's hard for us to grasp what an astounding thing Jesus just did! First of all, Jesus was a Jew, and He was associating with a Samaritan! Second, Jesus was a man…a teacher, a rabbi. Rabbis were forbidden to greet a woman in public (even if it was your own wife or daughter or sister). Especially, as we’ll find out, a woman of questionable character!

But isn’t that Jesus! It doesn’t matter who you are or what kind of person you are, Jesus will talk to you and associate with you. He isn’t hung up on racism, or male dominance (sexism). He isn’t hemmed in by the biases or prejudices that we are! If He had been at Warwick High School last October when the racial incidents occurred, there’d be no doubt which side He would have been on!

Jesus said, "Give me a drink", and "the Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?'" (verse 9). Look at Jesus’ response: "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'" (verse 10).
Jesus is saying, “If you really knew who I am, and what God can give you through Me, you’d have asked me, and I would have given you something to satisfy your spiritual thirst. I’d give you living water!” The prophet Jeremiah, e.g., spoke of God as the “fountain of living waters” (Jeremiah 2:13).

She doesn’t get the point. She thinks he’s talking about running water as opposed to stagnant water. She says to Him, “You don’t have any bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get this running water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who built this well because there was no other water nearby?” Look at Jesus’ reply: "Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life'" (verses 13-14). I can give you something to satisfy your deepest need for God, something that will last for eternity!
The woman says, “Give me this water, so that I won’t have to keep coming back every day to this well!” See, she still doesn’t get it! There are a lot of people like her! They have no spiritual base support for life. They're spiritually bewildered. And they don’t have a clue what they need – they’re trying to find happiness and fulfillment in all kinds of material, earthly things!

Jesus doesn’t give up on her. He tries a different approach: "Jesus said to her, 'Go, call your husband, and come back'" (verse 16). “I don’t have a husband”, she responds. She’s right about that. But she only tells half the story! "The woman answered him, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right in saying, "I have no husband"; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!'" (verses 17-18). So that’s why she came to the well at noon, when probably no one else would be around! She didn't want to have to put up with the dirty looks, and the whispering behind her back. “There’s so-and-so…..rumor has it that she’s working on
husband number 6…ha ha ha!” Jesus, You sure know how to cut to the chase. No beating around the bush with you!

We don’t know all the details about this lady’s life. But every indication is that she isn’t exactly a model of morality, or the poster girl for happy marriages! Jesus wants to change her and give her abundant life, but He knows in order for that to happen she’s going to have to come to grips with her own sins and shortcomings. I mean, 5 husbands! Living together with some guy who could be husband #6! We can understand if, maybe, one marriage goes sour. Everybody makes mistakes. If a second marriage fails, you begin to wonder if it’s really “the other person’s fault”. But five marriages down the tube – it can’t be that you just happened to get five bad men!

You would think this would prompt some deep soul searching, some honest self-evaluation on her part. But is she ready for that? It doesn’t seem like she is. "The woman said to him, 'Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem'" (verses 19-20). Er….ah….let’s not talk about my personal life here…let’s talk about religion! She'd rather get into a theoretical discussion on which is the proper mountain to worship rather than looking at her own sin and need.

Sometimes we can use church involvement and religion as a way to avoid taking responsibility for our life, and coming to grips with our need to change.

One of the things that we have to do before Christ can live inside of us and take control of us is to own up to the things in our life that are wrong or sinful. There's no salvation without true repentance, and a willingness to change the way we live! Someone has said, “Jesus will forgive sin, but only if we face it and admit it. He will not tolerate our deceitfulness.”

Jesus pretty much brushes off her discussion about which is the proper mountain on which to worship. He zeroes in on the condition of heart and soul. "Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews'" (verses 21-22). Something Jesus says begins to touch this woman’s soul. "The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah is coming' (who is called Christ), 'When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us'" (verse 25). Then Jesus' great claim: "I am he, the one who is speaking to you" (verse 26).

At that point Jesus' disciples get back. "Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, 'What do you want?' or 'Why are you speaking with her?'" (verse 27). There is this awkward moment when they
see Jesus talking to this woman, and they are so startled that they don’t know what to say! (Sort of like if you opened the door to a room at work and there were 2 employees kissing).
She leaves her water jar there, and heads off!

Whatever happened to this woman? Something must have taken place inside of her as a result of her encounter with Jesus. "Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 'Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?'" (verses 28-29). Her testimony and witness affected a whole city! "Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me everything I have ever done'" (verse 39).

How about that! It seemed like Jesus was not getting through to this woman at all! But He was!

Do you fit into this story at all? Are you in any way like the woman at the well? Your response is probably, "Heck no. Don’t insult me. I haven’t been divorced 5 times. I’m not a person of shameful character. For gosh sake, give me a break!” But we don’t have to be immoral or a scum bag to be far from God, or spiritually dull, or lost in our sins.

There are sins of the flesh – sexual sins, drunkenness, filthy language, things like that. But there are other sins just as bad, sins of attitude and spirit – jealousy, pride, a critical spirit, self-righteousness. I have a friend who before his conversion to Christ lived a wild life.
He played in a professional band that did coast-to-coast broadcasts. There was a lot of drinking and chasing women. They used to go out at night and ride around in a car shooting out street lights with pistols. Then my friend came to Christ and that all stopped. His wife later became a Christian. He once told me, “She says she really hasn’t changed that much since she was converted, that she didn't need to change like I did, but she used to nag me all the time, but now it’s different.”

The woman at the well…what a great story in the Bible! First of all, it shows us that Jesus loves all kinds of people and wants to offer life to all. Most people would have gone out of their way to avoid contact with this woman. Not Jesus. He got up close and personal to offer her a new life, eternal life. When I was in Kenya, I preached late one afternoon at an open-air evangelistic service. I used this story of the Samaritan woman as my text. During the week in my preaching course, 4 or 5 of the students preached. And I noticed their sermons tended to be rather negative and judgmental. I tried to remind them that the gospel is “good news” – we are heralds of good news! So I wanted to demonstrate that in my own preaching. I talked about how Jesus saw potential in this woman, and how He brought the best out of her. I tried to make my message very positive.

Afterwards I heard that some men who made their living by giving bicycle rides were listening to my message (their “station” was near where the service was held), and they said that’s the first time any preacher had ever spoken, and had not condemned them because of their low paying occupation. I felt good about that! Because Jesus was one who reached out to all kinds of people, not to condemn them, but to offer them life.

No matter who you are, what you are, what you’ve been, He is interested in you and He loves you.

Then, Jesus wants to give us water that will quench our souls for all eternity. He said, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (verses 13-14).

There was a newspaper article about a criminal on the run, who gave himself up because he was thirsty! The police had the man surrounded, and he gave up and came out of his hiding place when they offered him a Pepsi! Some of us are running from God, and we’re thirsty. Give yourself up and over to Jesus and let Him give you something better than a Pepsi to satisfy your soul! Whatever you may gain in this life can’t satisfy your deepest inward spirit like the water that Christ offers!

A songwriter put it this way,

“Like the woman at the well I was seeking, for things that could not satisfy;
And then I heard my Savior speaking: ‘Draw from My well that never shall run dry.’
Fill my cup, Lord, I lift it up, Lord! Come and quench the thirsting of my soul;
Bread of heaven, feed me ‘til I want no more –
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.”

And then, once an encounter with Jesus changes us, it's something worth sharing!
That's what the woman at the well did!

You’ve heard of Mr. Heinz and his 57 varieties. One day after an evangelistic service the speaker turned to him and said, “You are a believer, but with all your energy why aren’t you up and at it for the Lord.” Heinz went home in anger. That night he couldn’t sleep. At 4 o’clock in the morning he prayed that God would use him to lead others to Christ. A day or so later at a meeting of bank presidents, he turned to the man next to him and told him of his joy in knowing Jesus. His friend looked at him in surprise and said, “I knew you were a Christian. I’ve wondered many times why you never spoke to me about salvation.” That man became the first of 267 converts – people from all walks of life – whom Mr. Heinz eventually won to Christ.

Once we experience the life-changing power of Jesus, it's something worth sharing!

Harry L. Kaufhold, Jr.
Sermon preached at Lititz United Methodist Church,
February 10, 2008

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