ICE WATER LIVING WATER
Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>
September 28, 2003
Evening Service
Text: John 4:9-15
Being served a glass of ice water in restaurants today is not only not
unusual, but also expected. Except in areas of our country where drought
is severe enough, we know that we will get some water when we sit down to
eat. Usually, someone will work to keep the glass filled. Even in
drought-stricken areas, the patron can still request water with the meal.
This has not always been the case. In 1929, Ted Hustead graduated from
pharmacy school. In 1931, he and his wife, Dorothy, decided to open a
drugstore in a small town that had a church of their faith. After much
searching, they settled in the little town of Wall, South Dakota. They
were criticized by their family and friends for their decision, but they
believed this was where God meant for them to be. They opened their
store, but business was slow. After all, it was the time of depression
and drought. They needed something to stimulate business. One very hot,
dry day, Dorothy was watching the cars pass by on the highway and the
thought occurred to her: "Those folks would like a glass of ice water!"
She mentioned the thought to Ted. They made signs that read FREE ICE
WATER AT WALL DRUG and installed them along the highway. Many people
stopped to have a glass of ice water and to rest
Free ice water is still
served. Water can be a blessing to those who offer it and to those who
receive it. (The Secret Place, Fri., Jul. 29, 1988, p. 38)
Nearly a couple of thousand years ago, Jesus had an encounter at a well,
and he talked about water - a special kind of water, it turns out. The
meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well is a fairly
well-known passage. It has been used as a model in many contexts,
particularly in the field of pastoral counseling. The passage does offer
some significant insights into mechanics of a pastoral counseling
encounter, but it also conveys a spiritual truth that should not be lost
in the other methods of study. It is here that Jesus said something that
he usually did not make known in his early ministry: he acknowledged
himself to be the Messiah and alluded to what that meant.
Jesus was traveling with his disciples and passed through Sychar, in
Samaria. We are told that "Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he
was from the journey, sat down by the well." In Jesus, God connected with
His people as never before. We know from the "Christmas" portion of the
Bible that he was called Immanuel, which means "God with us." In trying
to describe Jesus, the early church confessions included the miraculous
concept that Jesus was "fully human and fully divine." Oftentimes, we are
in the habit of setting aside Christ's humanity. Yet, without it, we have
no more of a Savior than if we subtract out his divinity. Jesus was tired
from the journey. He was worn out, hungry and thirsty. So "God with us"
sat down to rest.
A tired Christ is meaningful to us. It means that he understands our
tiredness, our drudgery, our finiteness. God had always proclaimed
Himself approachable in some way by His people; now, in Christ, He proved
that He was. In taking on the flesh of humanity, God faced the limits of
the flesh. But, as He shared a little later with the Samaritan woman, He
also showed that the spirit could overcome the limits of the flesh. In
this we find a source of hope.
While resting his weary bones by Jacobs well, a woman came to draw some
water. Jesus was alone, his disciples having gone into town to buy some
food. He asked the Samaritan for a drink, which prompted a surprised
response. "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me
for a drink?" By speaking to her, Jesus broke rabbinical law. In the eyes
of many others of his day, he made himself impure by simply asking the
wrong person for a drink of water. Jesus knew better than to place his
faith in all that nonsense. He may have been constrained by fleshly
limits, but he was certainly not about to be constrained by a dead
spirit. As he showed throughout his ministry, the grace of God easily
broke the bonds of human enslavement.
"If you knew the gift of God and who it is who asks you for a drink, you
would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "If you
knew." The words are so applicable to so much of human distress. How many
novels and plays carry an "if you only knew" theme? If only Romeo had
known that Juliet only drank a drug that let her simulate death, he would
never have killed himself beside her.
Such a theme applies to far more than just literature, though. If we only
knew that clearing off vast amounts of hillsides created washouts and
floods, then we could have prevented such tragedies beforehand. If we
only knew that living out a loose sexual morality could cause so much
suffering and death, then perhaps such a philosophy would have been
avoided. If we only knew that God cared for us, then we could avoid the
traps of all kinds of cults.
The truth is that we can know. Sometimes this knowledge is obscured by
others' lies and/or our own fears, but, nonetheless, we can know. A
thousand and one honest financial advisers will tell us that the higher
the potential return of an investment, the higher the risk. Yet, for some
reason, city managers in more than a dozen states two decades ago decided
to believe a man named Wymer who promised of a high return with no risk.
What did they get when the economy turned sour back then? A lot of legal
battling to try to recoup funds entrusted to that man.
Jesus said, "If you knew the gift of God..." She wanted to know. All of
us want to know. But, like her, we try to shift the focus of the
revelation, because it means that we will likely have to alter the way we
behave. Even good news can be frightening when we don't know what lies
ahead. Of course the challenges come: "You have nothing to draw with...
Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father
Jacob...?"
Well, of course he was. He was much greater than Jacob or anyone else who
ever used that well. But he was also greater than all of the ideological
differences that surrounded that well. Even though they were sort of
distant cousins, the Jews and Samaritans did not get along. Among their
differences was the correct place to worship. Yet all of this did not
deflect Jesus from his point. "Everyone who drinks this water," he
responded, "will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give
him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a
spring of water welling up to eternal life." Living water, according to
Jesus, is better than well water. It is even better than ice water, and
ice water can be pretty good sometimes.
But even then, the woman failed to grasp the complete picture. Still
thinking in worldly terms - and who doesn't? - she imagined that with
such water she would no longer have to make those long trips to the well
in the heat of the day. We, too, fail to grasp the complete picture
whenever we approach Jesus with the attitude that, by virtue of doing so,
we have freed ourselves from ill health, economic downturns, or major
disappointments. God is not a good luck charm. He is God, and what He
says about Himself in the Scriptures is more important than what we
imagine Him to be. I have noted on occasion that it is my observation
that part of the difficulty people have in believing in God stems from
trying to have an adult faith based on childhood Bible stories. There's
certainly nothing wrong with learning Bible stories as children. They are
all true and good. The problems come when people continue to grow in body
but not in spirit. Their image of God becomes lopsided and incomplete
simply because they stopped their discovery of God years ago.
Noah's ark; Daniel in the lions' den; David and Goliath; Elijah on Mt.
Carmel; Jesus walking on the water. All these are important Bible
stories, but they are only a small portion of the entire Bible. And
usually what we remember about them from childhood is not the major point
that God was trying to make. Like the Labrador Retriever that gets real
big even though still a puppy, there are a lot of adults with big bodies
and baby spirits. Their spiritual growth has not kept up with their
physical growth.
The gospel message - the good news message - tries to correct that. Jesus
tries to correct it here with the Samaritan woman. God came in the flesh
as Jesus to give living water to our thirsting spirits. As vital as water
is to the sustenance of our lives, living water is much more important,
for it sustains our spirit and our relationship with the living God. Dr.
Arthur Gossip writes, "Again and again, Christ was plainly disappointed
that people, eager enough for his physical cures and material benefits,
had so little appetite for and interest in the spiritual gifts he offered
them, and which they knew to be vastly more worth while. 'You seek me for
the loaves and the fishes,' he once said sadly (6:26). Or on another
occasion it was as though he said, 'Your only interest in me is that you
think I might be a judge and divider, redistributing material things, and
giving you a bigger share in them' (Luke 12:13-14)." (Arthur Gossip, The
Interpreter's Bible, vol. 8, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1952, p. 525)
Jesus, recognizing the woman's confusion or misinterpretation, kept her
on track by revealing something about her life that, apparently, a
stranger would not have known. And so, having been thus confronted, the
Samaritan woman concludes that Jesus is a prophet. Yet, again, she evades
the issue of living water by reminding this prophet of the controversy
that exists between the two peoples. "Our fathers worshiped on this
mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in
Jerusalem." Maybe the woman was on the verge of hoping for the living
water, but was afraid that she would end up only hearing the same old
argument that had been around for generations. And, of course, if
receiving the living water meant turning her back on her people and going
to Jerusalem, then it was probably not going to happen.
Still Jesus dealt with her compassionately. He didn't say, "Fine. Stick
to your old notions and arguments and remain stuck in the rut. Keep
heading on that road to destruction and death." Instead, he offered his
truth. He offered this woman more than he had offered to his disciples!
"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will
worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of
worshipers the Father seeks."
"Woman!" Jesus declares in his own way. "Even now you stand in the midst
of the kingdom of God. God wants people who recognize that and worship
Him like He is in their midst, because He is." At this point, the woman,
in all her hoping, became really bold: "I know that Messiah is coming."
The unasked question rang out clearly: "Are you that Messiah? Is it you
who will explain everything to us?" Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to
you am he."
Jesus poured out his living water upon this woman. Here is the
declaration that not even his disciples yet knew - or perhaps knew and
misinterpreted - being given to a Samaritan woman of ill-repute! Why
would Jesus do such a thing? Why reveal his glory to such a worldly
woman? Because he knew that she wanted that living water. Ice water is
good, but Christ's living water is better. It saves and fills up to
thirst in spirit no more. This woman knew what it meant to be withered
and thirsty in spirit, to be used and cast aside by her own people, and
now, before her very eyes the Messiah gave her the living water of
salvation. And she responded. So overjoyed was she that she didn't even
bother to take her water jug back with her. No wonder, looking back over
his ministry and the people he had met along the way, Jesus told those in
the temple during his final days, "I tell you the truth, the tax
collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of
you." (Matt. 21:31)
Living water is just that - living. This woman had met the Messiah. She
saw him and spoke with him. And from that point, she lived for him. The
water she had been given became a spring of water welling up to eternal
life. Look at what she did for others in verses 39-42: "Many of the
Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's
testimony, 'He told me everything I ever did.' So when the Samaritans
came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.
And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the
woman, 'We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have
heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of
the world.'"
What Jesus did for the Samaritan woman, he also does for us. We, too,
have known thirst, and many know that Jesus can relieve it. He comes with
the living water of salvation. All who thirst need to drink from him.
"Indeed, the water I give him will become a spring of water welling up to
eternal life."
Rev. Charles A. Layne, pastor, First Baptist Church, Bunker Hill, IN
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