Scripture: John 4:16-22
Date: November 27, 2011
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Broken living always grows from broken worshipping; worship is like the wheels on a shopping cart, if the wheel is broken it’s just a matter of time before the cart crashes. When a person’s worship is broken, their life will inevitably be broken as well. In John 4, Jesus pursues a broken worshipper. The woman at the well was a mess. Her life was broken. She had five failed marriages, a serial adulterer. She was a Samaritan, considered a religious half-breed, a spiritual adulterer by the Jews.
Jesus meets her at Jacob’s well at noon. He was traveling through Samaria after leaving Judea because some of the Pharisees heard that He was making and baptizing more disciples than John the Baptist, whom they didn’t think too highly of either. Jesus purposefully cuts through Samaria, purposefully stops at this well, and purposefully sends all His disciples into the city to buy food.
The woman comes alone in the middle of the day. Women usually came to draw water when it was cooler, in the morning or evening. They also usually came in groups. The facts that she’s alone clues us to something problematic, which Jesus will expose in verses 16-26.
When He asked for a drink, the woman stiff-armed Him with religious protocol. Instead of fighting with her, Jesus offers her a different sort of drink: “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” (John 4:10).
The woman didn’t get it. She observes that He has no bucket and the well is deep. He’s trying to get her to think about two things: first, the gift of God, which is living water and second, who He is, the giver of the water.
As for the gift, the living water, it quenches a certain sort of thirst forever: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again” (verse 14). Not only that, but “the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (verse 14). This gift satisfied the heart’s desire and makes the soul wet.
The woman is so parched she doesn’t even recognize her thirst. She asks for water so that she wouldn’t have to come back to the well again, and Jesus responds in verse 16. It may seem as if He changes the subject and, on one hand, He does. There is no further discussion of the “living water,” at least not in those terms. But He goes after her heart’s thirst just the same.
Even though it seems on the surface as if He switches the subject, Jesus presses down the same path. The woman doesn’t understand who He is or what He offers her, and this puts her in position to grasp her need for what He has.
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” (verse 16)
He tells her to do three things. First He tells her to Go , which could have been her escape. Next He tells her to call her husband , which He knew that she couldn’t possibly do. And then He tells her to come (back) here . That’s what she said she wanted to avoid (verse 15), “so that I will not…have to come here.” It may not have been a convenience issue, it may have been a social stigma issue. If she could just stay at home she wouldn’t have to interact or talk to anyone else.
Jesus goes after the most painful part of this woman’s heart; He couldn’t have put her soul in a more vulnerable position.
She answers with the minimum, though with honesty.
The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” (verse 17 a)
She could have said, “Okay” and then left without intent to return. Instead, she stays and speaks the truth, which Jesus will acknowledge. I have no husband . It’s not a complete answer but it is open. She’s giving this stranger a foot into the door of her broken house.
He accepts her answer but fills in what she leaves out, the unabridged version.
Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” (verses 17b-18)
Based on what she left out, it’s interesting that Jesus says, You are right or “well (καλῶς) you have said” and that what she spoke was true (ἀληθὲς), honest. Because, she did and she didn’t. Rather than make her say it, He affirms her answer in order to gently point out the emptiness of her answer.
It was true, she did not currently have a husband, but she did have a boyfriend, a man she was living with in fornication. More than that, she had had five husbands . Jesus doesn’t say how those marriages ended. Maybe all five men died, though that seems unlikely. Probably, she had been married and divorced five times.
There is no way to do that with dignity. It’s impossible that she could be married five times and now living with a man and have everything okay with her heart. Though she wasn’t Jewish, the Rabbinic code condemned marrying more than three spouses. Jesus was pressing the wound.
Her life was a mess. No wonder she came by herself. No wonder she reacted in a defensive way when Jesus engaged her. She was involved in serial relationships, serial sex, seeking to make sense, seeking satisfaction in men.
Now she was at a point where it wasn’t worth it to bother with marriage. the [man] you now have is not your husband . Five failed marriages and now just fornication.
Note that Jesus said she spoke well and truly when she clearly did not tell Him all the truth. He’s being gracious even while exposing her broken life. Even his exposure of her sin was for her good. He’s going after her because He knows she really needs the living water. He knows her thirst better than she did.
Now she changes the subject, but she doesn’t realize how connected the subjects are after all.
The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” (verses 19-20)
He got her attention if nothing else. She’s doesn’t deny or qualify what He said; her acknowledgment confirms it. She figures that Jesus is a prophet , that He had supernatural insight, not that He had done reconnaissance work on her prior to this meeting.
Then, she seems to switch to a safer subject that appears completely irrelevant to her adulteries: the place for worship. She makes the statement, perhaps thinking that this would get Jesus fired up that He would forget about picking at her painful past. Who doesn’t prefer talking religion over talking about their personal sin? Arguing over doctrinal details is always easier than repentance.
At the same time, what if she began to realize her guilt and wanted to do something about it? Where would she go to make sacrifices and atone for her sins? Jews and Samaritans answered that question differently.
Our fathers , the Samaritan tradition, taught that worship was to take place on Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans only recognized the Pentateuch and not the rest of the Old Testament. The first altar Abraham built was near Mt. Gerizim at Shechem (Genesis 12:6-7) and Jacob also built an alter in the same place (Genesis 33:20). They believed Moses’ blessing in Deuteronomy 11:29, “And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.”
This was an old fight. She says, you say , a plural pronoun, taking Jesus as a representative of the Jews. Israelites say that it is necessary to worship in Jerusalem. The rest of the OT adds more, including David’s desire to build a temple and Solomon’s finishing of the work in Jerusalem. It was the only place. As I mentioned last week, the Jews destroyed the rival temple of the Samaritans in AD 129.
What Jesus says next, no Samaritan or Israelite could have expected.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. (verse 21)
The first thing that makes Jesus’ answer unexpected is that He follows her diversion. He doesn’t rebuke her. This passage is not primarily teaching us how to do evangelism but, if He was trying to follow a tidy outline, she was running away from it. Encounters with those who love darkness cannot be predicted beyond knowing that they will try anything to stay in the darkness. When you turn on the light, things scatter. This woman is scurrying.
Jesus goes with her. On one hand, He can because He can. On the other hand, worship issues are connected with life issues.
Jesus says, Believe me, woman, an hour is coming , eschatological, end-times speak, when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father . Geographical location won’t be the issue.
It’s odd that this Jew says Jerusalem isn’t central. Of course, the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70. Jesus explained that His body would be the temple of God in John 2:19-22. It’s also odd that He speaks about worshipping the Father rather than “God.” He’s teaching her what she really needs to know.
You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. (verse 22)
This is a devastating yet demonstrable truth. Jesus is referring to all the Samaritans while addressing the woman. The Samaritans were ignorant of God’s plan and their worship was ignorant. This is why her life is a mess: her worship is a mess.
Her worship is limited, not receiving all of the Scripture. Her worship is place focused rather than presence focused. Her worship is concerned more with the traditions of “our fathers” than with the Father. She has ritual, not relationship, details to be defensive about, just like her life. She speaks about true things in a way that totally misses the point.
Worship that doesn’t understand God isn’t true worship. Sincerity doesn’t solve the problem.
This is not to say that the Jews knew what they worshipped either.
”I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.” They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” (John 8:18–19)
Nevertheless, salvation is from the Jews . The Jews are part of God’s redeeming plan, not only because the Messiah would be an Israelite, but because they are God’s chosen nation. He made an eternal covenant with them. Salvation is for the Jew first.
They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 9:4–5)
Yet the salvation of Israel will lead to salvation for many Gentiles.
many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go the law,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
(Isaiah 2:3)
We’ll finish the paragraph next Sunday morning, Lord willing. Jesus will explain that He knows true worship, He knows the Father, He knows how salvation comes: through Himself, the Messiah, the One who could give her living water, who could help her get to the Father in spirit and truth.
Men are made to worship because they are made with a soul thirst. The woman could not be satisfied in heart because she didn’t know what she worshipped. Not knowing the Father led her to not knowing what to do with her life. She had no orientation, no direction, no stability, and she was thirsty.
Adultery led to arguments. Adoration (worship) was the answer. Adoration (drinking the living water) is the best argument.
Are you broken? Things in your life a mess? So is your worship, and Jesus is the one who makes abundant life and true worship possible.
The Father is seeking worshippers, He is seeking to give living water. He sent His Son to take away the sin of the world, even multiple divorces and adulteries and fornications from a heathen woman. The Son, the Savior, the Prophet, the Messiah, the life-giver is here. Believe in Him.