God's Last Words

“JESUS TAKES A SELFIE”

JOHN 4: 5-15 NRSV

 

I have a pastor friend who once told me “He woke up late, so he put Red Bull in the coffee machine instead of water. He said he got halfway to the church before he realized he forgot his car.”

 

Have you ever realized that in Kenya the people are better at running than the water?

 

A man goes to his doctor because he’s been feeling very ill for days. The doctor gives him several sets of pills. The doctor instructs; “Take the green pill with two big glasses of water when you get up. An hour later, take the white pill with another glass of water. Take the blue pill with a big glass of water after lunch. Mid afternoon, take the orange pill with plenty of water, and repeat that at dinner. Then, just before going to bed, take the red pill with several big glasses of water.”

 

The man is alarmed at huge volume of medicine he has been given to take, and nervously asks, “What’s the diagnosis? What’s wrong with me?” The doctor says, “You’re dehydrated. The pills are actually M&M’s.”

 

A minister is stopped by a state trooper for speeding. The trooper smells alcohol on his breath and sees an empty wine bottle on the floor. The trooper asks, “Sir, have you been drinking?” And the minister says, “Just water.”

 

The trooper says, “Then why do I smell wine?” And the minister looks down at the bottle and says, “Good Lord, He’s done it again!”

 

George went to visit his elderly cousin Darrel and while eating the breakfast of eggs and bacon prepared for him, he noticed a film-like substance on his plate. So he says, "Cousin, are these plates clean?" Darrel replies, "Those plates are as clean as “cold water” can get them."

 

That afternoon, while eating the hamburgers Darrel made for lunch, he noticed many little black specks around the edge of his plate so again he asked, "Are you sure these plates are clean?" Without looking up from his burger Darrel says, "I told you those dishes are as clean as “cold water” can get them."

 

Later that day, they were on their way out to get dinner and Darrel's dog, who was lying on the floor started to growl, and would not let him pass."Darrel, your dog won’t let me pass." Darrel shouted, "Cold Water, get out of the way!"

 

I have just shared with you these five different illustrations of the use of water in a story. Jesus used many different word examples during His ministry to speak truth to the world. He spoke either figuratively and literally.

 

To discern Biblical meaning sometimes requires knowing which. Today’s Gospel lesson uses the words “living water.” But what the heck is “living water?” And what does a tourist spot and a beautiful woman have to do with it?

 

^S5Hear John 4: 5-15; So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. ⁷A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

 

⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) ¹⁰Jesus 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.”

 

¹¹The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”

 

¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but 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.”

 

¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

 

The tourist site is called “Jacob’s Well.” It’s history (from  Genesis 33: 18) is that when Jacob came to Shechem on his return from Paddanaram he camped east of the city, and bought the land on which he had spread his tent, buried Joseph, and dug a well. (Gen 33:18).

 

On the other side of the vale, close to the base of Gerizim, is the well universally known as Bir Ya`qub, "the well of Jacob."

 

Early in the 19^th century the ground was bought by the authorities of the Greek Church, and it has been surrounded by a wall, and a chapel. It’s a tourist site today.

 

Looking at the text the word used for drink is “pinō,” (pē'-nō) which means to figuratively receive into the soul what serves to refresh, strengthen, and nourish it into eternal life.

 

The word translated as water (hydrōō) refers to the primary element, out of and through which the world that was before the deluge, arose and was compacted. It means the water of creation. The text literally tells us that Jesus is the “creative drinking water” of the world, through which things are made whole and perfect, and will last forever.

 

Jesus is announcing His presence at one of the historically blessed places in Israel, and sharing God’s plan to renew His presence and relationship with the whole world, and not just the Jews.

 

There is a beautiful woman there at the well. How do I know the woman was beautiful? The woman had to be beautiful because later on the scriptures tell us she has been married six times. Think of such women of our times: Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Zsa Zsa Gabor (?).
 

But she is not just a woman. She stands for the “alien” faith (a faith that has strayed away from God) that is among us and how we have forgotten who God our Creator is. This distraction is often very attractive or beautiful to us.

 

But the example of how she responds to Jesus in the rest of Chapter four is the real story for us. She experiences the progressive stages of faith in Jesus we all must go through:

 

She meets Jesus; she learns from and about him; she comes to believe in him; and she goes and tells other people about him in witness.

 

Can you see Jesus and this woman meeting by the tourist site, taking pictures and discussing matters of faith? Can you see Jesus and the woman taking a quick photo (a selfie) to hang on the mantle?
 

Friends Jesus was God and Jesus was a man. Jesus lived on earth and travelled around in ministry to others. He went out into the community, and met people in their places in society. Some interactions are more figurative than literal. Jesus meeting a foreign woman is literal and Jesus telling her who He is figurative.
 

We have to see both to understand the concept of living water. Jesus is the source of living, creative water, that restores us to eternal life.

 

Let’s read the rest of the Samaritan woman’s story:

 

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” ¹⁷The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

 

¹⁹The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

 

²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

 

 ²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ²⁶Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

 

²⁷Just 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?”

 

²⁸Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” ³⁰They left the city and were on their way to him.

 

³¹Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³²But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” ³⁴Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. ³⁵Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’?


But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. ³⁶The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.

³⁷For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

³⁹Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days.

⁴¹And many more believed because of his word. ⁴²They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”    Amen.