Lay Your Buckets Down
John 4:1-26,
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
Before we get into the story here in John 4, and the conversation with the Samaritan woman, I just wanted you to see something unusual and beautiful here about Jesus.
In the last chapter, Jesus is ministering to a curious Pharisee, a teacher of the law, a ruler of the Jews — untouchable. And yet Jesus reaches out to him to invite him in, answer his questions, and challenge his thinking, to draw him into the kingdom. This is a guy from the highest, most intellectual, most religious stratosphere of society. . . . And then here, just a few verses later, he’s stopping to minister to a sexually-immoral, socially-alienated woman — untouchable. And yet Jesus reaches out to her, engages her questions, and invites her to drink from his fountain of living water.
These two couldn’t be more different. He’s a Jew, a leader in society, steeped in Scripture, rigorously observing the law; he’s a man and he comes at night, and we know his name: Nicodemus. She’s a Samaritan, and an outcast even in Samaria, in and out of relationships with men, far less familiar with God’s law; she’s a woman and they meet in broad, scorching daylight; and we don’t even get her name. These two people couldn’t be more different — and I believe that’s utterly intentional. What do I take from it?
It doesn’t matter who you are this morning, Jesus has something to say to you. It doesn’t matter if you’re a politician or a prostitute, a priest or a thief, a CEO, a stay-at-home mom, or a college student, a Jew, a Samaritan, or a lifelong Minnesotan — Jesus has something to say to you this morning: something convicting and renewing, something hard and something really, really good. It was true with Nicodemus, and it’s true here with this woman, and it’ll be true here in this room — if we have ears to hear him.
Give Me a Drink
Okay so we read here, verses 1–3, that Jesus leaves Judea because of pressure from the Pharisees (they were getting jealous and angry), and so he heads for Galilee. And you had to go through Samaria to get to Galilee. But “Samaria” was a bad word for Jews. Jews hated Samaritans, and Samaritans hated Jews.
But he had to pass through Samaria to get to Galilee, and as he did, he gets tired from all the walking, and so he finds a well where he can stop and get a drink. It’s the sixth hour (probably about noon), the hottest part of the day. No one draws water at noon in Samaria. They come earlier or later in the day when it’s cooler. No one comes at this time. But while he’s there, a woman stops at the well. A “woman of Samaria,” so this is Mrs. Bad Word. And as we’ll find out in a minute, she’s here at the well in the hottest part of the day for a reason. She’s likely ashamed to be around the other women — because of all the men she’s been with.
Despite all that, Jesus says to her, verse 7,
“Give me a drink.”
You can tell how surprising it was for him to even talk to her, because of how she responds, verse 9:
“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)”
No dealings. Not even a cup of water in the heat of the day.
Why did Jews and Samaritans hate one another? In the beginning, the nation of Israel had twelve tribes, one each for the twelve sons of Jacob. And the capitol of that nation was (and is) Jerusalem. And Israel still had twelve tribes when Solomon was king, but when he died and his son Rehoboam took over, he ruled badly and alienated 10 of the 12 tribes. So those ten split off in a mutiny against Jerusalem. They formed a new northern kingdom, and they made Jeroboam their king. That makes them traitors in Jerusalem. And Samaria was the capital of traitor nation.
Foreigners moved into the northern kingdom, and they inter-married with the Jewish people, making the people less and less Jewish over time. Eventually that mixed race is called “Samaritans,” after the capitol city. For the Jews, it was synonymous with “half-breed” or “impure.” They despised Samaritans. One scholar writes,
“The ethnic and cultural boundary between the Jews and the Samaritans,” one scholar writes, “was every bit as rigid and hostile as the current boundary between Blacks and Whites in the most racist areas of the United States.” (From Every People and Nation, 163)
Imagine refusing someone something as small and critical as water, simply because of their ethnicity. That’s how malicious this rivalry was.
But Jesus isn’t offended. He answers, verse 10,
“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.”
You think you’ve got me figured out, that I’m like every other Jewish guy you’ve heard about, but you have no idea. If you knew who I was, you wouldn’t have waited for me to ask for a cup of water.
She’s of course confused, so she says,
“Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
This water’s been just fine, and for hundreds of years. As far as wells go, this is a great well. Why would I need different water? (And besides, if you had better water, what would you even put it in?)
To which he replies, Has this water really been enough for you? And if it has, why do you have to keep coming back here like you do? Here’s how he says it:
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
What do we learn about this “living water”? When you drink it, you’ll never be thirsty again. It might be hard for us to feel what this would have meant in that day. We have clean water everywhere we turn, coming out of every faucet in our homes. In that day, they had to carry these buckets back and forth, back and forth — for drinking, for cooking, for bathing. Water was a huge part of their lives. And Jesus says, you drink from my well, and you’ll never be thirsty again. You’ll never have to do this walk again. But he goes even further than that.
“The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
When you drink this water, you’ll never thirst and you’ll never die. You’re going to live forever.
The woman still doesn’t totally get it, as we’ll see, but she’s heard enough to be sold:
“Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Give me this eternal water service, the gallons just showing up at my house every day. I don’t want to come out here over and over and over again. I hate coming out here in the heat of the day. Please give me some of this special water you’re telling me about.
“Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’”
Seems straightforward enough. If you want what I’m offering, go grab your husband and we’ll talk more. It’s not straightforward, though, not at all — and Jesus knows that.
“The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’”
A little awkward, but not necessarily a problem (not yet). But, again, Jesus knows more than she thinks he does.
“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.’”
Okay, so we’re not really talking about water at all, are we? This isn’t about Jacob or buckets or H₂O. Her well was men. She had been trying to quench her thirst for love, for security, for life in the arms of romance. He asked her for a drink because he knew how thirsty she was. She was dying of thirst inside, and she had tried well after well after well — Greg, then Ryan, then Jared, then Dave, then Scott, then Tony (who knows what their names were). And she was still so thirsty. She was more thirsty than she was before she met the first guy.
Sin is the anti-well, the anti-fountain. And some of you are drinking there every day. Maybe you’re like this woman, and you’ve thrown yourself into relationship after relationship. Maybe your wells are online, in the dark places of the internet. Maybe you’re fostering some bitterness or anger. Maybe it’s indulging in alcohol, or over-eating, or binge-watching. The first time you put your bucket in, you got enough for a drink. And then a little less, and a little less, and a little less. Now you’re scraping the dirty bottom for a thimble, for a drip of water. But you’re so thirsty, so you keep trying. Put your bucket down. Whatever it is, put it down and walk away. Don’t drink there anymore! Come to the fountain of life and you’ll never be thirsty again.
And all you have to do is ask. Did you hear that in verse 10?
“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.”
Why would he give it? Because you asked. All you have to do is ask!
Right here, in these verses, is a well, a spring — and it will never fail you. You don’t even need your bucket anymore, because the well’s inside of you. “The water that I will give him will become in him” — in you — “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Which Well Will You Choose?
So which well will you choose? What’s keeping you from asking? What’s between you and the fountain right now?
Jesus overcomes three great hurdles, three great barriers in this story, the kinds of barriers that might be keeping you from coming to the fountain. Three great barriers, and you could summarize them like this: six husbands, two temples, one wall.
1. No Sin Is Too Great
First, six husbands. Well, five husbands and the boyfriend. But six men wasn’t too many. It might have gotten her canceled in town (she had to go draw water by herself in the heat of day), but six men didn’t disqualify her from this well. No, these six husbands tell us that no sin is too great. You know that, but I want you to know it. Some of you know it, but you don’t believe it. You don’t. You think your sins are too great, too bad, too many. This woman’s in the Bible to tell you that’s not true.
We don’t find out that she’s been with so many men until verse 18, but Jesus already knew in verse 1. He knew and he still stopped to talk to her. He still offered her a drink. He offered her the only drink she’d ever need, the one that would quench and heal all the aching dryness inside of her.
He wasn’t embarrassed to be seen with her. He wasn’t too ashamed of her to bear her sins and make her his own — if she would just ask.
So will you ask, will you forsake all your other wells, and drink from this fountain? Will you believe, repent, and be forgiven?
2. No Place Is Too Far
Second, two temples. When Jesus knows about all her husbands, she realizes he’s a prophet, and so she turns the conversation to how and where to worship. Verse 19:
“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.”
She’s bringing up an argument between Jews and Samaritans. When the northern kingdom split off from Judah and Jerusalem, they built their own temple on Mount Gerizim (that’s the mountain she mentions). The Jews in Jerusalem obviously didn’t think that temple was legit, though, and so that was another reason to hate each other.
She realizes this conversation’s not really about water, or even about her husbands, this is a conversation about worship. And worship happens, in her mind, in either that temple or that temple. Jesus says to her,
“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”
For hundreds and hundreds of years, God’s people worshiped in one big temple, a building — 150 feet tall and a million and a half square feet. It’s a big, massive dot on Google maps. But it’s one big dot. Not anymore, Jesus says. Up until now — up until me — you had to come to a place, a temple to offer right worship to God. Now, you can worship him anywhere. You can worship him at 1524 Summit Ave in St. Paul, Minnesota in a country that won’t even exist for another couple thousand years.
What do these two temples tell us in the story? That now, no place is too far. The hour has come when true worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth. True worshipers worship in spirit — not just with our hands, and knees, and gifts, but by the work of the Spirit inside of us. This is what Jesus just told us in the last chapter, verse 5:
“Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
And true worshipers worship in truth, that is, they worship according to how God has revealed himself in his word and in the Word made flesh, his Son. Those are the essential ingredients: God’s supernatural work in you by the Spirit and God’s supernatural revelation in the Bible, most fundamentally in Jesus. And now, in Jesus, if you worship in spirit and truth, you can worship God anywhere.
You don’t have to come to this building to worship Jesus. You should absolutely join a local church and faithfully attend their gatherings, but you can worship Jesus in the temple high on the mountain or down by a well in the heat of day, in the sanctuary on Sunday morning or alone in your bedroom on your knees. Because of Jesus, you can meet and worship God in any place. And one day soon he will be worshiped in every place, when his glory covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. No place is too far.
3. No Wall Is Too High
Third, the wall. Jesus calmed the raging storm with a word, and he brought down the mile-high racial-ethnic-religious wall between Jews and Samaritans with a drink of water (with less than a drink of water, because as far as we know, he never got the drink). This raging hostility — between Jews and Samaritans — this hostility tells us no wall is too high. This Jesus overcomes every conceivable boundary and hostility between us. So what walls seem too high today?
Are they in the Middle East or Asia? Jesus had to pass through Samaria — and he has to pass through Iraq, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. He has to pass through Cameroon, the Philippines, and Turkey, where our global partners serve right now. Those are high, high walls. And no wall’s too high. Why does he have to pass through those hard places? Matthew 24:14,
“This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
One day we will sing, Revelation 5:9,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
Do you want to reach an unreached people with the gospel, to help bring down walls around the world so that people dying of thirst might finally hear about Jesus? You won’t find a wall too high. Jesus can bring any wall down, and he can do it with a cup of water. How much more might he do through you?
You won’t find a wall too high in the Middle East, and you won’t find a wall too high in Minneapolis. In your neighborhood. In your family. These walls are a lot closer, so they might look and feel a lot higher, a lot thicker, (in the case of family) a lot more sensitive and painful.
How could God ever save him? Or her? There’s no sin too great, no place too far, and no wall too high. Do you still believe that — even for them?
The Father Is Seeking Worship
And why is no sin too great, no place too far, and no wall too high? Because, verse 23, the Father is seeking people like us to worship him.
“The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”
Despite all the barriers, it’s going to happen. Why? Because the God of heaven is out looking for them — he’s meeting them at wells and in temples, he’s finding them at big Christian conferences and in conversations at the gas station, he’s using parents and neighbors and little-league coaches and roommates and co-workers — he’s seeking. He’s seeking worshipers.
Does that sound selfish to you? “The Father is seeking worshipers.” If one of you talked that way, it would be gross, right? If I said, “Pastor Daniel is seeking worshipers who will worship him,” you’d say he shouldn’t be a pastor. We’d think he’d lost his mind. We don’t like people like this. So why is it any different with God? Why can he do everything he does for his own glory (and he does do everything he does for his glory)? And why can he tell us to do everything we do for his glory? (“Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”)
Because he’s worthy of all the glory — more than we could ever give him, more than the sun and moon and stars and mountains could ever say — and because his glory is the best news in the world for people like us.
Why do I find so much hope and comfort in him seeking worship? Because when this God finds a worshiper, he gives us the spring of living water in him. Worship is our well of living water. And if he wasn’t seeking, we’d never find him. That’s how blinding sin is. This God reveals his glory by satisfying the dry and weary souls of the undeserving, of the sinful. I want a God like that. And he’s the only one there is.
And this Father was so relentlessly committed to finding you, knowing you, saving you that he sent his Son into the world to die for you. The woman says, verse 25,
“I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”
And Jesus says to her (maybe the clearest, most shocking statement he makes about himself in all the Bible):
“I who speak to you am he.”
And in that moment, she hears what we’ve known since verse 1: The normal-looking Jewish man standing by this well, at the heat of day, asking her for a drink, is the Savior of the world, the Son of God, the Messiah.
This brings us to the table. One of the sneaky startling things about this passage is hiding in verse 6. We read right over it.
“. . . so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.”
Jesus was wearied. It should take our breath away that the Son of God was wearied. He didn’t count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself. He got tired like we do, and needed a drink like we do. He was willing to be wearied for you. And far more than wearied, “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, death on a cross.” This long, hot journey from Jerusalem to Galilee, through terrible hostility, it’s a picture of this whole Gospel, of the whole Bible. Jesus was wearied for you, betrayed for you, pierced for you, crushed for you, so that you might worship him in spirit and truth — and never be thirsty again.
He’s still seeking. Will he find worship in you?
This table, this meal is a meal for the members of Cities Church, but if by faith in Jesus Christ you have to come to drink at the fountain of living water, we invite you to eat and drink with us. If you’re not yet a believer in Jesus, we’d ask you to let the bread and the cup pass. But let today be the day you put your bucket down and follow Jesus.