Today, we are looking at a woman who had some empty places. She wasn't looking for Jesus but she found him. This is the story of my life. Even as a Christian, I have been met by Jesus doing something very mundane. I haven't even thought to pray but here comes Jesus and he invades my world. I am so glad that he shows up even when I'm not looking. In our passage of John 4, Jesus was traveling through an area of Samaria where Jews seldom stop. He was sitting by a well in the scorching heat of the day. Along comes a woman to draw water. This was uncommon as most women came to the well at a more temperate time each day. But this woman had some deep emptiness and didn't want to come face to face with it when others were at the well. Her strategy was avoidance. Does that sound familiar?
.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?
As the conversation ensued, there was confusion in the woman's mind. She was trying to make sense of the everyday activity of drawing water and what living water is all about. I've been there! I am thinking on a eartly plane. God is coming to meet me there so he can take me to a new place spiritually.
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."
Isn't that just like Jesus to gently show me my sin and what is causing the emptiness within me He is tender and gracious at the same time. He showed this woman that her adulterous relationship was causing her pain. He showed her that He is all knowing. He knew all about her lifestyle. That didn't cause him to back off. It was just the opposite. Jesus engaged in very meaningful conversation. He pointed out her sin so she would see her need for a savior. He didn't use guilt manipulation or retreat from her because of her nationality, lifestyle choices or anything else. He met her where she was and sensitively showed her how her emptiness could be filled. He addressed her confusion and was kind while helping her see the truth.
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."
27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you seek?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
Jesus had met this woman at a place both geographically and spiritually that seemed out of the ordinary. But our God is a God who works the miraculous often in the mundane. Let's watch for him and allow him to meet us and fill us with the right things but let us be filled with the right one-----JESUS!
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