We have experienced the first miracle of Jesus at Cana of Galilee, where water was turned into wine, then we moved to the first ministry of Jesus at Jerusalem. Jesus was interviewed by Nicodemus concerning Who he really was. Nicodemus represented the best that the nation of Israel had to offer. He was a scholar, a teacher or Jewish Rabbi, and a member of the ruling counsel the Sanhedrim Court. John tells us that the news had gotten out that Jesus baptized and made more disciples than John the Baptist. So Jesus is stirred or compelled to leave Judea and go through Samaria. "He must needs go through Samaria" was the expression the Bible uses. John moves us from the best that the nation had to offer to the worst that the region had to offer.
This second interview is another illustration of the fact that "He knew what was in man." The Samaritan woman contrasts sharply with Nicodemus. Nicodemus came seeking; the woman was indifferent. He was a respected ruler; she was an outcast. He was serious; she was flippant. He was a Jew; she was a despised Samaritan. He was a good moral man; she was classed as immoral. He was learned in religious matters; she was ignorant. Yet in spite of all the differences between this churchman and this woman of the world, they both needed to be confronted by the truth. Both had a need that only Christ could meet.
In the days of Christ earthly ministry, the relationship between the Jews and the Samaritans was greatly strained. The animosity was so great that most Jews bypassed Samaria as they traveled between Galilee and Judea. But Jesus rebuked his disciples for their hostility to the Samaritans. Jesus healed a Samaritan Leper, He honored the Good Samaritan in one of his parable, he praised the Samaritan for returning to give thanks after his cleansing, and now Jesus engages a woman of Samaria by asking her for a drink of water.
The lesson reveals several things about this woman. Many have described this woman as a person of low moral because she had five husbands and is living with a man unmarried. She comes the Jacob’s well alone in the middle of the day to get her daily supply of water. The woman of Samaria, probably never expected her life to turn out this way. Can you see her as a young maiden with so much promise, excited about her engagement and prospect of having children and a happy family. I wonder what really happen to her? What brought on her first divorce? During her lifetime, women were not allowed to initiate divorce proceedings. She was sent away five times! Maybe she was barren and childless. She find herself disappointed with life, disillusioned about the future and living a life where happiness and fulfillment seem beyond her reach. All her life the well of contentment has been deep and she has had nothing to draw with. I thought this woman was a stranger, but I know her and sometimes see her in the mirror.
Sometimes the first step to changing our situation is being confronted by real truth. Christians are called to be God’s light of truth in a dark and confused world. Some Christians failed to teach the basic tenets of the Christian faith in our homes. Others failed to model the Christian faith in the world. And the church itself has failed to clearly teach the fundamentals of the Christian faith and give clear definition to right and wrong. Instead, we have opted for vague notions about what it means to be tolerant.
How did we get to this place when Jesus Christ, the center of our faith, was ruthlessly clear and truthful? Whenever people confronted him, they were often stripped of their pretenses and made vulnerable by the truth with which he confronted them. Some of those individuals ran from the truth, others were staggered by it, and still others embraced it, difficult as it was. But people were always confronted by the truth. They had to face the truth about themselves and the reality of who Christ was. This is the case with the woman Jesus encountered by the well in Samaria, in this Scripture. Let’s look at what this story teaches us. I believe it teaches that when Jesus the way, the truth and the life encounters us, the first thing that happens is:
1. Embracing the Truth Clarifies Who We Really Are. The truth this woman was forced to see was not very pleasant. She wanted a family, a husband who would love her, children to enjoy, acceptance by her community, and a place to belong. She has been typically seen as a person of low morals, inappropriate behavior, and discredited in her community. All of her life, acceptance and fulfillment had eluded her. She kept meeting people who took advantage of her weakness. When Jesus offered her water from the well of living water, she didn’t understand what he was saying. She misinterpreted what Jesus meant when he said, “Everyone who drinks this water 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” (John 4:13-14). She foolishly replied, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” She thought that since Jesus was a stranger she could pretend to be someone she was not, but Jesus quickly unmasked her pretense by saying, “Go, call your husband and come back.” Now her disguise began to unravel, and her true self was laid bare. She said to Jesus, “I have no husband.” He said, “The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true” (John 4:18). Jesus knew the truth about her, and forced her to see and admit the truth about herself. But that is the way it is when we come into contact with God. Suddenly his light shines on us and reveals the truth about us, and we understand that he sees us as we really are. And when the real us is exposed by God, we have to admit the truth.
Our natural tendency is to cover up and conceal the truth. We hide the truth from ourselves and others. We put on our mask and go about our make-believe world. We play the pretender, just as the woman at the well did with Jesus. She presented another self to Jesus, the one she wanted him to see, and hid her true self. That is, until he removed her mask by confronting her with the truth, and made it impossible to be an imposter any longer. But what was just as unnerving was that when she realized Jesus saw the real her, she did not feel in any way condemned. Jesus saw through her facade. He knew all about her sin — and he loved her. She felt his pure love for her because she was drawn to him. If she had felt condemned by his words she would have left him. But after she encountered Jesus, she went to the others in her town and said, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (John 4:28-29).
Jesus revealed the complete truth about her and completely accepted her at the same time. The saving factor in this woman’s life was that she did not deny the truth. If that had happened, it would have been the beginning of the end of her relationship with Jesus. Jesus will forgive our sin, but only if we face it and admit it. He will not tolerate our deceitfulness. He will not allow us to play the imposter. The truth must be understood and owned. But it is through truth that we experience the love of God. We do not find God by pointing out our strengths, but by admitting our weaknesses. It’s denial and dishonesty that give sin its power. It is in trying to hide our sin and push it down that it has the most power to exert itself in our lives. Admitting who we are and what we have done seems frightening, but in reality it is freeing. There is no other way to find God. But the second thing we learn when Jesus encounters us is:
2. Embracing the Truth Clarifies Who Jesus Really Is. When Jesus revealed the truth about her, this woman realized that he must have had some kind of supernatural ability. They had only spoken a few words and he saw right through her. She assumed that he was a prophet or something, so she asked him a religious question. This is always a good technique for getting the spotlight off of yourself and onto something more comfortable, even if it is controversial. There was a running argument between the Jews and Samaritans about where the real place of worship should be — on Mt. Zion, the mountain in Jerusalem where the temple had been built, or Mt. Gerizim, the sacred mountain in Samaria. She was trying to turn the spotlight off herself, but when she did, she encountered another truth that was just as difficult for her as the truth about herself — she came face to face with who Jesus really was. She wanted to argue religion, but Jesus wanted her to face reality. She learned that the great question of faith is not about mountains or doctrines, it is the truth about who Jesus Christ really is.
Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:21-24). What was this truth which Jesus spoke about? She was about to find out, and the truth would be shocking. She said to Jesus, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he” (John 4:25-26).
This is so amazing because Jesus’ method of confronting this woman would be scorned in this day when no one is really right and no one is really wrong. We say, “Everyone has their own truth, and we should respect that by not trying to change the way they think or believe.” Our culture asserts that truth is whatever you sincerely believe in. But Jesus did not affirm the woman’s error, he pointed her to the truth. He bluntly told her that the Samaritans were worshiping what they did not know. He told her that everything she had believed all her life had been wrong. He said, “Salvation is from the Jews.” She was uncomfortable and thought she would change the subject again. She came over to his side a bit, being familiar with Jewish beliefs, and said, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes he will explain everything to us.” Again, Jesus confronted her with a searing truth that began to burn its way into her brain. He said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” He proclaimed that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, the one promised in the Scriptures. She assumed that he was merely a prophet, but he proclaimed that he was the living God who had come to earth in human form to confront the world with the truth.
There are some people today, even in religious circles, who believe that we should not interfere with the belief systems of people in other cultures. We should not try to convert them; we should respect their beliefs. If we really believe that people are lost without Christ, then we ought to witness to the truth out of concern for their future in eternity. If the truth is at all important, then we should be concerned about error. Jesus was concerned about the false way this woman was living and the false way she was believing. He lovingly confronted her with the truth, and then let her decide what to do with it. And herein lies the final point. When Jesus encounters us,
3. Embracing the Truth Clarifies Our Responsibility and Mission. We are almost surprised by this woman’s reaction. She responded positively to the truth that Jesus confronted her with, while many of the religious leaders rejected it. She had no education or religious training, yet she opened her heart to Jesus. The religious leaders in Jerusalem who were scholars in the Scriptures which spoke of Jesus remained closed to him. It is interesting that the Bible says, “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (John 4:28-29). She left her water jar — either because she was so overtaken by what she had experienced that she forgot it, or she knew she was coming back. May be she left her water pot for Jesus to use. She understood what it meant to be so close to water and “have nothing to draw with.” Either way, she left it! She is a woman on a mission. She is going to find other people and tell them about the truth she has discovered. She is honest now about all the things she has done, and tells the people in town that Jesus told her everything she ever did. She wants to tell others about the great Truth she has discovered. She wants to tell them about Jesus.
Then the Bible says, “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.’” (John 4:39-42). When these people were confronted with the truth, they responded to the truth. This was not always the case in the New Testament. When Pilate came face to face with Jesus he asked him many questions. Pilate’s wife warned him that Jesus was innocent and not to harm him. He had heard of Jesus’ miracles and teachings. But none of that was enough to convince him to respond to the truth with which he was confronted. Instead of making up his own mind, he asked the opinion of the people. He said, “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” The people answered, “Crucify him!” (Matthew 27:22). And he responded to the people rather than respond to the truth. We are faced with the same life-changing question: “What will you do with Jesus who is called the Christ?”
Winston Churchill once said, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” But how we respond to truth determines the direction of our lives. It will determine the quality of our lives and the destiny of our eternal soul. In the end, truth will triumph. Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water 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’” (John 4:13-14).
